Recent scientific research, published in the Journal of Applied Polymer Science, demonstrates that the use of synthetic skins may soon replace real animals in cosmetic testing.
Professor Bhushan of Ohio State University and Wei Tang, a China University of Mining and Technology engineer, monitored synthetic skin and real rat skin with incredible resolutions down to 100 nanometers (a thousandth the width of a human hair). They then subjected the skin samples to a generic skin cream and observed that all the samples reacted similarly, proving that the synthetic skin could be used instead of real animal skin for this type of testing.
The synthetic skin behaved like living skin, maintaining its texture and consistency under even when subjected to sunlight or rain.
“The skin cream reduced the surface roughness, increased the skin’s ability to absorb moisture from the environment, and softened the skin surface,” explained Bhushan in a Physorg article. "In addition to ethical issues, animal skin is hard to obtain, expensive, and gives highly variable results because of individual skin variability.”
Let’s hope that the research in this area is accelerated to the point where all animal cosmetics testing on animals is no longer performed, and in the meantime, people can switch to cosmetics that are cruelty free.
Via Physorg.com
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