cosmetics

WHYY oh WHYY: NPR puff piece on risky stem cell microneedling

I usually associate NPR with solid journalism so I was scratching my head about a recent puff piece by WHYY on stem cell microneedling.  Is this journalism or product promotion? The NPR piece by Maiken Scott doesn’t ask important questions. Scott received stem cell microneedling herself using a product from a company called AnteAGE. How …

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Wrinkles in pitch of celeb fav Augustinus Bader cream

Kris Jenner, Jennifer Aniston, Augustinus Bader cream

Many celebs seem to be into cosmetics called Augustinus Bader cream products that claim to do something related to stem cells. The brand is wildly expensive. What’s this all about? Augustinus Bader is both a person and a line of cosmetic products. The goal of today’s post is to fact-check the claims and products of the Augustinus …

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Liveyon is back (again) with unproven exosome product

Liveyon

Remember our old friends Liveyon? Their leader John Kosolcharoen? Liveyon’s continuing metamorphosis This biologics supply firm has gone through several stages of corporate metamorphosis as a supplier of biologics including at first a purported living umbilical cord stem cell product. That stem cell thrust ultimately landed a dozen or more people in the hospital as …

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Stem cell snake oil for sale at Nordstrom, Amazon, & Ebay?

stem-cell-microneedling

What is stem cell snake oil? Stem cells are exotic things ensconced away in biomedical research labs, right? Well, maybe not entirely so these days. It turns out that you can try to sell products for a lot of money by slapping “stem cells” on the label including cosmetics. Take Nordstrom’s. It has 80 stem …

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Stemage Stem Cell Anti-Aging Cream 2.0: Interview with Dr. David Scharp

Kathy-Ireland

Remember Stemage? They are the cosmetic company with Kathy Ireland as their spokesperson whose anti-aging cream includes extracts from human stem cells. In Part 1 of this blog series on Stemage I gave some key background and raised some important questions. I also sent some questions to the company and now more recently to the …

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Stem cells to cure baldness: how would that work & when?

Bald-stem-300x3001

Today, I would say not a single stem cell-based treatment for baldness being sold out there claiming it works seems promising and legit. (Update: see this 2019 piece on where things stand on stem cells for hair loss.) Sad, huh? Is there reason for hope for stem cells helping hair loss? But there is reason …

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Kim Kardashian vampire facials: stem cells in there?

Celebrities such as Kim Kardashian are reportedly getting so-called vampire facials. Why put yourself through that? Perhaps because stem cells and other material inside the processed blood is supposed to make them younger? Yes, that is Kim above (photo from Kim Kardashian on Instagram) with her face smeared with blood, but not just ordinary Kardashian …

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L’Oreal Lancome gets hammered by FDA, why kid gloves for clinics?

Patricia-Pineau-300x2541

Stem cell cosmetics is an exploding area ranging from facial creams (e.g. from L’Oreal and its Lancome) to face lifts to boob jobs to baldness treatments (see two key posts here and here for background and great stories). The stem cell cosmetics field has not been held back by issues such as the fact that …

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