While precious metals and stones find place in the jewellery in our closets, what if we told you that these exquisite materials also make for skincare ingredients with consummate potential? Skincare formulations infused with 24-carat gold, crushed silver, pulverised rubies and similar components are becoming popular by the day. Such products may remind you of the omnipresent metaphor, ‘gold-like radiance’; however, there’s more merit to these formulations than you think.
Gold bhasma (ash) has been a prominent ingredient in Ayurvedic beauty recipes since centuries; in another part of the world, Egyptian queens like Cleopatra would go to bed with a veil of sleeping mask that comprised specks of gold, to wake up exuding an innate glow. Today, just the global gold-infused skincare market, valued at US$3412.3 million in 2022, is poised to touch a revenue of US$14,238.9 million by 2023, at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 15.4 per cent—this excludes other metals and stones, that haven’t been extensively explored yet. So, what exactly makes concoctions infused with precious metals covetable? Brands formulating such products share their inspiration while dermatologists explain the science behind it.