Prepare for a battle between the Botox-brigade and the chemical-free puritans, writes Iva Pocock.
Future personal care will be a thing of extremes. On the one hand there will be hordes of people determined to use only chemical-free products in or on their bodies; on the other the popularity of high-tech cosmetic procedures will have reached LA-like proportions. Already healthfood shops are overwhelmed by demand for natural products, and Irish doctors can't keep up with the demand for face-lifts with laboratory-grown skin cells.
Dr Patrick J. Treacy, medical director of a Dublin-based cosmetic medicine clinic, believes the demand for cosmetic procedures is already exploding and that it'll be far greater in 2025. "Kids of 18 to 20 years old are already coming in looking for vouchers for their parents. Our patients are from across the social spectrum."
His prediction is backed up by a 2003 irishhealth.com survey, which found that more than half of those questioned would consider some form of cosmetic surgery.
But succumbing to the knife under general anaesthetic may not be necessary in a couple of decades. Instead there will be cheaper, more accessible cosmetic procedures with no down-time in which you have to hide your post-surgery bruises, says Dr Treacy. And he reckons technologies such as tissue engineering from stem cells will have superseded current techniques.
Mr Jack Kelly, a Galway-based plastic surgeon who was part of an Australian research team that succeeded in growing fatty tissue on a mouse, agrees. "I would imagine injecting some modified version of your own cells will be used for cosmetic procedures," he says. "That's the way the technology is going." He anticipates that "only a small minority of people will ever present for cosmetic plastic surgery", and that, like now, "it's a very small number which is over-represented in the media".
But when it comes to Botox, the bacterium-derived product injected to reduce brow furrows and crows' feet, Kelly acknowledges demand is very high. "It's becoming more and more popular ... People frequently stop me and make inquiries about it." In 2025 Botox will be "standard practice for young women", says Kelly, although he wouldn't inject it into anyone under 25.
Adrienne Adam of beauty salon John Adam, reckons Botox will be "it, big time" in 20 years. She loved the effects of a treatment around her own eyes but has put off further injections, for fear of getting too hooked. "Younger people are lucky," she says. "This is certainly going to hold back the years for them." She has no fears about health effects and is sure ("unless something drastic happens") such fillers will still be popular in 20 years.
Traditional Chinese medicine practitioner Dermot O'Connor, who specialises in "facial rejuvenation acupuncture", is more sceptical. "One only has to look at the decades of scientific debate before scientists were able to prove conclusively that smoking and passive smoking is harmful to health." He reckons a number of today's procedures will have ceased in a couple of decades and that "people will look back in wonder at some of the chemicals we were putting into our bodies in 2005". While conventional cosmetics procedures will be safer, "the existing trend back towards natural ways to improve health and enhance appearance will have continued", he says.
"In response to consumer demand, manufacturers are eliminating ingredients such as sodium laurel sulphate, found in deodorants, and applying the precautionary principle," says healthfood shop owner Erica Murray. "We are hit with it on the shop floor every day. People have read about problems that chemicals such as SLS could cause, and they want to live a low-chemical lifestyle."
The trend will follow those US communities which are beginning to restrict the use of certain products because of their chemical make-up, she says. "Massachusetts has banned using dyes for eye-lash tinting, in recognition of the health risk it poses." Perfumed products will also be less in vogue in 2025 as the "no scents makes good sense" policy adopted in Halifax, Nova Scotia, takes hold. There, the wearing of fragrances in municipal offices, libraries, schools, hospitals, courts and public transport is discouraged, and Santa Cruz in California has banned fragrances from public meetings, while nearby Marin County boasts restaurants with fragrance-free sections.
In 2025 it's likely that only those substances which are proven safe will be permitted in personal-care products. It's also likely that consumers will be accomplished label-readers. Nicolette Marx, manager of a cosmetics stall in Debenhams, Dublin, says people are "very aware of what substances are in products" and in 20 years they'll be even better informed. The use of age-prevention creams by today's 25-year-olds will reduce demand for invasive anti-wrinkle measures, she predicts. And those determined to defy nature will not have to resort to plastic surgery as skincare products will be so much more advanced. "You'll find creams will do it without the scalpel," she says.
So where does this leave you? Bemused? Repulsed? Maybe the best thing you can do for now is simply not to worry too much - worrying gives you wrinkles.