Fads are skin deep

Boswelox. L'Oreal is producing skin cream with Boswelox. I can't stop the word from running through my head. Boswelox. Is that literary smoked salmon - Boswell's lox? Nope. It's tree gum. It's incense. Frankincense. Ah, that is why Catholic priests keep looking so young. It's the regular wafting of boswelox smoke. Except that it is boswellia, which is significantly prettier nomenclature than L'Oreal's challenging choice of boswelox. Boswellia serrata to be exact. I had to look it up. That bloody boswelox was playing in my brain - itching and irritating it. The only satisfaction was to find out what the hell it was. And it turns out to be an Indian tree, the resin from which has long been used as an anti-inflammatory to treat rheumatoid conditions. And colitis. There is no mention of faces. L'Oreal, I gather, has somehow mixed it with manganese and described it as "a breakthrough phyto-complex". Phyto, of course, is a bit of a buzz word these days. It means plant, for heaven's sake. If L'Oreal had described boswelox as a "plant complex" it would just not have the cachet. Unlike boswelox. Oh, boy, that is a marketing name if ever I heard one. It just goes to show how malleable women are when there's the slightest suggestion of beauty and youth. They will buy an ugly name. Boswelox may well be a magical ungent to reduce wrinkles. It probably is. The cosmetic product has been around for some years now, so obviously women are getting right into good old boswelox. Of course, this will change, when someone comes out with the next promising ingredient with an obfuscatory name, maybe oxalistox, methanitol or even arghoblob. So long as they call it "new" and "breakthrough" associated with the words "beauty" and "wrinkle-free", it will be a goer, like all the others. Women are not loyal where their vanity it concerned. And boswelox will go the way of retinol and cross-linked elastyn - into forgettable cosmetic history. Oh, it is such a can of worms, the beauty business. Hmm....essence of worm. Oligochater has a sophisticated cosmetic ring to it, don't you think!