Placenta Face Treatment Offered In Dubai
10:04am UK, Saturday December 26, 2009
Ashish Joshi, Gulf correspondent
Beauty conscious women in Dubai are being targeted by a controversial product claimed to make them look younger - made from newborn baby placenta.
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Beautician Mona Mirza is offering the treatment in her Dubai salon.
The British therapist says new customers walk through the doors of her clinic almost every day, as word spreads of the new service.
“The main reason why human placenta is effective is because it is bio-identical to our own physiology,” she said.
“The moment the molecule is put on the skin it penetrates and absorbs directly into your skin.
“Your own collagen starts to mimic the baby collagen and cells that are going in,” she said.
“It is not a foreign body. The mimicking process continues for about three months after your first treatment, so it’s absolutely ideal.”
If this is something that will make me look better then I am willing to try it.
Public relations manager Fatima
The treatment is not cheap. A 60-minute treatment costs around ВЈ170.
Mirza advises women over the age of 35 to have their first three treatments in the space of a week, followed by one treatment a month.
Fatima is typical of the young Emiratis coming to Mirza’s clinic. The 34-year-old old public relations manager says she found the idea of using a placenta treatment “weird”, but was not daunted by the process.
“If this is something that will make me look better then I am willing to try it,” she said.
The placenta serum used in Mirza’s facials is made by a American manufacturer. It claims the afterbirth is farmed from Russian babies and is donated voluntarily.
Placenta treatments are not new. Some clinics in Europe use sheep or horse placenta in their treatments.
Arsenal footballer Robin Van Persie received treatment for torn ankle ligaments using animal placenta at a Serbian clinic last month.
Simon Cowell, Victoria Beckham and Jennifer Lopez are among a number of famous personalities reported to use the treatment in their beauty regimes.
Sceptics claim there is no scientific evidence to support the claim made by therapists like Mirza. They say it is another example of susceptible women willing to pay a price for the naturally impossible.
Fatima does not care. After an hour-long session in Mirza’s salon she beams a dazzling smile.
When asked how she feels, Fatima brushes her immaculately manicured fingernails across her cheeks and replies “Amazing, baby soft.”