Because I am such a sucker for all this stuff, I am doing my best to be cynical about celebrity endorsements. I keep telling myself that Courtney Cox gets paid to do this and probably offloads all the free samples of Kinerase she gets to her daughter's nanny. On the other hand.....

On the other hand, Kinerase is based on kinetin, a substance that has been touted as the magical alternative to retinol.

At first blush, kinetin (also called N6-furfuryladenine) sounds promising as an active ingredient. For a start it's natural. Well sort of. Its a chemical analog for a plant hormone that promotes cell division. It is this dividing of cells - rather than killing them off so that new ones grow - that makes kinetin different from retinol. Kinetin is also touted as a powerful anti-oxidant (especially when combined with a vitamin B called niacinimide).

There are, however, a couple of problems with these claims.

The first is the human cells don't divide ad infinitum, but for a total of 52 times before reaching something that is called the Hayflick Limit (at that point its goodbye cell, hello wrinkles).

The second problem is that the anti-aging and anti-oxidation claims are based on two unpublished studies that were commissioned by Senetex, the manufacturer of kinetin. There is no reliable scientific evidence that kinetin is an effective anti-aging product. Furthermore, if it does speed up the time it takes to reach the Hayflick Limit, then it could be making things worse.