Uh-oh: One of our most tried-and-true beauty products is currently at the center of a major lawsuit – and it turns out it may not be quite as good for your skin as you thought.
St. Ives’s Apricot Scrub, which is often noted in the beauty world as a bathroom staple, has been hit by a lawsuit coming from two women who believe it may actually be super damaging to skin. Cosmopolitan reports that Kaylee Browning and Sarah Basile are suing St. Ives’s parent company Unilever, claiming that one of the scrub’s main ingredients, walnut shells (a.k.a. the tiny exfoliating “beads” in the product), can create abraisions in the skin. According to Jezebel, the plaintiffs say using the scrub is similar to the feeling of “sandpaper to the skin.” (Ow.) They also claim that the product uses false advertising – while the bottle will tell you it’s “dermatologist tested,” Browning and Basile claim it is tested, but not actually recommended by dermatologists.
While the scrub is generally regarded as a “cult-favorite” beauty product, and was even voted for an Allure Reader’s Choice Award this year, there has already been some growing sentiment amongst skincare addicts that it may not be as amazing as it seems. A New York Magazine article from last year even quotes dermatologists identifying it as an example of what not to use on your skin.
The bottom line? No matter how addicting that super smooth and squeaky clean skin feeling may be after using the scrub (and anyone who’s ever tried it knows what we mean), rubbing walnut shells into your skin admittedly can’t possibly be great for it. Guilty pleasure?