A WALK IN "NO-MAN'S LAND" 67 "eavesdrop" upon each other's work to an even greater extent than has been the case up to now. Without in the least desiring to minimize the role of the cleansing, conditioning, and make-up preparations in the cosmetic picture, I feel that true scientific developments will continue to come from these borderline territories. Perhaps they will come slowly and laboriously but their results promise to be dramatic. And so I would like to entitle my remarks upon the subject chosen: A WALK IN "NO-MAN'S LAND" By EMiL G. KL^UM^NN, D.Sc., ?ice-President, in charge of Technical Services, Lehn & Fink Products Corp., New York 22, N.Y. FRoM times immemorial, almost up to the beginning of the present cen- tury, the bulk of cosmetic preparations served substantially the purpose of covering the skin with pigment and color. The application of such make- up was carried out twenty centuries ago with the same intention as pro- fessed in a modern piece of advertising copy, viz., "to impart a glow to the skin." Ovid, the Roman poet who lived at the turn of the era says it this way in his Ars Amatoria: "Sanguine quae veto non tuber, arte tuber" which could be translated freely to read "Art will impart a glow to the com- plexion if real blood won't do it." This does not mean, of course, that the Roman woman of Ovid's days was not familiar with what we would call today a line of treatrr ent cosrr etics, compounded from more or less rational formulas. Parenthetically speaking, even the virtues of lanolin were known then as shown by Ovid's reference to "oesypum" described as the "juice drawn from a sheep's unwashed fleece." But again bridging a gap of twenty centuries, Ovid's dictum as to the eventual effect of age upon the complexion has had considerable validity until quite recently. In his poem "De Medicamine Faciei" he has this to say, with lofty resignation: ................ Formam populabitur aetas, Et placitus rugis vultus aratus erit. Tempus erit, quo vos speculum vidisse pigebit, Et yenlet rugis altera causa dolor. Sufficit, et Iongum probitas perdurat in aevum. Perque suos annos hinc bene pendet amor. ("Age will ravage beauty, and the lovely face will be ploughed by wrinkles. The time will come when it will hurt you to look in the mirror, and the resulting grief will become a second cause of wrinkles. But goodness suffices and long endures, and love thrives upon it through the years to come.")

JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY OF COSMETIC CHEMISTS It is only in the very recent past, that one begins to see reasons for abandoning this age-old doctrine of veiled despair in spite of its concomit- ant message of noble consolation. We are showing an unwillingness to accept the finality of aging in general incidentally this has brought into being an entirely new medical specialtT, geriatrics, whose ultimate aim it is to find ways and means of delaying Or suspending the symptoms of age within the human body. However, we are interested here in the very special phenomenon of the aging complexion which emerges as a problem in the border area between cosmetics and endocrinology because, as is now known, hormones in general and sex hormones in particular are vitally involved both in the causation and in the control of this phenomenon. By way of a brief summary of published information the following effects o• the application of estrogens to the skin may be emphasized: 1. A demonstrable proliferation bf the epithelium takes place in the older skin whereas in the case of a younger skin (under 30) there is no histological change in the epithelial structures (1). 2. There is an alteration in the electrolyte and water metabolism which favors tissue hydration, possibly through sodium retention. 3. A vaso-dilatation occurs causing an increase in the capillary circu- lation, probably due to the release of acetylcholine which is equivalent to parasympathetic stimulation (2). 4. There is a demonstrable increase in skin elasticity (3). The utilization of these findings in the correct formulation of hormone preparations is in the domain of the cosmetic chemist so long as he is con- stantly aware of the need for the limitation of the effectiveness of his product to a capacity for producing purely local dermovascular changes. Where the character of the estrogenic substance, or its concentration, or its mode of absorption is such as to suggest the likelihood of systemic action one leaves the domain of the cosmetic chemist and enters that of the endo- crinologist or dermatologist, or both. Therefore, it would follow that the proper delineation of this border area should result from the collaboration of the latter two specialists with the cosmetic chemist. It has been assumed right along, and for entirely logical reasons, that the size of the dose alone was involved in determining the character of the effect, i.e., local or systemic, regardless of whether the estrogenic substance is asteroid hormone or an "unnatural" organic synthetic. This factor suggests great care in the formulation of hormone or estrogenic cos- metics. However, there are some recent indications to the effect that it should be possible to produce strictly dermovascular changes without systemic sequelae (4). This would have a twofold advantage: (a) it would permit the study of the cosmetic effects of higher concentrations than permitted with substances of potential systemic action, and (b) it would help to eliminate the ever-present psychological factor of a risk of