Dot Wordsworth

The link between politics, moisturiser and your air conditioning unit

issue 21 September 2019

I asked my husband if I should spend £59 on 20 millilitres of Estée Lauder Advanced Night Repair Intense Reset Concentrate. He laughed and said: ‘Try chicken soup.’ This did not quite answer my question.

An ingredient of the concentrate is hyaluronic acid. It is not, as far as I can tell, an acid. It is named after the vitreous humour of the eye (hualoeides being the Greek for ‘glassy’). It is not derived from animals’ eyes, but from cocks’ combs. It can also be produced by Streptococci and genetically modified Escherichia coli, alarming-sounding sources not, I think, used by cosmetics firms. We humans produce it naturally, and, having boiled up some chicken cartilage, I still didn’t know whether to drink the soup or spread it on my face.

My attention had first been drawn by ‘Intense Reset’.

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