Episode 6 Wonderstuff


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Transcript


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This series is about all the stuff we just can't live without.

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Whether it's products for personal hygiene, home cleaning or DIY,

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it's about those bottles, cans, sprays, jars and tubes

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crammed into our cupboards, drawers, handbags, sheds and cars.

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I want to know what's in all this stuff!

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I'm Jane Moore. I'm out to decode the magic hidden in my supermarket shopping list,

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to throw away the packaging and get to the brilliant wonderstuff inside.

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'My journey has seen me stumbling around in the dark...'

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It's like Raiders of the Lost Ark!

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'..and facing my worst phobias.'

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Eugh!

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'But ultimately rewarded with some genius in action.'

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That is absolutely astonishing!

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Once finished, I'm expecting to go down the supermarket aisle

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with a new-found confidence in what I'm looking for,

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having discovered what really does the job.

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My task is to hunt down the unexpected wonderstuff in our lives.

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Those genuinely clever substances lurking in the stuff we use every day.

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This time, I'm out to find the hidden brilliance

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behind three of the things most of us slap on each morning.

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Face cream, antiperspirant and sun screen.

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I have to say, I've got a bit of a personal motive on this new leg of my quest.

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At my age, I need all the moisturising I can get!

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Not only do I get to test them,

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but also I've been promised we'll be learning the identity of its magic bullet.

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Later, my materials maestro, Mark Miodownik,

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does a demo which really is the pits!

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I wouldn't like to meet a man who sweated that much!

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But first on my shopping list is a little bottle

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that we Brits secretly hope we're going to need lots of.

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Sun screen.

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When I was growing up, suntan lotion seemed to be sold as glorified cooking oil,

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designed to roast you quickly to a nice leathery brown.

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But now that we know more about sun damage,

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we count on products that use science to guard us from over-exposure.

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But how do we know whether the ingredients in these products give us the right protection?

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And if so, what's the wonderstuff that's doing it?

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I'm heading to the HQ of one of the UK's biggest developers and sellers

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of sun protection products, to find out.

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Blimey, it's like arriving at the Swiss frontier!

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Which way now?

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This place is absolutely huge!

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It's like a town in itself!

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This is where Boots develops its potions and puts them to the test on human guinea pigs.

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So I've come to the perfect place to shed some light on how sun creams work.

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Skin specialist Ian Marlow has got the kit that can tell me whether I've been giving my skin

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the right sun protection.

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When I read a bottle I'm thinking of the words SPF factor,

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-or SPF - the F is the factor, isn't it?

-It is, yes.

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It's the sun protection factor. That's been the standard claim on some products for many years.

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Sun protection factor is primarily measuring the ability of a product to protect against burning.

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Burning is caused mainly by UVB rays.

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We all know that we need some sunlight to get our dose of Vitamin D.

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But too much ultraviolet light will harm us.

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Apparently, there are two different types of UV light.

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UV-B, which burns the skin's surface,

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and the equally dangerous UV-A.

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95% of all the UV light that hits our skin is actually UV-A.

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UV-A works much more indirectly

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by attacking molecules in the skin

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that we know can go on then and cause other damage to DNA

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and also result in a break-down of the collagen and elastin in the skin

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that leads to that loss of firmness and more wrinkling in the skin.

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Unluckily for me, Ian has a machine that can measure the effects of this invisible UV-A.

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In the interests of science, and because it's in my contract,

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I volunteer myself for a check-up!

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-You need to take your make-up off before we start.

-Now he tells me!

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It's like asking me to run naked round Trafalgar Square,

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taking my make-up off on national television!

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'I hope you're happy, Mr BBC Commissioner!'

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I'm not taking my eye make-up off for anyone!

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Right, there we go.

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'My face is scanned with ultra-violet light.'

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I'm still alive!

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'The images are processed

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'to reveal exactly how much UV damage I've subjected my skin to over the years.

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'But I'm not worried. Surely my use of sun cream has done its job, right?

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'Wrong.'

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What we can see here, all the dark spots on the image

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are actually areas where your skin has responded to ultraviolet light

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and has produced melanin.

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Particularly, we often find this when we look at the nose or the forehead

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you can see a higher density of dark spots.

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-That indicates that your nose and forehead has had insufficient coverage...

-I'm speechless!

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..over the years and we know that that correlates closely to lines and wrinkles in later years.

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That's awful!

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'Thanks, Ian. Do you have any good news for me today?'

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What this machine also allows us to do is compare you to people of a similar age.

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Here we can see you're at the 33rd percentile.

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So you're within that middle range.

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-Am I below average?

-A bit below average.

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Am I better off than them, or worse?

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Worse, I'm afraid!

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Oh, God!

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I'm never coming here again!

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I've had too many holidays.

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'But what's puzzling me is I've been so careful to use sun cream when I'm on those sunny holidays.'

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What this really emphasises now is it's not just about protecting your skin

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from the sun when you go on holiday.

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-It's about protecting it all year round.

-But I shouldn't have to wear something in November, should I?

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-About a quarter of the amount of incident UV-A hits your skin between October and May.

-Really?

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That's it. Enough humiliation for one day.

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So where's the wonderstuff that's going to save my skin?

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These clever people combine a variety of different UV blocking

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or reflecting substances,

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each one doing a different job.

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I'm told that three of these cutting-edge ingredients

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do the job of stopping UV-B burning our skin.

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But there's one more that's really crucial because it blocks out the ageing UV-A. Sounds good!

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That magic ingredient is...

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How easy is that to say? B-otty... No, forgotten it already!

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It still says on our packs. But if you got a pack in the US,

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it would be given a snappier title of avobenzone.

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That'll do for me!

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The green line shows just how significantly

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avobenzone blocks out those nasty deep-down and damaging UV-A rays.

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All of that cleverness wrapped up in one cream. Pretty impressive.

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'Ian decides that to see just how effective a sun cream with avobenzene really can be,

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'it's back to the ultra-violet face scanning thingy machine.

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'But this time, it's only good news.

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'With half my face creamed up and half just bare skin,

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'the difference is striking.

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'The dark half with avobenzone covering me up

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'is absorbing almost all the UV light

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'before it gets to my skin.'

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It's clever stuff, isn't it?

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Ziggy Stardust, there I am!

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Medical advice varies on whether we should be slapping on sun screen all year round.

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But if avobenzone helps to reduce wrinkles,

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then it makes it onto my wonderstuff list.

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While other parts of sun cream take care of the burning,

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this invaluable little chemical can protect us from premature ageing.

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It turns up in lipsticks, foundations and skin creams.

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I'm suddenly feeling less guilty about all my cosmetic clutter!

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'So, after that wake-up call, I'm anxious to find out more about my skin.

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'And if there's anything else I should be rubbing in to help look after it.

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'Mark Miodownik, my friendly materials expert, is on hand to help.

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'His first gift for me is a surprising close-up view of my skin. Not keen on this!'

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I know this is a laptop, but what's with the travel hairdryer?

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It looks like one, doesn't it, but it's a microscope.

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You can zoom in to anything. So I can have a look at your skin.

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-Don't panic! There we go.

-Oh, my word!

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-That's you under the microscope. You look amazing!

-It looks like a dry river bed!

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No, I've looked at a lot of people's skin and that's very good.

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-Is it?

-The structure isn't kind of disturbed.

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-It's got a very good colour.

-I like you!

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'Mark tells me that the thickness of our skin varies from around 4mm on our palms

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to half a millimetre on our eyelids.

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We can look on your face. This is going to be completely different.

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Can you see down? Isn't that wonderful?

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-It's glittery!

-That's your make-up. Nice glittery make-up!

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It's your best asset, your skin. It's 16% of your body weight.

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-The biggest organ in the body.

-Yes.

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It allows you to cool and also protects you from losing too much water.

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Your skin is your most precious asset. It protects from bacteria, viruses, everything.

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It's your first barrier against the world.

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Keeping it in good nick is the thing to do!

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'Phew! I didn't come off that too badly.

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'Or maybe Mark's just being nice!

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'But is there a wonderstuff that can keep my skin barrier in peak condition?

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'As a nation, we slap on £3 billion-worth a year

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'of something that we think will do the trick -

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'moisturiser.

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'So what's in it, and does it work?

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'To find out if there is something in moisturisers that makes them worth it,

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'I'm going to meet Dr Mike Bell, who's an expert on the subject.'

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Tell me, what is dry skin?

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What's happening?

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I think of skin as a bit like play putty.

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When water's within play putty, it looks very much like this.

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Everybody's familiar with that, with children playing with it.

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You can mould it. It's flexible.

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That's all because of the water in it.

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-But as soon as it dries out, if the children leave the tops off...

-Next day in my house.

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..it becomes a bit like this.

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It can be torn apart, it cracks, and actually, it's fit for the bin.

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That's exactly what happens with dry skin.

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That's all because of the water content in the outer layer of skin called the stratum corneum.

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It's about as thick as a piece of paper. Literally no thicker than that.

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The water content in this determines how dry or not dry the skin is.

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'This paper-thin protective outer layer

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'is apparently the main barrier to help my skin drying out.

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'And there's a test

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'to show me exactly how important it is to keep this layer of skin healthy.

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'First, Mike's assistant Clara measures the rate my skin is currently using water.'

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Your skin in its resting condition

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probably loses about 100 to 150 ml of water each day.

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Because outside, it's much drier than inside the skin.

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'This graph is showing the catchily-named "trans-epidermal water loss".'

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What we're looking for is when it actually plateaus.

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That's the resting level of water leaving your skin.

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'That done, it's time to see how much water I lose when my skin barrier is damaged.

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'Uh-oh!'

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What we're doing here is stripping off ten layers of your skin.

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-Ten layers?!

-Ten layers.

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Ow!

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It's painless, really!

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What's coming off? Like dead cells?

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Dead skin cells.

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But basically, you're taking off the stratum corneum.

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Some of the layers that are so important for the barrier function of your skin.

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-Will I get it back?

-You will get it back. It'll take a few days for that bit to repair completely.

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But it's quite quick.

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Do you get pleasure out of this, Clara?

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-I try not to!

-I worry about people like you!

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'Then the probe is applied again and the results are in.'

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And now the reading is at about 11.3.

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Previously, it was at about 8.9.

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So the water loss has been increased from your skin.

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'Damaging our precious outer barrier means the skin below

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'will dry out and fall apart quicker. Not what we want.

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'So now I know how precious my stratum corneum skin barrier is,

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'how best to keep it strong and healthy?'

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Lots of supermodels in particular swear by drinking two litres of water a day,

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saying it makes their skin look better. Is it true?

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Absolutely, because the water comes from your blood vessels.

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So if you're dehydrated, you have less water coming from those blood vessels

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that then percolates through the skin.

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So yes, you need to be hydrated yourself.

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'But well as hydrating your skin from the inside,

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'I'm told there's a quicker way to hold on to that water.

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'Enter moisturiser.'

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What a moisturiser can do, by putting back in that moisture into the top layers of skin

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and actually cementing it better,

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it means that the skin maintains a better barrier.

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'I know Mike's bound to extol the virtues of something he's dedicated to developing here at Boots,

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'but he promises that once I've seen some moisturiser made from scratch, I'll understand what the fuss is.

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'First into the mix are oily emollients like soft paraffin wax.'

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The wax is important to giving the skin feel a richness to it. It conditions and softens the skin.

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The aim of emollients is to try and hide some of the stickiness or greasiness.

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'Then there's an emulsifier.'

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It allows this emulsion, as we call it, to form.

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Oil droplets dispersed in a water phase.

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'But here comes the truly magic ingredient!

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'A colourless, odourless, viscous and devilishly clever liquid

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'added to the water, glycerine.'

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As in glycerine that I make icing with?

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Absolutely. It has similar properties used in cosmetics as in cooking.

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It's a fantastic water binder.

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'Mix all the ingredients together and you have a basic yet highly effective moisturiser.

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'But it's the glycerine that's grabbed my attention.'

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The glycerine in the moisturiser is what would form that sort of barrier

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-to stop the water releasing as quickly?

-Absolutely.

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So it's probably the most important ingredient for a moisturiser

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because it will bind water at the surface of the skin.

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'OK. This I have to see!'

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So here we have a weighing balance. We've got some glycerine here.

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I'm going to pour this glycerine, a certain amount, into the balance.

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As you can see, it's actually increasing in mass

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and the only way it can do that is by grabbing water molecules

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as they pass over the surface of the glycerine.

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Shows how fantastic a humectant it is.

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Humectant means grabbing humidity? Is that where it comes from?

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Grabbing water and holding on to it. That's what glycerine does.

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It's important that when the conditions get drier,

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and the humidity gets lower,

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it's still able to hold on to that moisture.

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How is it actually doing that?

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Well, glycerine has a quite simple structure

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which enables it to form bonds, links, with water.

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So that's all it does.

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It forms bonds with water to grab it to its structure.

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-Like a spider in a web?

-Absolutely. That's a good analogy.

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'And this amazing chemical sponge is also highly abundant.'

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Where does it come from originally?

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This is vegetable-derived glycerine.

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It comes from fatty acids and lipids

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in vegetables, in plants.

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It's a by-product of the soap industry as well in making soap and candles.

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By chance, they discovered that was an end product.

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It has many, many applications, thankfully for us!

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-So glycerine is the key ingredient for anyone making a moisturiser?

-It is.

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In fact, it's the gold standard humectant in the cosmetic industry.

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I had absolutely no idea about this.

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I'm absolutely amazed by it,

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that just a clear liquid can do this amazing thing.

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I'm going to go and bathe in a bath of glycerine now!

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I'll look like the incredible shiny woman!

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'Glycerine, also called glycerol, is derived from fat -

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any kind of fat will do.

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It was discovered by accident by the German/Swedish chemist Scheele in 1779.

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Its sweet taste and low toxicity make it ideal for use in the food industry

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where it also goes by the name E422.

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Glycerine is incredibly useful and has virtually no side-effects

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unless it's combined with acid

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to form the explosive nitro-glycerine.

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When it comes to keeping up appearances, moisture can also be a problem

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if you have too much of it.

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I'm talking about the potentially embarrassing matter of sweat.

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I want to know why is it that we do sweat

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and also what's the magic ingredient in antiperspirant

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that helps us to keep it under control.

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I've come to Leeds University to sniff out Dr Mark Hetherington,

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a physiologist with his own special climate chamber.

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He runs tests in controlled temperature and humidity to learn the ways in which people sweat

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and to give clues as to what we can do about it.

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There are lots of differences in the ways individuals sweat.

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Fit people sweat more than unfit, and those who are acclimatised sweat more than people who aren't.

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The average person has got three million sweat glands.

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Each of them produces a solution which it takes from the body's fluids

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and secretes it onto the skin from where it evaporates.

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It's the evaporation of sweat from the skin that cools you.

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'So we need all those sweat glands to keep us cool.

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'So why do some parts of our bodies become more of an embarrassment than others?'

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Where do we sweat the most? I'd think it would be under the armpit?

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Interestingly, there are more sweat glands per square centimetre of skin

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on the palms of the hands and soles of the feet.

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But probably when you're hot and sweating to cool yourself,

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the majority of sweat will be produced in the chest, back, forehead and face.

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'Hang on, if I pump out more sweat from my face,

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'why do I associate the iffy smell with armpits?'

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Because the sweat gets trapped in the armpit and can't evaporate. It accumulates

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which is why you get wet armpits.

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It's also partly because we have a different type of sweat gland in the armpit

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to the skin on the rest of the body, called an apocrine sweat gland,

0:20:300:20:34

which tends to be activated more by emotion and fear

0:20:340:20:38

so if you've got a job interview and you get sweaty armpits,

0:20:380:20:41

it's those sweat glands that are active.

0:20:410:20:43

It's thought that that type of sweat contains more protein from the body

0:20:430:20:48

so it's not the sweat itself that smells,

0:20:480:20:50

it's the product of a bacterial breakdown.

0:20:500:20:53

It's that bacterial breakdown that causes the odours associated with smelly armpits.

0:20:530:20:59

'So it's healthy to allow the sweat from most parts of our body

0:20:590:21:02

'to evaporate into the air to cool us.

0:21:020:21:05

'A squirt of deodorant, basically just perfume, won't interfere with that.

0:21:050:21:09

'But when it comes to armpits and their potentially embarrassing smell,

0:21:090:21:13

'we need something much cleverer to stop us sweating altogether. Antiperspirant.

0:21:130:21:18

'So, how does it do that? As ever, I'm turning to trusty old Mark

0:21:200:21:26

'who, aside from his other skills,

0:21:260:21:28

'reckons he can build a makeshift model of a giant armpit in action.

0:21:280:21:33

'This I have to see!'

0:21:330:21:35

So here we have a piece of your skin, perhaps under your arm.

0:21:350:21:40

You've heard about my skin?

0:21:400:21:42

No, come on, it's very soft and smooth and clean.

0:21:420:21:47

And here's the gland, maybe.

0:21:470:21:50

This has got some water in it.

0:21:500:21:52

Put that there.

0:21:520:21:54

-OK?

-Right.

0:21:540:21:55

Then it gets hot. You're in the sauna, maybe,

0:21:550:21:58

or on a tropical island, preferably.

0:21:580:22:00

-And out you sweat.

-Right, OK.

0:22:000:22:04

There's the sweating.

0:22:040:22:07

Then the idea is that it evaporates and you get cool.

0:22:070:22:10

But what if too much comes out?

0:22:100:22:13

And you're, er...

0:22:130:22:15

And you get wet!

0:22:150:22:17

-Then you feel uncomfortable.

-I wouldn't like to meet a man who sweated that much!

0:22:170:22:21

This is obviously the problem.

0:22:210:22:24

So from a simple-minded point of view,

0:22:240:22:27

if you put something on this surface that could mop up this sweat,

0:22:270:22:32

and could attract it so it was less wet and became solid,

0:22:320:22:36

then that would perhaps be the solution.

0:22:360:22:40

With an antiperspirant, some of the active ingredients do that.

0:22:400:22:45

So we'll put some on here. This is a gelling agent.

0:22:450:22:48

It's not what's actually in antiperspirant, but works the same way.

0:22:480:22:52

-It scavenges water and almost makes it into a solid. It's this gel.

-Oh, look at that.

0:22:520:22:58

-It's like a little sugar sweetie.

-Yeah.

0:22:580:23:01

But of course there's still more water to come out.

0:23:010:23:04

That's not going to solve our problem.

0:23:040:23:07

You have to keep putting more on. So we want this gland to stop being so productive.

0:23:070:23:13

'According to Mark, the really clever trick

0:23:130:23:16

antiperspirants pull is by working their way inside our pores.'

0:23:160:23:20

All that sweat is becoming not so liquid any more.

0:23:200:23:25

It looks like a gel which is semi-solid.

0:23:250:23:27

-Then if I do that...

-Ah!

-It's not going anywhere.

0:23:270:23:31

So that's what happens inside the sweat gland when we put antiperspirant on?

0:23:310:23:37

Again, it's not quite clear whether it's happening inside the gland

0:23:370:23:41

or whether it's just a plug.

0:23:410:23:43

-But it works.

-It works.

0:23:430:23:46

'OK, I've got the point that there's something in antiperspirants

0:23:460:23:51

'that plugs up the glands in our armpits and stops them from producing more sweat.

0:23:510:23:56

'So, what sort of wonderstuff is performing this magic trick?

0:23:560:24:01

'And where does it come from?'

0:24:010:24:03

It seems that the answer lies in a rather unusual place.

0:24:060:24:10

So, on the trail of the active ingredient in antiperspirant,

0:24:100:24:14

I've come to meet a man in the know at a quarry in deepest Yorkshire.

0:24:140:24:19

'Jack Walky is a chemist whose job it is to formulate ingredients for popular toiletries.'

0:24:220:24:27

Well, Jack, you really know how to treat a girl. Why am I in a quarry?

0:24:270:24:32

We're here to talk about a material that's the most abundant metal on the surface of the planet.

0:24:320:24:38

An extremely useful material, aluminium.

0:24:380:24:40

Ah!

0:24:400:24:42

'Jack tells me that aluminium, which is present in the rocks and soil all around us,

0:24:420:24:47

has also been one of the key ingredients in antiperspirants for over 100 years.

0:24:470:24:52

In the late 1800s, particularly under the hot lights from the stage,

0:24:520:24:57

actors and actresses were using different products to reduce perspiration.

0:24:570:25:04

One of the ones they came up with was aluminium chloride,

0:25:040:25:08

which was a great antiperspirant,

0:25:080:25:10

but quite irritant and quite damaging to clothing.

0:25:100:25:14

'It wasn't until the 1940s that less acidic versions based on aluminium chloride were produced,

0:25:140:25:21

'such as the very popular Stopette.'

0:25:210:25:23

Then developments moved along and we got aluminium chlorohydrate that we know today.

0:25:230:25:28

Aluminium chlorohydrate that we know today is the basis of most antiperspirants in the West.

0:25:280:25:33

'It's amazing to think that metal dug up from the ground can be mixed with hydrochloric acid

0:25:330:25:39

'to give aluminium chlorohydrate,

0:25:390:25:41

'a substance we all rely on to keep B.O at bay.

0:25:410:25:45

'It's the wonderstuff that manages the balancing act of being a sweat-stopper

0:25:450:25:49

'that's still gentle on the skin.'

0:25:490:25:52

Aluminium chlorohydrate and its close cousins have been gracing our armpits for decades.

0:25:530:25:58

They're still the only substances that do the job effectively.

0:25:580:26:02

And contrary to a widely-held belief, there's no scientific evidence

0:26:020:26:06

that these compounds are linked to breast cancer.

0:26:060:26:09

My investigation into the stuff that we slather on in the name of beauty

0:26:130:26:17

has exposed some surprising truths.

0:26:170:26:19

Not least have I failed to protect my skin from ultra-violet rays,

0:26:190:26:23

but also that something as simple as the glycerine my granny used for baking

0:26:230:26:29

is still the number one substance for moisturising my skin.

0:26:290:26:33

But for me, the biggest revelation is that despite the dizzying array of antiperspirants on sale,

0:26:340:26:40

there's really only one substance we can rely on to combat sweat.

0:26:400:26:44

And that's aluminium chlorohydrate.

0:26:440:26:47

Think what you like about putting chemicals under your arm,

0:26:470:26:50

but it really does work.

0:26:500:26:52

And in my book, that really does earn it a place in our Wonderstuff hall of fame!

0:26:520:26:58

When I started this journey into the world of wonderstuffs months ago,

0:26:590:27:03

I had little idea what I was going to be in for.

0:27:030:27:05

But it's one that's taken me all round the UK

0:27:070:27:10

to meet some of our country's brightest brains

0:27:100:27:12

who've turned up some genuine surprises!

0:27:120:27:15

Wow! Science is really exciting!

0:27:150:27:18

It's a good job I've got a strong heart!

0:27:180:27:20

Wow!

0:27:200:27:21

I'm never going to look at it in the same way again!

0:27:210:27:25

One thing I love about having gone to the source to find substances we just can't live without

0:27:250:27:30

is how it suddenly opened up this whole world of chemistry connections that surrounds us.

0:27:300:27:37

Like the fact that there's the same active ingredient in moisturiser and explosives!

0:27:370:27:42

I'm amazed!

0:27:420:27:44

Or that the silica in toothpaste that makes it a stain remover

0:27:440:27:48

also gives us hair dye and beer!

0:27:480:27:51

-It's made from the sand we're standing on.

-Really?

0:27:510:27:54

Or that the chemical limonene extracted from the peel of citrus fruits

0:27:540:27:58

is Nature's powerful gift to us when it comes to shifting grease.

0:27:580:28:02

And it might one day turn up in anti-cancer medicine.

0:28:020:28:06

Really impressive!

0:28:060:28:08

We can all be enticed by a clever marketing slogan

0:28:080:28:11

or eye-catching packaging.

0:28:110:28:13

But sometimes, the real genius lies inside.

0:28:130:28:19

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0:28:370:28:41

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