Today we’re taking you on a little Magical Mystery Tour of some magical skincare ingredients making the news lately. We’re talking snail slime, bee venom, marula fruit oil and pig collagen. And as the song (and the claims) say, they’ve got “everything you need, satisfaction guaranteed”. Everything from anti-aging, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, wound healing and even cancer-fighting benefits, these made-by-Mother-Nature ingredients certainly seem to have it all.
But do they really? Today, we’re going to take a peek behind the magician’s curtain and have a look at whether there is any evidence backing these claims, and what kernels of truth there might be amongst the hype…
Snail Slime
Snails might be renowned for being slow, but there is nothing slow about the growth of snail slime, aka snail mucin, as an ingredient in skincare. Bursting out of South Korea onto the US market late last decade, sales of the stuff are reported to be around US$500 million a year and growing!
There is actually quite a bit of research on what’s in snail slime. It is mostly made up of collagen and hydrogels (water attracting substances) along with antioxidants, hyaluronic acid, elastin and glycolic acid. It’s even being investigated for its potential uses in medicine, such as wound healing, anti-microbial (germs), cancer-fighting and drug-delivery.
For skin care, the claims include anti-aging benefits by locking in moisture, boosting collagen production and fighting inflammation. Studies on whether it actually works though are limited. For common skin concerns like aging, acne, hydration, scarring and hyperpigmentation there have been some promising early results in petri dishes and rodents, but not much in humans yet. These studies have been limited by small sample sizes and differing mucous collection techniques (ewww?) which affect its composition.
We also don’t know enough yet about the potential side-effects such as irritation and allergic reactions and there are ethical concerns for the snails themselves: mucous is extracted from live snails by stressing them. How do you stress a snail? Let’s just say it doesn’t involve work deadlines and traffic jams ☹️
Bottom line? Promising, but more work needs to be done on snail slime’s anti-aging claims.
Bee Venom
Next on our Magical Mystery Tour is *drumroll*… bee venom. The theory here is that applying a bee venom face cream will “trick” your face into thinking it has been stung, mobilising your skin’s defence mechanisms into increasing blood flow, bringing oxygen and other nutrients that will boost collagen production (among other things) to smooth out those wrinkles and plump up the skin.
Like with snail mucous, we know quite a lot about the biochemical make-up of bee venom. It contains a complex mixture of peptides, lipids and enzymes. It too is being investigated for medicinal uses, harnessing its anti-inflammatory, antibiotic and even anti-cancer effects.
Skin uses that have been suggested for bee venom include treating eczema, acne, wound healing, vitiligo, psoriasis and even baldness. Studies for these conditions have been either in a petri dish, in mice or some early preclinical trials in humans.
For treating aging skin, there are even less studies, also either in a petri dish or in early clinical trials with very small numbers. Most of the bee venom research is plagued by a lack of standardisation of bee venom components in products, making it difficult to draw conclusions. There is also not much in the literature about its safety and side-effects, especially allergic reactions. Warnings abound.
Despite most products claiming that bees are not harmed, the venom is extracted by delivering electric shocks to alarm the bees into stinging onto a glass plate. Doesn’t sound pleasant to me!
And the bottom line? You guessed it, promising, but more work to be done.
Marula Fruit Oil
Marula oil comes from the kernel of the marula fruit tree, aka Sclerocarya birrea, a native of southern Africa and has been used in traditional societies for thousands of years as food, medicine and a moisturiser for skin, hair and nails.
Again, we know quite a bit about what’s in it; a combination of amino acids like L-arginine, which are the building blocks for proteins, fatty acids like oleic acid and palmitic acid, which are common ingredients in many moisturisers, and various antioxidants.
We don’t, however, have a lot of research backing its effectiveness or safety on human skin. There has been some work done in petri dishes on its potential anti-aging effects on collagen, and some very small studies in actual humans on its moisturising properties with little in the way of side-effects; in other words, more work is needed before we can claim any of these effects with confidence!
Pig Collagen
Another magical skincare craze originating in South Korea! The idea here seems to be that because collagen loss is one of the main underlying causes of skin aging, applying the stuff directly to your face should fix the problem. Right? Er, maybe not.
Firstly, collagen molecules are HUGE in molecular terms, meaning it’s extremely unlikely they can penetrate the skin’s outer layer, the stratum corneum, to get to the dermis where collagen is produced.
Secondly, we don’t have any good evidence that applying pig collagen to your face actually does anything much. Most of the work that has been done is industry funded and consists of very small studies or anecdotal “data”. In other words, we need much larger, well-designed and independently funded studies before we can say for sure these products work as advertised. And, like the snail slime and bee venom, there are ethical concerns regarding some pig farming methods.
The bottom line
If you really want to invest in anti-aging ingredients with proven collagen-boosting effects, look for ingredients like retinal (vitamin A), niacinamide (vitamin B) and L-ascorbic acid (vitamin C). Daily protection with a mineral sunscreen such as zinc oxide is a must, as is a healthy lifestyle that includes plenty of beauty sleep!
Meanwhile, we are watching this fascinating space with interest…