Angel dusting versus therapeutic quantities

When the term “angel dust” is used in cosmetics – specifically in the manufacture of skin care products - it has nothing to do with anything mythical or the illegal drug PCP.

Angel dusting refers to a practice often used by very large and prestigious cosmetic companies, and very seldom reported on in much depth, as they spend millions in advertising.

Newspapers and magazines do not want to irritate large advertisers.

What is angel dusting?

This is the misleading marketing practice of including a very small amount of an active ingredient in a skin care or cosmeceutical product – too little to cause any measurable benefit - yet claiming that your product contains this ingredient - so the active ingredients are not included in therapeutic quantities.

When an active ingredient – like any of our very specialized peptides – are developed by laboratories to perform a specific action – for instance to increase the formation of collagen in the skin, or reducing wrinkles - the developing laboratory would specify at what percentage this ingredient must be included in the finished product in order for it to be effective.

The reason why they would specify the percentage to be used (the inclusion rate) would be that it was developed and tested to be effective at that specific percentage.

What some cosmetic manufacturers do, is to use the active ingredient, but to include it at such low amounts that it will never perform as promised – and the reason for this trickery – or more politely “angel dusting” - is to still use the substantiated claims, yet not spend the money on the right amount of ingredients.

Reason for angel dusting

The reason is very simple – economics.

If you need to include a peptide at 10% and it costs the company $ 2,500 per kilogram (2.2 pounds) then the cost of this one ingredient in the formulation would be $ 250.00 per kilogram – or $ 25.00 per item (if the items weight is 100 grams).

If an “angel dusting” company decides that they would like to claim to have included this particular ingredient, they can simply include it at 1% (or less) - which then would translate to a per product cost of $ 2.50 per 100 gram product or less.

The “angel dusting” company would therefore nearly save 1,000% on the active ingredient – they are legally NOT breaking any laws or rules, yet they are hoodwinking the consumer into thinking that the product will have the desired effect for which it was purchased.

We do not angel dust - we use our active ingredients in therapeutic quantities as specified by the development laboratory.

We are extremely serious about skin care products and believe that they work when formulated and manufactured correctly, and the active ingredients used at the correct inclusion rate.

When firms “angel dust” they claim that the ingredient is helpful and will perform the promised action, and although they legally can make such a claim, the consumer will have a product that is NOT going to perform the promised action.

They make sure not to claim that the product contains enough of the active ingredient to have an effect — this is just assumed by the consumer. Thus, while misleading, angel dusting is typically legal.