THE WHAT? The UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has ruled that Beauty Pie’s claim that its C-Wave Facial LED Treatment Mask was “clinically proven to reduce wrinkles in 4 weeks” was misleading and unsupported by adequate evidence.
THE DETAILS The ruling followed a complaint challenging the substantiation behind the claim used in a London Underground advertising campaign. Beauty Pie provided two product-specific clinical studies and six additional studies on similar LED technologies to support its position. However, the ASA found that the product-specific studies involved relatively small sample sizes, lacked control groups and blinding, and contained methodological limitations that prevented the results from being considered robust. The regulator also determined that the supplementary studies examined different devices, treatment protocols and usage conditions, making them insufficient to support claims about the advertised product. As a result, the ASA concluded that Beauty Pie had failed to demonstrate that the mask was clinically proven to reduce wrinkles within four weeks.
THE WHY? The decision reinforces advertising standards around beauty and skincare efficacy claims, highlighting the requirement for brands to hold robust, product-specific clinical evidence before making scientific or performance-based marketing statements.
Source: Advertising Standards Authority
