SINGAPORE (May 7): You may have seen them on Instagram: featureless, eerie white masks glowing brightly in selfies by Jessica Alba, Kate Hudson, Chrissy Teigen, or even soccer player Paul Pogba. In photographs, these LED beauty masks can make even these attractive specimens of humanity look like Hannibal Lecter from The Silence of the Lambs.
“While it’s hard to imagine that these devices work, there is real science backing it up,” says independent beauty chemist David Pollock. He explains that Nasa, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, first harnessed the power of LEDs to grow plants on the space shuttle in zero gravity. The light encourages cells to produce more of the chemical adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, which fuels healthy growth and functioning; fibroblast cells, for example, will become better at producing collagen with more ATP. When the scientists tried red light on astronauts, their wounds healed faster, too — again, thanks to higher levels of ATP. Further research showed the various positive effects of infrared light, as well as visible red and blue light, on biomatter, and thus the science of LLLT was born.
Advocates say the masks can help minimise wrinkles (red light) or treat acne (blue light), with different colour combinations depending on one’s goals. For high-end spas rapidly embracing the technology, the masks have an even better feature: No invasive procedures or injections are necessary.
