Andrea Mitarotonda
Neal’s Yard Remedies, Research & Innovation, Gillingham, United Kingdom

It came as a storm.
Unexpected?
Maybe not.
In the September 2017 issue of Allure, Michelle Lee, Editor-in-Chief, announced the Magazine would ban the use of the term
“anti-ageing”.
What?
Really?
Cosmetic scientists have been struggling for decades to formulate the ultimate “anti-ageing” miracle-in-a-pot that would please Marketing Departments and ultimately Customers and now…it’s all gone…?
By using it, Lee wrote in her editor’s letter, “we’re subtly reinforcing the message that aging is a condition we need to battle - think antianxiety meds, antivirus software or antifungal spray.”
But, did we all not know, maybe tacitly, that the property of being “anti-ageing” is inherently impossible?
Coming from Ancient Greek aντί (antí), it literally means “against”.
So, now, what could possibly be “against” ageing?
According to gerontologists, biological ageing begins after the so-called “Essential Life Span”.
The latter is defined as “the time that a species needs in its natural environment to assure reproduction and continuation of generations”.
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