Until recently, it was the world of aesthetics, with its needles and catheters, that could make me squeamish, but now, it's as likely to be my skincare routine. With the recent slew of placenta and organ-inspired products, it appears that human matter and beauty have never been more closely intertwined; in the age of The Substance and Ryan Murphy's The Beauty, perhaps it was just a matter of time.
Last month, MZ skin, from Dr Maryam Zamani, released a "bio-placenta" range, including a Reviving Bio-Placenta and Stem Cell Serum. While this is not formulated with human placenta, she did work with ethically sourced sheep placenta. "That research phase allowed us to deeply understand which components were driving the biological effects we were seeing," she tells me. "From there, we developed a biomimetic peptide complex designed to replicate the regenerative signalling of placenta without using human-derived material. This peptide technology gives us consistency, safety, regulatory compliance and precision, while still delivering the same skin-repair benefits. And it's vegan!"
