Having just about passed muster with a five-quid moisturiser for the past few years, I was minded to look up the evidence justifying the extra £130 (yep, StriVectin-SD costs £135 a tube). And what a revelatory journey it has been, although perhaps not in the way StriVectin’s manufacturers intended.

StriVectin is, allegedly, the cause of stampedes to beauty counters in smarter department stores (not Superdrug, which explains its omission from my ablutions). Distributed exclusively by Klein-Becker usa (sic), it started off as a cream for stretch marks. Then, according to www.strivectin.com, in “arguably one of the strangest [events] in the history of cosmetics”, women started slapping it on their chops.

Why? Because poorly labelled samples — marked only with “topical cream” and a number — were dished out to employees and the public in a market research exercise (which makes you wonder at the competence of the company involved).

“As the samples were passed to friends and family,” gushes Gina Gay, of Klein-Becker, on the website, “the message became a little muddled and some people used this ‘topical cream’ as a facial moisturizer. As we began to receive feedback from users, like ‘I look 10 years younger’ and ‘I can’t even notice my crows’ feet’, we knew we had something more than America’s most effective stretch-mark cream.” The website describes the serendipitous switch in usage as “dumb luck”.

You may like to know that Basic Research, which makes StriVectin, and its president, Dennis Gay (Gina’s dad, by the way), have been warned by the Food and Drugs Administration that the extravagant claims made for StriVectin-SD suggest that it is a drug rather than a cosmetic, and, as such, cannot be marketed without FDA approval. The FDA tells me: “FDA concerns about StriVectin-SD have yet to be resolved.” Klein-Becker says it is trying to reach an “amicable resolution” with the FDA.

Mr Gay and Basic Research are also being investigated by federal regulators over PediaLean, a controversial weight loss supplement for children. In addition, Mr Gay and his associates have been targeted by the Federal Trade Commission for “deceptive” practices in the selling of other miracle potions, such as the sensitively named Anorex, another weight-loss supplement, and Tummy Flattening Gel. These issues also remain unresolved.

Anyway, back to the scientific research behind StriVectin-SD. Klein-Becker says that the formulation and information about in-house clinical trials are trade secrets. It did, however, supply a paper from 2002 in Cutis, by Dr Karl Lintner from Sederma, a company that supplies cosmetics ingredients. Dr Lintner deals with a peptide called PAL-KTTKS, a much-touted ingredient in StriVectin-SD. The ingredient is also known as palmitoyl pentapeptide-3, which is also a component of Olay Regenerist, which is available at Superdrug for less than £20. What dumb luck!

Half were told that he ditched because he was a “jerk who liked to steal”, while the other half heard that he departed after receiving an emergency call. Dr Pizarro then questioned all the students a week later. Those told the “jerk” tale recalled the bill as higher than it was; those told the “emergency” story recalled a lower bill. The research will be published in Memory. The moral of the story is . . . that our morals affect the story. I wonder, was it £9, not £19?

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