Good for you inside and out

NEW YORK — There is such a bounty of botanical-based beauty products, you might think they grow on trees.

Many fruits and vegetables are indeed considered legitimate treatments, but it's because of that efficacy that users should know the differences between grapeseed and grapefruit extracts.

“This is serious skin care even though it's botanicals. It's not ‘fluff' like some people think it is,” said June Jacobs, founder of an all-natural product line.

Consumers contemplating a wearable fruit salad should know there's probably as much risk of an allergic reaction to a fruit-, vegetable- or other plant-based ingredient as there is to a chemical one, said Dr. Ana Mercedes Ciurea, a dermatologist and assistant professor at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, who adds that she has seen contact allergies develop. (She recommends testing any new skin-care product on the inner side of the arm. It's similar to the skin on the face but it's not usually as unpleasant and obvious if you do have a reaction.)

Ciurea also said the botanicals could be skin-care successes. She's a user of a lotion with green tea and berry extracts, which she finds calming, and she's a fan of aloe vera's healing and anti-bacterial properties.

“You have to pay attention to the effects of ingredients, just like you'd choose chemical formulas,” said Helen Ambrosen, the science coordinator and co-founder of cosmetic company Lush.

Start either with a mild formula or a small amount of product. Then, if it isn't irritating, ramp up use from there, she suggests. And expect more ingredients as global barriers are blurred, said alternative-medicine researcher Joerg Gruenwald, who collaborated with Oxford University-based Gerry Bodeker, also an adjunct professor in public health at Columbia University, on “Health and Beauty from the Rainforest” (Didier Millet).

In Malaysia, Gruenwald notes, there's a long tradition of treating beauty both topically and through diet — often doubling up on the same herbs, oils and extracts.

“The whole concept of foods for beauty is used more commonly in Malaysia and Asia,” he said.

Bodeker said the herb pegaga or gotu kola, sometimes eaten as a salad leaf, is known for what it can do for skin quality, elasticity and skin repair. It can be ground and used as a scrub with a base of rice flower and coconut oil.

Mathilde Thomas, founder of French skin-care brand Caudalie, has a half-dozen uses for grape byproducts, including vine sap, used to lighten dark spots; vine stalks, which contain the anti-aging molecule resveratrol; grapeseeds, for their antioxidant polyphenols; and moisturizing grape water, which is extracted after grapes are pressed but before the liquid is fermented. Grapeseed oil is rich in fatty acids, another moisturizer.

Consumers feel comfortable with fruit and vegetable ingredients because they understand what they are, said Lush's Ambrosen.

However, she added, she doesn't think the initial appeal of familiarity — not to mention an often pleasant scent — would last if they didn't work.