In less than a week, this blog will be three years old.
In a little over three months, I will be considerably older. It’s not that I’m feeling old, far from it. But I’m aware of it. I’m aware that the next birthday will be mumble 37 mumble and though I’m fit and healthy – OK a little tubbier than I’d like currently while this injury niggle plays up – there are more grey hairs and crows feet are trying to make their imprint.
I’m not planning on growing old gracefully, in truth I have all the grace of a concussed hippopotamus. Not that I’ll fight it kicking and screaming, but I am hitting the anti-wrinkle creams, serums etc. I’ll go down, but not without some resistance.
So when Beauty & Go appeared at Selfridges, I was curious. Could a drink actually help? I know we are what we eat – are we what we drink? With research by the Spanish Research Council, and working in the science fields myself, I threw myself into it wholeheartedly. Let’s find out.
There are four drinks to choose from Detox (how I hate that word. You cannot detox your body, it’s a myth – but that’s for another blog post) Radiance, Anti-Ageing and Vitality. Each are fruit and vegetable based, with purees and vitamins in them, designed to help the body fight ageing, dryness, free radicals, and maintain and improve elasticity and firmness.
Each is quite sweet in taste, but given the number fruits contained, that’s not surprising. My preference was for the Detox – it’s fresh flavour was much lighter than the others. But this was about trialling the drinks for a month – my skin would be initially assessed, matched with a drink that I’d then drink twice a day (the company themselves recommend a minimum of one per day and a maximum of three).
First up, a question and answer sheet. What were my concerns? What was my skin type? How old was I? And here my first little hint of reservation. This questionnaire was to be examined by a dermatologist as part of the project. But wouldn’t seeing my skin be a better option?
I may have concerns about dry skin, crows feet and frown lines – but am I viewing them through a slightly neurotic magnifying glass? Would someone actually examining my skin be as worried about them?
No matter. The form was submitted, the results back and for me, a month’s trial of the anti-ageing drink. Oh how to kick a woman when she’s down.
Now, let’s look at the science from the company.
A small trial was done of the drink over 56 days – 29 people (it states 30 on the information, but there were 13 men and 16 women, so 29) drank two drinks a day. The documentation states that after 28 days effect were visible, that objective measurements showed that skin elasticity and firmness improved significantly and that 72% of respondents found wrinkles visibly reduced. So far so good – except 72% of 29 is 20.88, so someone isn’t quite whole.
I began the trial.
Firstly, two of these a day is quite calorific. I found myself having to adjust my diet quite a bit. Each comes in over 350 calories. So that’s 700+ extra calories a day, mostly from sugars. I found I had a spike in my energy levels with a distinct drop afterwards. I found having this before a gym workout helped a lot with that, meaning it fuelled my runs and weights sessions.
I did increase my fluid intake – something which is well known to be good for your skin and as I have a tendency to be dehydrated anyway, I thought it would help.
As for my skin…
A month later, were we any better off?
My skin was less dry, certainly. Wrinkles any less? I didn’t really see any evidence of it, try as I might. And believe me, I asked Mr GFB daily, until I started getting ‘the look’ and I er, stopped.
If anything, my skin was a bit blotchier, which I’d probably put down to the high sugar content. My body is not a fan of sugar.
The vitamins in the drink certainly won’t have done me any harm and the green tea is known to fight ageing (I drink it once a day, so yay!), but being nosey, my curiosity didn’t end there – I work in the sciences, and spent 8 years in medical administration. I decided to hunt up the research, and have a chat with some medics.
We hunted for the research papers behind the drink. We couldn’t find any. So I asked the chaps and chapettes to look through the documentation I had. Their feelings were the same, though they also pointed out a couple of things I wasn’t aware of.
The drink contains collagen – something we lose over time as we age. Our bodies produce their own collagen. Ingesting collagen is only going to result in it being broken down in to amino acids (component parts of protein) and being rebuilt by your body into different things – that might not make it to your face. Your body might decide that your leg muscle needs are more important, or your ear.
Hyaluronic acid too is broken down by your stomach. Ingesting it isn’t going to help your skin.
Unfortunately you and your body may disagree over your anti-ageing needs.
So, I have to say, I’m not convinced – if you fancy something instead of your daily smoothie, that’s handy to drink, and contains all your vitamins and minerals, you could do worse. Personally, I’ll be firing up my little blender, upping my green tea intake (thanks for the tip), drinking more water and sticking the hyaluronic acid on my face directly.
With thanks to Selfridges and Beauty & Go for the month trial.
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