I was writing a small section on "pseudo-scientific ideas that are acceptable only in the skin care industry" and then I realized that there were so many crazy things out there that there will be material for several newsletters.
In science, you don't get to publish theories or hypotheses in good journals unless there is solid experimental evidence to support them. A scientist performs experiments to test a hypothesis and the results is what matters. If the results contradict your initial ideas, it is time to think again.
But things are different in the skin care industry. Here, anything goes. Suppose that you say that a short peptide applied to your skin will paralyze muscles and erase some wrinkles. Does it happen? No, but you can still draw a cute cartoon of how the peptide is supposed to work, and this is enough for the marketing campaign. And it is good that it does NOT work, because you could not go around selling a product that paralyzes the muscles as if it were candy. That would be illegal, dangerous and would bankrupt the company because of the dangerous side effects.
The problem is that most people don't know enough biochemistry and molecular biology to know what is possible at this stage of scientific development, or even ever. Some of the schemes proposed in those advertisements are simply incompatible with life as we know it. Others are not yet possible although they might be if certain technology, at present non existent, were to be developed.
More about this in the newsletter for February 2010. And it looks like it will be one of those "Hannah's rants".