Beauty brands, particularly in the UK, are facing increasing regulatory scrutiny over their marketing of products that include unproven scientific or clinical claims.
Beauty Pie, known for selling skincare, fragrance, and makeup through monthly memberships, is the latest to have an advertisement banned by the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) for misleading claims.
Posted throughout the London Underground and on the company’s website, the brand’s advertising campaign featured posters of a model wearing an LED mask, boasting that it “reduces wrinkles in 4 weeks.”
Last week, the ASA determined that Beauty Pie’s ad for its C-Wave Facial LED Treatment Mask made misleading claims, following a consumer complaint.
The industry watchdog concluded that Beauty Pie did not have sufficient evidence to support the claim, citing a study of only 28 participants.
In response, Beauty Pie submitted several studies, including two product-specific studies and six additional studies that utilized LED technology similar to that used in its mask. The company maintained that those devices delivered a comparable dose of light and argued that the evidence supported both the devices' efficacy and their wrinkle-reduction claims.
Yet, the ASA still found issues with the studies. It concluded that the product-specific studies had too small sample sizes and methodological limitations, including the absence of control groups and blind testing. One study also incorporated additional skincare products alongside LED treatment, making it difficult to determine whether the patients’ improvements could be attributed to only the mask.
Ultimately, the ASA found that the evidence did not meet the standards required to support such a claim. Regulators stated that consumers would interpret the phrase “clinically proven to reduce wrinkles in 4 weeks” to mean that the mask itself had been scientifically validated to deliver those results within that time frame.
The industry watchdog also determined that the additional studies submitted by Beauty Pie were insufficient because they examined different LED devices, treatment protocols, and usage conditions. Thus, they did not provide robust-enough evidence needed to validate the claim.
As a result, the ASA found that the advertisement breached UK advertising rules relating to misleading advertising and claims made for beauty products. The ad was ordered not to appear again, and Beauty Pie was instructed not to repeat the claim in future advertising unless it could provide adequate evidence to support it.
The ruling reflects regulators’ continued scrutiny of claims language that lacks proper backing. As brands introduce devices and treatment-led products to the market, scientific and clinical claims must be properly supported by evidence.