If you happen to’re one of many hundreds of thousands of moviegoers who’ve seen “Mission: Unattainable – Useless Reckoning Half One” in theaters, two ideas seemingly crossed your thoughts as you wolfed your popcorn within the air-conditioned darkish: 1. Wait, is that actually Tom Cruise using a bike off a cliff? (Sure!) and a couple of. How does the person look so rattling good at 61?
Seems, Cruise’s skincare secret is perhaps a crock of s—t: For roughly a decade, reviews have credited the actor’s ageless glow to powdered hen poop, or what the Japanese name uguisu no enjoyable.
“Tom doesn’t go in for Botox or surgical procedure, however he does pay shut consideration to all the brand new and well-liked pure remedies,” a supply near the star informed Now journal in 2012, per HuffPost. “He not too long ago began experimenting with the nightingale poo facial.”
Dr. Melissa Kanchanapoomi Levin, board-certified dermatologist and founding father of Entière Dermatology, tells Web page Six Model the usage of uguisu no enjoyable in skincare dates again to historical Japan.
“Geishas and kabuki actors within the 18th century used nightingale droppings to take away their heavy make-up and whiten their faces. The droppings have been discovered to have naturally excessive ranges of urea, which helps retain moisture within the pores and skin, and guanine, an amino acid that imparts a luminescent high quality to the pores and skin and fights solar harm,” she says, including that some proponents of the fecal facial even declare it could clear zits and reduce pores.
Cruise apparently skilled “improbable” outcomes from the therapy, which was “beneficial by a Hollywood pal” — maybe David or Victoria Beckham, who additionally reportedly incorporate avian dung into their skincare routines. And contemplating his face has hardly aged within the decade since, I needed to strive it for myself.
My mission, ought to I select to just accept it? Incorporate hen poop into my skincare routine for a full week in hopes of turning again the clock, Cruise-style.
Choose spas supply these so-called “geisha facials” for a whole lot of {dollars}, however after a little bit of Googling, I found you should buy a bottle of pure Japanese hen poop on Amazon.
Uguisu Poo’s Uguisu No Enjoyable Illuminating Masks retails for simply $45 and boasts a decently respectable 4.2-star ranking, with buyers describing it as every little thing from “my new favourite product” to “smells like a barnyard.” I held my nostril and positioned an order.
Uguisu Poo Uguisu No Enjoyable Illuminating Masks ($45)
A double-duty (or relatively, double-doody) purchase, the powder might be each added to face wash for an additional dose of exfoliation or blended with heat water and utilized as a masks — and no, not just like the eerily real looking variety Ethan Hunt wears to impersonate others and execute his missions. I figured I’d use it each methods every day for good measure.
Uguisu Poo touts its hero product as “UV sterilized and purified to take away musky odor,” and certainly, it’s totally scentless straight out of the bottle. That mentioned, it took on a decidedly off-putting aroma when rehydrated — stale and a bit sweaty, like Cruise’s socks may odor after one in all his iconic “M:I” sprinting scenes.
This meant my husband, whose nostril is stronger than mine, didn’t wish to come wherever close to me in the course of the 10 or quarter-hour it took for my nightly poo masks to dry. (My bird-obsessed cat, alternatively, didn’t appear to thoughts one bit.)
Smelliness apart, nevertheless, the uguisu delivered first rate outcomes for an over-the-counter product; after every masks, my face felt delicate and easy, if not precisely de-aged, and my pores appeared ever so barely smaller.
However whereas magnificence buffs shouldn’t pooh-pooh this time-tested therapy, Dr. Levin notes that “not everybody might expertise important advantages” and there are potential dangers value contemplating — notably in the case of hygiene.
“The droppings come from birds and should include dangerous microorganisms,” she says. “To mitigate this threat, respected spas and producers observe a technique of UV sanitation. Nonetheless, some people should have allergic reactions or pores and skin sensitivities to the elements in uguisu, so it’s important to do a patch take a look at earlier than making use of it to the complete face.”
And in the end, there are many different components — from retinol to niacinamide to hyaluronic acid — that may supply comparable (if not superior) outcomes.
“Whereas there could also be some advantages to this ingredient, there are loads of [others] that additionally assist to exfoliate,” Dr. Marisa Garshick, a board-certified dermatologist in New York Metropolis, tells Web page Six Model.
“So in the event you’re hesitant to make use of nightingale droppings in your face, you may really feel reassured there are different methods to get brighter pores and skin.”
As for me? Whereas my pores and skin didn’t self-destruct like one in all Hunt’s IMF messages after every week of being slathered in poo, I’d relatively spend my cash on prescription topicals.
If I’m going to age in addition to Tom Cruise, in any case, I believe I’ll want one thing a bit stronger than nightingale scat.