You’d want to use sunscreen on the beach, but not one that’s “drinkable.”
The company: Osmosis Skincare. The product: Harmonised H20. The claim: Once ingested, molecules from the product will vibrate on the skin to cancel out 97% of harmful UVA and UVB rays from the sun. My response: Nice try.
Drinkable sunscreen? Think again.
It’s not often that I get so riled up about a beauty product but this one really takes the cake. I first saw this on the Daily Mail, and then again on Telegraph. Below are the reasons I call bluff on this load of crap.
Alarm bells should start ringing the moment you know that the product comes in two varieties – “tanning” and “non-tanning,” the former allowing the user to achieve a tan while being protected from the sun’s rays. OK, listen here. First up, you need to know why the skin tans to begin with. When our skin gets into contact with UV rays, it starts to produce melanin as a way of defending itself. It’s this melanin that gives the skin a darker colour. Therefore, if you don’t get exposed to UV rays, your skin does not form melanin, and you do not tan. So if there’s a product that allows you to do just that – get a tan without getting into contact with UV rays – it’s a fake lotion/spray/makeup tanner, or an oral drug that induces a tan.
Let’s move on to the next part. According to the founder Dr. Ben Johnson, “If 2 mls (sic) are ingested an hour before sun exposure, the frequencies that have been imprinted on water will vibrate on your skin in such a way as to cancel approximately 97% of the UVA and UVB rays before they even hit your skin.” OK, anyone who’s done high school science knows that we do not write millilitres as “mls” but as “ml.” As a doctor, you should know better than to let something like this slide.
And what is this frequency that can be imprinted on water? Never heard of such a thing! Yes, atoms vibrate, and since everything is made up of atoms, everything on earth vibrates (even us humans, no matter how perfectly still we remain). We can fix the frequency of things that vibrate, but when these objects are left on their own, the law of dynamics is such that their frequency will drop to a stable minimum. The fact is that, once we drink that water, which costs £17 for a 100ml bottle (ridiculous), the molecules are going to vibrate at the same frequency as our bodies, whatever frequency that is. And to take this a step further, if our bodies’ natural frequencies cannot prevent sun damage, then you’ve just wasted a good £17.
Finally, the greatest fallacy of this product is its claim that the water molecules vibrate on the skin. ON the skin. This implies that the product is ingested and then it travels to the surface of the skin. This can never be true because water cannot pass through the skin barrier, regardless of whether the source is external or internal (unless it’s sweat)! Yes, our skin gets wrinkly when we shower for too long, but it’s not because our bodies take in water (won’t we all be like sponges then). The reason for this is that the layer of dead skin cells on the surface of our skin absorbs water when we shower. And because this layer is uneven, the swelling of the dead cells also shows up unevenly – that’s what causes the wrinkling.
It suffices to know that FDA has not approved this product – I doubt they will anytime soon. What really gets to me is that there are “testimonials” on the product’s website that claim the product works – on themselves and their kids. Why are we bringing children into this? Children do not need sunscreen (unless they’re going to be under strong, direct sunlight for a period of time); they need all the vitamin D they can get! And now poor mothers all over will be wondering if they aren’t doing enough for their children.
I hope people don’t buy into the hype that this company is trying to create over their products. It stinks of irresponsibility and the greed for selfish gains by preying on the vulnerabilities of others.
What do you think? Leave a comment below.
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