John Keats began his adult life not as a Romantic poet, but as a medical student. Before he wrote the famous lines, ‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty’, he studied anatomy at Guy’s Hospital in London, and qualified as an apothecary.

He understood the value of scientific truth, as well as the truth of the imagination.

Science is not a flavour

In the multi-billion dollar beauty industry, scientific truth is in short supply. Unlike pharmaceuticals, cosmetics aren't required to meaningfully demonstrate that an ingredient leads to a measurable outcome. Regulators focus on safety, not efficacy.

Claims made on product labels, such as ‘clinically proven’, may sound credible. But that can indicate anything from a 10-person in-house study to a consumer perception survey.

This leeway allows science to be used as a flavouring that sprinkles credibility over a product - rather than forcing a reckoning with truth.

Borrowed credibility

Even when beauty products borrow ingredients from the pharmaceutical industry, outcomes rarely match the promise. A systematic review of over-the-counter Vitamin A cosmetic products in the Journal of Aesthetic Dermatology found only weak evidence of effect, for example.

But most consumers never see the underlying data; they’re left guessing about what truly works.

Innovation needs truth

The beauty sector has invested billions in the mystique of their legacy brands; much less in serious scientific research. Transparency is often seen as an unnecessary risk, because it reveals inconsistency, uncertainty, or mediocrity.

Avoiding scrutiny carries a cost however. Innovation suffers when a product’s efficacy can’t be objectively measured or compared to the competition. Genuine scientific breakthroughs can get lost in the noise of unvalidated claims and celebrity endorsements.

Customers aren’t getting the new and better products they want and deserve.

Truth brings growth

The world of beauty needs to understand, as Keats did, that the pursuit of truth does not diminish beauty, but enhances it.

Frontier biology is already reshaping how we understand skin health: studying how cells regenerate, how microbiomes maintain balance, and how biomimetic peptides can signal repair.

Growth is driven by new truths. It's where evidence and imagination meet.

Beauty renewed

Keats was right: beauty and truth are one.

Scrutiny, transparency, and open expert discussion will define the future of beauty - by giving it form, credibility, and renewed meaning.

By demanding truth, consumers stand to benefit from beauty products that actually work.