Salmon sperm and bird poo: Viral new skincare regime

Salmon sperm and snail slime facials? The new skincare trends are taking things a bit too far, Fran Whiting says.

The new skincare regimes are taking things a bit too far.

Well, we’ve come a long way since I used to wash my face with some apricot scrub, steal some of my mother’s Ponds Cold Cream for moisturiser, and hope for the best.

And while women have always been willing to go far in their pursuit of beauty, in particular, anti ageing, cleansing and moisturising and primping and plumping and plucking until that blessed day when they look in the mirror, and think, ‘Stuff it’, I believe these days we are taking it far too far.

Because - and mostly I blame Kim Kardashian for this, because she keeps popping up to say “I just had a vampire bat facial’ - products are getting ever more exotic, outrageous and just plain terrifying.

Kim Kardashian has been spruiking vampire bat facials. Picture: Aliah Anderson

Now recently Kim has been singing the praises of a new skin care process she’s been having, the salmon sperm injection. It’s part of the wildly popular salmon sperm facial, and Jennifer Anniston has also recently had one.

Jen said afterwards that all she wanted to know was how they got the sperm from the salmon - don’t we all? - and also that she wasn’t sure if the result “did anything”. Which is not true, because it did do something, Jen. It put me off eating salmon for life.

Next up - and I wish I was joking, but I am not - is nightingale poo.

Now this product is very big in Japan, where Geishas allegedly first discovered its beautifying properties.

Fans include Victoria Beckham (a serial weird product pusher) and Tom Cruise (a serial weird religion pusher). Now the nightingale poo is crushed, made into a paste and then massaged into the face, before being cleansed off. People love it because the poo from nightingales is apparently full of an enzyme called guanine which lightens skin and removes dark circles. I’ll tell you what else it’s full of - poo. No thank you.

Victoria Beckham is a fan of nightingale poo. Picture: Frazer Harrison

Now I am not sure if other birds also are able to produce guanine, I don’t know if, for example, this would apply to the pigeon. But you never know, so perhaps next time a pigeon unceremoniously leaves its calling card on your shirt, instead of shrieking and cursing at the sky, scrape it off, and pop it on your face instead. It’s no nightingale poo, but it’s worth a shot. I mean people are injecting salmon sperm into their faces, for God’s sake, what’s a little pigeon poo?

Moving on, care for a little snail slime smeared on your face?

Snail slime - known as mucin - is meant to boost collagen, and it is made by snails roaming (slowly, I’d imagine) over some mesh, and their mucin being collected from below this mesh as they go. You know where I’m going? To the bathroom. To be sick. Because snail slime.

Lastly, we have the latest beauty sensation, beef tallow. Which people are rubbing all over their faces for its skin healing qualities.

Basically, it’s rendered beef suet, collected from the fat around the cow’s kidneys. People are calling it, according to an article I just read about it, “Nature’s botox.” You know what I’m calling it? ‘Dripping’. Yes it turns out all those years ago when people were eating those slabs of white bread filled with dripping from the roast, they shouldn’t have been eating it, they should have been applying it. Lord help us all.

FRAN LOVES: If you haven’t caught Nobody Wants This on Netflix, do yourself a favour, as Molly Meldrum used to say, and do! Utterly charming!