14 DAY TRIAL // Earlier this week, the media has been taken by storm by the news that a company has successfully created the world's first drinkable sunscreen that supposedly protects people from turning into crispy human-bacon strips from the inside out.
If I wanted to be really mean, I would point out that, technically speaking, pretty much all sunscreens that have until now hit the market are drinkable.
Granted, people who decide to gulp them down have high chances to end up in a hospital, but the bottom line is that, courtesy of their liquid composition, they can be drunk.
However, being mean is not on today's agenda. On the contrary, what I have in mind is a crash course in pseudoscience, with an emphasis on this miraculous drinkable sunscreen that Osmosis Skincare claims to have invented.
Hopefully, by the time you are done reading this editorial, you will be better equipped to tell the difference between actual science and pure mumbo-jumbo.
First Off, Here's the Story Behind the World's First Drinkable Sunscreen
It is my firm belief that it's anything but polite to criticize something or someone based on just the first impression of them and without even bothering to get to know them a wee better.
Hence, I feel that a couple of paragraphs (OK, maybe a few more) on where the world's drinkable sunscreen comes from and how it allegedly works are in order.
Long story short, this drinkable sunscreen that pretty much everybody seems to be talking about these days is the brainchild of Dr. Ben Johnson, founder of Osmosis Skincare.
Its official name is Harmonized H2O – UV Neutralizer, and it comes in 100-milliliter bluish bottles that sport a price tag of $30 (that's about €22, in case anyone was wondering).
According to Dr. Ben Johnson, ingesting just 2 milliliters of this potion about an hour before going to the beach is enough to keep one safe from getting sunburns. The only bad news is that the protection only lasts for about 3 hours.
Here is how the drinkable sunscreen supposedly works: “Frequencies that have been imprinted on water will vibrate on your skin in such a way as to cancel 97 per cent of the UVA and UVB rays before they even hit your skin.”
I am no science major, but here is what I get from this explanation: when drinking Harmonized H2O, people actually ingest some really cool water molecules that vibrate and whose vibrations eventually reach the skin and chase away sunburns. Sounds legit.
For a more detailed account of how Harmonized H2O works, check out the video below.
And Now, Let Us Delve into the Tell-Tale Signs of Pseudoscience
There are certain tell-tale signs that folks should be aware of and which hint that, contrary to one person's or another's claims, something is not science, but science-wannabe.
I am not (at this point, at least) saying that Harmonized H2O's ability to protect the human skin from the inside out against harmful sunrays is poppycock. I am just curious how many of the tell-tale signs of pseudoscience hold true when it comes to this product.
One of the questions that people should ask themselves when trying to tell science and nonsense made to look like science apart is the following: what's in it for the person or the entity making the claim? Otherwise put, try and analyze the piece of information that caught your attention in context.
In our case, Dr. Ben Johnson and Osmosis Skincare are busy marketing Harmonized H2O. This means that, the more people think the drinkable sunscreen actually works and buy it, the happier they are. I will let you draw your own conclusions from here.
This is true for Osmosis Skincare's drinkable sunscreen, meaning that people (myself included) first heard about it earlier this week, when Daily Mail ran an article on it. The news was later picked up by other publications, and what is best described as a media storm ensued.
Since peer-reviewed journals are pretty much out of the question when one is trying to promote pseudoscience, testimonials are often used to give some credibility to the claim. Needless to say, such testimonials are probably fictitious as well, and should be taken with a pinch of salt.
Not at all surprisingly, testimonials are present on the official website for Osmosis Skincare (yes, I have sacrificed myself on the altar of knowledge and have visited this website). In fact, they take up about half of the page describing Harmonized H2O.
“A few weeks ago I used your UV water and was really impressed that even after being out in the sun for hours I had no trace of tan or sunburn. Awesome,” one Lynn M supposedly says.
“I used the UV Water in Punta Mita Mexico. I was in the pool a lot with the baby and in the sun all day and I did not burn at all. We got the nicest tan. I normally burn in 10 minutes with my white Irish skin,” one other testimonial reads.
As mentioned, I am no science major. However, I have been known to be able to follow a logical train of thoughts. Still, I find Dr. Ben Johnson's explanation of how the drinkable sunscreen works rather confusing, what with his talking about imprinting frequencies on water molecules and using them to block harmful sunrays.
The bad news for Dr. Ben Johnson is that such confusing language and the resulting too-good-to-be-true statements are also among the hallmarks of pseudoscience. This is because, as Richard Gere puts it in “Chicago,” the trick to tricking people is to “give 'em the old razzle dazzle, give 'em an act with lots of flash in it.” From where I stand, this is exactly what the founder of Osmosis Skincare is trying to do.
“All his claims are based on anecdotes. There haven’t been any studies in the laboratory, there haven’t been any studies on humans. So that really makes us think that any sort of proof behind this is elusive,” Dr. Samir Gupta, chair of the Ontario Medical Association’s dermatology section, told the press.
“You have to ask how that happens when these water molecules are in your bloodstream and have to somehow get transported to your skin to have an effect without dilution – it’s sort of a bit of a stretch,” Dr. Jason Rivers, clinical professor of dermatology at the University of British Columbia, has also pointed out.
