Clarins rapped over phone claim

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Skincare firm Clarins has been told to withdraw claims one of its products can protect skin against "electromagnetic waves" from mobile phones.

The Advertising Standards Authority said the firm failed to prove claims for the Expertise 3P spray and had made an "undue appeal" to readers' fears.

Clarins' press ad called its product an "advanced anti-pollution complex".

The firm sent the ASA research which it said showed how electromagnetic waves from mobile phones affected skin cells.

Some of studies looked at radiation from a mobile phone over a six-hour period and others monitored exposure over 24 hours.

But the watchdog told Clarins the research was "not robust enough" to prove the phones generated electromagnetic waves which damaged or aged the skin.

It was also told not to repeat claims about the waves' effect on the skin without having "robust scientific evidence" to support it.

'No evidence'

The ASA said: "We considered that neither of those time periods were representative of typical consumer experience.

"We also understood that mobile phones would age, if anything, only a very small area of the body's skin around the ear, and were also likely to affect only one side of the face.

"Yet there was no evidence of such ageing effects on consumers, despite mobile phones having been popular for some time."

Clarins also failed to prove that other electronic devices emitted the invisible waves and damaged skin, the ASA found.