The golden touch

Forget the old adage that ‘sex sells’ — a quick glance at a cosmetics counter suggests that, when it comes to beauty, we’re all just eight-year-old girls at heart, seduced not by sex but by sparkle and the promise of unicorn horn, or some other mythological ingredient.

Little wonder, then, that the shimmer of gold, one of the most precious metals on earth, features heavily in beauty products, and has done for millennia. After all, Cleopatra reputedly slept in a facemask of pure gold to preserve her youthful skin, and it’s said that gold was used by a number of ancient civilisations, from India to Rome, to help with everything from relieving itching to healing wounds.

But is it just for show? After all, many of the beauty products that contain gold, be they nail varnishes or foundations, include it purely because it looks good, as Rosalind Chapman, founder of the Transformulas cosmeceuticals brand, admits. ‘We incorporate gold into our Hydration Gold Anti-Ageing Recovery Crème (below, £41.95; transformulas.com) because it illuminates the skin and reflects light, giving the skin a healthy golden glow,’ she says. ‘While the hyaluronic acid in the product draws water to the skin, plumping it up from the inside, the 23-carat gold powder visually optimises these subcutaneous effects, creating a sheer veil of radiance.’ Simply put, it’s an external indication of what’s going on inside — and, more practically, the instant results encourage you to keep using the product long enough to get the longer-term benefits, too.

Other brands insist that gold has more than simply aesthetic value, claiming that it can help to heal skin, and improve plumpness and radiance from within. Moreover, their claims seem to be endorsed by recent research. A paper published in the medical journal Nanomedicine last year appeared to show that, in mice, gold nanoparticles significantly accelerated the rate at which wounds healed, which researchers attributed to the anti-inflammatory and antioxidant effects of gold.

Margaret de Heinrich de Omorovicza, co-founder of the Hungarian beauty brand Omorovicza, which has a complete gold-based range spanning shimmering body oils and sugar scrubs, to serums and eye creams (above, from £52; omorovicza.co.uk), is certainly convinced of its value. ‘Gold is a powerful anti-inflammatory ingredient, which lends itself to use in topical skincare, as it immediately helps to heal and strengthen the skin,’ she says. ‘Additional benefits include stronger collagen fibres and improved hydration levels, making gold a highly effective anti-ageing ingredient.’

But she insists that if you’re looking for gold in your lotions and potions, you need to ensure that you’re getting what you think you are. ‘There are numerous forms of gold in skincare formulations. Because of their chemical structure, minerals (gold included) often sit on the skin’s surface, meaning their full benefits are not realised. We use gold in its most bio-available form, colloidal gold [in which tiny gold particles are suspended in a liquid], which allows it to penetrate the deeper layers of the skin.’

However, cosmetic dermatologist Dr Sam Bunting is not convinced that this is a good thing. ‘There is no published scientific data demonstrating that gold has a proven therapeutic benefit on human skin,’ he says. ‘Not only can it actually cause allergic contact dermatitis in some people, but a recent paper published in the journal Nanotoxicology suggested that gold nanoparticles can prevent fat storage and lead to accelerated ageing and wrinkling, slow wound healing, and even cause the onset of diabetes.’

With this in mind, if you’re looking for serious anti-ageing benefits, it’s probably not worth sinking your money into gold. On the other hand, if all you want is an incredibly luxurious glow, slather on those gold flakes and shine on... ES