"Feel energy from nature," says the ad for Aveda's hydrating facial and eye creams. Not that we're in the cosmetics business, but the ingredients in this moisturizer made us sit up and take notice: It uses finely powdered tourmaline.
Aveda says the tourmaline does not act as a polishing compound. The company's ad copy calls it a "natural mineral, bringing energy to brighten the skin, improving the skin tone not as an exfoliant but reacting with the other elements in the cream."
Aveda's public relations spokesperson, however, didn't seem to know how it does what it does. Jewelers know that tourmaline has a hardness of 7, which is probably a lot more abrasive than any other mineral Aveda would use in facial creams, so don't rule out its polishing potential. But more important than its hardness is tourmaline's piezoelectric property—it truly could be electrifying. "Well, not exactly,"