Keep Sliming: Snail Mucin

In recent years, snails have slithered from being garden dwellers and French delicacies onto the beauty scene. They have become an ubiquitous skincare ingredient – their mucin, or slime, has formed the foundation for a recent wave of hyper-popular facial creams, masks, and serums.

What’s All The Hype About?

Snail mucin reportedly contains a beauty-boosting mélange of proteins, antioxidants, and hyaluronic acid, which help the skin retain moisture, reduce inflammation and remove dead skin. Snail slime has also been said to have the ability to stimulate collagen and elastin production, two substances that our bodies produce naturally but exponentially decrease as we age. A few studies have also concluded that creams containing snail mucin help to reduce the appearance of fine lines, wrinkles, sun damages, and enhance wound healing. Turns out, snail slime has been used for medicinal purposes for centuries, a testament to its effectiveness.

The surge in interest in snail mucin, as well as the surge in the snail industry is more than apparent – it has resulted in a 325% increase in snail farming over the past two decades.

Is It Ethical?

Some of you may question: “In my pursuit of great skin, am I indirectly contributing to the torture and murder of snails?” While snail slime products are often marketed to display their star ingredient and packaged slickly like luxury skincare, using the debris from snail trails as a fancy moisturizer seems like a good way to repurpose this natural by-product.

Originally, snail farmers extracted slime by “mechanically stressing”  the creatures with vinegar or salt, which is known to harm them, stimulating the snails to release more mucus. New methods of treating the mollusks are far more humane. The International Heliciculture Association of Italy recently patented a new machine called the Muller One, designed to cause minimal discomfort for snails, and extracts snail slime by immersing the creatures in a steam bath. Many companies claim that their snails are raised naturally, fed with organic vegetables. They then extract the slime with water that contains ozone for bacteria-killing purposes, and stresses that the snails are not harmed in the process of extraction. Other popular techniques usually involve leaving snails in a dark room and having them freely crawl on a mesh-like glass surface, then collecting the mucin from their trails afterwards.

Many journalists have tried interviewing snail farms, but have failed to gain any significant information on how the slime is actually collected. There is also very little information on the actual mucin collection process online. In addition, the absence of clear supply chains and manufacturing procedures make it plausible for consumers to be concerned. But according to various brand representatives, it is the supplier evasiveness and the highly competitive industry that prevents full transparency, nothing to do with concealing wrongdoings or inhumane treatment of snails.

Although many studies note physical reactions of animals with simple nervous systems, researchers acknowledge that we cannot draw definite conclusions about how, if at all, invertebrates process pain. So if you haven’t made up your mind yet, you’re not alone.

Cou-cou Hydration: Hyaluronic Acid

Hyaluronic Acid (HA) is produced naturally in the human body, primarily found in connective tissue, the eyes, the umbilical cord and in joint fluid. HA helps skin cells retain moisture, but, thanks to pesky ageing and other irritants, moisture levels tend to take a bit of a dip.

It turns out that the rooster combs are some of the best sources for the molecule hyaluronan. In roosters, the comb swells with hyaluronan in response to testosterone; hens have hyaluronan in their combs too, but not as much.

What’s All The Hype About?

Hyaluronic acid works like a magnet for moisture, helping skin cells retain as much moisture as possible so that the skin feels and appears hydrated and healthy. Other uses include: protecting the eye during surgery, reducing inflammation in arthritic knees, and preventing post-surgery scar tissues. Most recently, hyaluronan has become known as the latest treatment for reducing the appearance of facial wrinkles.

Is It Ethical?

As a by-product of chicken sold for food, rooster combs are removed after the chickens are slaughtered. For an even more ethical alternative, you could opt for botanically derived hyaluronic acid, which also delivers all the desired skin benefits without the ethical issues.

To Bee or Not to Bee: Beeswax

Beeswax is a natural wax produced by honey bees. The wax is formed by wax-producing glands in worker bees, which discard it in or at the hive. Beeswax is obtained by melting honeycombs with boiling water and then straining and cooling it.

What’s All The Hype About?

Beeswax has been used since prehistory as a lubricant and waterproofing agent. It is also edible and have negligible toxicity just like plant waxes. This wax is also often used as an ingredient in cosmetics to prevent emulsions from separating into its components, and is commonly used in lipsticks and mascara too. In addition, beeswax is super beneficial to the skin and the healing process – it is anti-inflammatory, anti-viral and anti-bacterial. It soothes and softens the skin, while forming a protective layer that allows the skin to heal while remaining breathable.

Is It Ethical?

Beeswax is produced by the bees to build combs used to house their young and store honey. Very little wax can be obtained from a single honey harvest, and by this token, most beeswax comes from commercial beekeepers. According to PETA, there are cases where farmers at larger bee farms cut off the queen bee’s wings, or have her artificially inseminated, so that she has to remain in the colony and produce more honey. As a result, worker bees have to produce more beeswax.

Nonetheless, ethical beeswax does exist. Ethical beeswax is essentially an excess bi-product of ethically-sourced honey. Unlike in beehives that are in mass production, these bees are not forced to produce honey or beeswax. If the bees are ethically treated, then naturally the beeswax is also ethical.