Plant stem cells in skin creams

by Arthur Perry December 12, 2013

As you are deluged with advertisements for various skin care products, you might come across those that advertise "plant stem cells". What the heck are these, you might ask...and why are they in my skin care products?

The companies that say they use these ingredients make all sorts of claims that these provide miraculous changes to the skin. Here's the truth...

It is impossible to put plant stem cells in skin care products. Stem cells are living material and if they could be isolated and added to your product, they would certainly die during processing. But no company is really trying to add live cells...or any cells at all.

Here's the science behind this scam....

Plants are powerhouses that make all sorts of chemicals to protect themselves from the environment. Since they can not walk out of the blistering sunshine and find the shade of a neighboring tree, they need to produce their own sunblock. That's why plants have such deep and rich colors. Those colors are the sunblocks and antioxidants that protect plants from UV damage. Plants also have evolved protections against heavy metals that might be in the soil.

Many of those chemicals are concentrated in the "stem cells" of those plants...(no stem cells are NOT the cells in plant stems, but some companies seem to have forgotten that one, too...). So, if stem cells are isolated from the remainder of the plant cells and the chemicals they produce are concentrated and collected, this concoction is called the "stem cell extract". That is what many of these companies allegedly put into their skin care products.

Now, when we look at these extracts, three questions come up... First - what is the concentration of the extract in the product and second - what is the mix of chemicals in the extract, and third - do those chemicals actually do something for your skin...

Since stem cell extracts are a virtually nebulous concept and since no company will divulge how much of these they actually put into their products, you, the consumer, are left with many questions...and empty wallets if you purchase.

I prefer to use real ingredients with many scientific papers documenting that they actually do work...in real clinical situations. That means that when you squirt that stuff onto your hands and rub it into your face, you can expect real results.

I'm all for the advancement of science, but consumers need to beware that fraud lurks on many shelves...even in the fanciest of stores...