A facialist recently marveled to me: "Your lines are worse than mine and I am 40 years old!" Which forced me to point out: "I'm not CHINESE." So Asians have better skin. Do they have to rub it in our faces? Segue alert! Enter Lo & Dough, Jezebel's resident beauty product geeks.In the first installment of their column, they tackled the six most common ways people fuck up their lipstick. Recently they told me about an ancient Chinese beauty secret: the semen facial. Since I'm personally going through a reeeeal dry patch (ha!) they both agreed to become whores in the name of pores, Jizzybelles, etc. etc. And in the name of the scientific method, they both found sperm donors named Matt! But how did Creme Le Peen work out for their skin? Find out!
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Cosmopolitan head honcho Helen Gurley Brown once famously advised women to "Spread semen over your face, [it's] probably full of protein as sperm can eventually become babies. Makes a fine mask—and he'll be pleased." Damn, Helen, did that dick make you slap somebody, too? Because we actually tried out your crazy-ass beauty tip this weekend, against all better judgment, and are now here to report back on the Nasty Truth of semen facials. It all started with a few innocent emails:
BDJ: Dude, my skin has been pissing me off sooo bad lately. While I'm the last person in the world to buy into a load of hype, I'm this close to splurging on Creme De La Mer. You should talk me out of it, whether you know anything about La Mer or not. I don't want to pay that much money for something that calls itself a 'miracle broth', and yet I'm so drawn to the promise of amazing skin....
Lo: Heh, heh... "miracle broth." That sounds like that gross thing we were talking about yesterday. I'll give you ten bucks if you rub sperm into your face and blog about it. I'd totally do it but I'm single.
BDJ: Isn't sperm actually supposed to be good for the skin? I think I read that somewhere... But, knowing my crap memory, it was probably College Humor or some shit. I'll totally do it if you do something else gross and blog about it. There was a rumor when I was in school that if you swabbed your morning pee all over your face (like a toner) it would clear up your skin. I suspect that girls I knew believed it, considering that all of the popular girls at my school kinda smelled like pee. Or it could've been Gap 'Dream'. I dunno.
Lo: Ohhh man. There's this uh, sort of monastic taoist order of sexual nuns in china called the white tigress society. Their whole M.O. is to harvest as much sperm as they can, rub it all over themselves, and apparently not age. I guess it works for them. The part I think is funniest is that they have to go out and "harvest" it. I think we should totally do this. I'll go out and harvest if worse comes to worse. I'm not using pee as a toner though. That's just foul.
BDJ: I just looked it up in google questions (who knew?) and it says that ejaculate contains urea also, so you may be getting the bonus effects of pee, whatever that is. It's like those cleansers, that are ALSO toners! The google also said ejaculate was basically warm sugar water with a little salt, vitamin c, and zinc. You must go forth and harvest.
Lo: How are you going to harvest it? Like in a cup, or in your hand, or fresh-squeezed from the condom, or what? We might have to wait awhile for me to get some. Hopefully I can pull it off within the week. Also, are we applying this like a beauty masque? Haaaahahahaha.
BDJ: Maybe a cup. Def not a condom, those things are full of nasty chemicals. Just let me know when you can get some. The fresher the better, I'm guessing. Since it hardens and flakes. I'm grossing myself out now. Um, I guess like a masque. I give it 10 minutes tops before I get skeeved and go wash it off.
Lo: Yeah, I just had the thought that my ex would probably be willing to donate. I'll buy him a perfect 10 and send him to the bathroom with a coffee mug.
7:35 Lo: I'm getting sperm tonight! Can you?
9:08 Dough: of course
10:58 Lo: Smells bad, burns, thank god I'm wasted.
11:01 Dough: Burns? Shit! Um, he's been drinking, eh. Prolly not good 4 yr skin.
11:02 Lo: Mine too! Plus I had to blow him for science, oops!
11:04: Dough: "For science' sure...
11:06 Dough: My test subject is reluctant.
11:07 Lo: Matt says "Bullshit I did it!"
11:09 Dough: We are both harvesting Matt jizz
11:10 Lo: Do it!!!
11:11 Dough: I'm doing
11:25 Dough: Omg. So gross. It stanks.
11:26 Dough: No burn, just tingles
11:31 Lo: I'm really smooth!
11:39 Dough: I'm bright red. It burns now & I look like a glazed donut.
12:00 Lo: It's like any other mask. I hate masks. Matt and I are still
trying to drink away the humiliation...
12:02 Dough: Just think how much we'll have 2 drink once this goes to post!
The semen facial burned the fuck out of our faces, and our skin stayed red and irritated well into the next day. The more we researched into the skin nourishing properties of semen, the further we were convinced there were none.
Helen was right about one thing, semen does contain protein, and as the water in the spunk evaporates the protein is left behind. This does tighten the skin, but only in a ghetto, Queen Helene Peel-off Masque kind of way. Which means the tightening effect is gone once the product is removed. Also, if you consider that semen contains sorbitol (body alcohol), sodium, citric acid, uric acid, and chlorine, the tightening effect that a load to the face provides can
be chalked up to drying of the skin. Yes- DRYING. As in, sucks moisture out of. As in, makes you look older. As in, not a moisturizer!
And yes, semen does contain a few trace vitamins and minerals form the body, but the amount is negligible, and there's not proof that those minerals can be absorbed into the skin from the seminal plasma. You'd get better facial nourishment without the Port-A-Potty smell if you were to use a vitamin-enriched moisturizer you could get from a drugstore. Semen also contains Urea and Uric acid, so if golden showers aren't your thing, semen "facials" shouldn't be either. There's probably more piss in jizz then there is magical skin-saving properties. Swallowing spunk isn't necessarily good for you either. If you're so concerned with vitamins and antioxidants, you'd be better off taking a multivitamin like a sane person. I'm sure some fools are gonna come out of the woodwork claiming that sperm is good for women's bodies, but the fact is that there is no scientific proof to back this up, leading us to believe that this is just a lame frat-boy urban legend perpetuated to degrade ladies and fuck up their complexion at the same time.