With around 50 million women in the USA alone concerned about facial hair removal according to some estimates, it's no wonder some of the large health and personal care companies invested much time and research into developing an answer.
That answer came on July 31, 2000 when Bristol-Myer Squibb along with The Gillette Company announced the launch of Vaniqa, a cream designed to slow down and minimize facial hair growth.
As a result of applying Vaniqa cream, millions of women now had the opportunity to make facial hair removal a lot easier.
Yes, they still had to continue with their regular method of facial hair removal, be it waxing, sugaring, threading or tweezing, but doing this in conjunction with applying Vaniqa reqularly made it a lot easier and facial hair removal sessions more infrequent.
The road to FDA (Food and Drug Administration) approval for any drug is a long drawn out process which takes years. This of course is for the public's protection to make as certain as possible there are no undesirable serious side effects.
Bristol-Myer Squibb and Gillette succeeded in getting Vaniqa FDA approved so it is available as a prescription cream from a medical practitioner.
The background to the launch of Vaniqa is intriguing:
A drug by the name of Eflornithine was developed many years ago to combat malignant cancer. Regretfully it was not effective for that purpose.
However, by accident it was discovered that Eflornithine was effective against the condition commonly known as sleeping sickness which is found in many parts of Africa.
A curious side effect of the drug was hair loss, as is the case with some drugs used in the fight against cancer.
Further investigation revealed that Eflornithine inhibits the work of an enzyme connected with hair growth. This led to the production of a cream containing 139mg/g of eflornithine hydrochloride. It took the name "eflornithine hydrochloride 13.9%" and was sold under the brand name - Vaniqa.
Vaniqa is a topical cream applied directly to the skin to assist with facial hair removal, specifically in the areas around the lip and under the chin.
As time went on, both Bristol-Myer Squibb and The Gillette Company felt that Vaniqa was no longer in keeping with their future goals and targets so they sold it in June 2002 to a company called Women First Healthcare.
In June 2004, the U.S. Bankrupty Court announced that SkinMedica, a pharmaceutical company specializing in dermatology, had won the bid for all U.S. rights and some international rights for Vaniqa from Women First Healthcare.
As of this writing, Vaniqa continues to be sold under prescription in the USA. It is also available in the European Union from Shire Pharmaceuticals who hold a sub-license for exclusive rights to market it in the EU and some other areas.
Evidently there is a future for this product, given the interest in acquiring rights to produce and sell it backed by the more than thirty six million dollars paid by SkinMedica to Women First Healthcare.
So is Vaniqa for everyone?
Not exactly. It is for women not men, and girls under the age of 12 are advised not to use it. In clinical tests, about 58% of the women using it found it made a difference to the rate of facial hair growth. It seemed to have better results on women past the menopause.
This means that a fair percentage did not notice any difference.
As with all drugs there can be side effects although in the case of Vaniqa, these are minimal, and mainly involve skin irritations and rashes for a small number of users.
So to clarify, Vaniqa is not a facial hair removal cream. It is rather a facial hair growth inhibitor. Applying it regularly each day will result in a reduction in hair growth for at least half the women who use it thus making their preferred method of facial hair removal such as waxing, tweezing, or threading, a lot easier.
For answers on how to use Vaniqa for best results, check the resource page listed below.
HAIR
REMOVAL
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