There's a deep ugliness and some slippery ethics behind the snail slime beauty boom

Apologies. As a reasonably attentive student of generational divides, I'm still late to one of the most dramatic divergences yet: the normalisation of snail slime.
At some point, maybe around the time I stopped believing in face cream miracles, smearing on snail mucus, in serums or lotions, was hailed by newcomers to Korean-made skin products as transformative, almost immediately. Its most cherished effect being, as an industry spokeswoman told British Vogue in 2023, 'a radiant youthful glow'. Today, thanks more to rhapsodising influencers than age-defying evidence, the slime phenomenon persists, gathers converts and withstands objections from snail supporters, who do not, sadly, seem that numerous. What snails need now, perhaps more than any other animal, is celebrity allies, supposing there are any willing to sacrifice the magical power of slime.
Early ethical concerns about the snails' treatment were satisfied, to a remarkable extent, by industry assurances, duly recited by slime fans, that the slime makers are treated like kings, even when sprayed in their thousands with acidic solution that prompts slime secretion as a defence mechanism. After a few such sessions these snails are caringly euthanised. Yet more blessed gastropods, according to a popular K-Beauty brand, SeoulCeuticals, live out their days in less stressful 'snail havens, allowing snails to meander freely over mesh setups, mimicking their natural environment'.
Either way, all snails, fortunate and not, are natural, and thus appeal to key demographics in the soaring market for snail beauty products: millennials and gen Z, 'who actively seek skin-friendly, cruelty-free beauty solutions'. In a masterstroke by the beauty industry, gen Z consumers (aged under 28) have begun spending on anti-ageing while still young. The value of the snail beauty product market has been projected as $3.4bn by 2034.
The industry can also take credit for what appears to be, though not that helpfully for the snails, much diminished levels of snail- and slime-related revulsion. This is hard to quantify, but not so long ago Patricia Highsmith's affection and respect for snails, which she wrote about and kept as pets, was routinely portrayed as bizarre and repellent. Her 1948 short story, The Snail Watcher, featuring a kind of awful snail apotheosis, was initially rejected by periodicals 'with horror and disgust'. Highsmith's habit of transporting pet snails in her handbag or, for smuggling purposes, her bra (10 under each breast) was likewise presented, before the arrival of snail slime beauty, as deficient if not actively disgusting. Now, in a eulogy to a Korean snail product, Vogue rhapsodises about 'a slime-y texture that is a sensorial experience on its own'.
Along with the slime-tolerance evinced by generations often considered super-sensitive, levels of incuriosity about the snail slime industry are such as to make you wonder, if you still recoil from the whole thing, if that makes you one of the weird ones. What's wrong with you! Why wouldn't you feel fine about industrialised snail labour for a product with uncertain benefits if the snail industry says it's OK? Especially for slime that could give you the prized, regularly slimed look known as 'glass skin'.
Being beyond any expectation of rejuvenation, I can't, admittedly, be certain that having a reflective face would not once have seemed worth the torment and premature death of any number of gastropods. But expert consensus, not just in beauty magazines is, overwhelmingly, that it is. Including for an Atlantic magazine writer speculating, with some feeling, about the impact of tariffs on Korean beauty product prices – could US glass skin go the same, chilling way as US free speech? The trade-off between snail and human wellbeing is evidently settled. 'It has made my skin softer and only grossed me out twice,' she tells us.
From the snails' perspective, the effect of tariffs – if they drive US buyers back to domestic, non-snail slime products – might amount to a more important commercial pushback than anything so far achieved by animal welfare organisations. While the soaring demand for slime products could encourage recourse to unethical types of extraction, Peta (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) has just tried another intervention, warning that 'snails are not skincare tools. They can feel stress, pain and fear.' Secrecy by some within the industry, along with a moderately stressed snail looking, to an amateur, much like a relaxed one, makes this easier to claim than to demonstrate.
Even so, in the limited snail mucin studies concerned with ethics, the animals' treatment by some manufacturers sounds, when not actively barbaric, difficult to reconcile with industry assurances. The slime is, after all, a stress response. There is film of snails frothing and retracting into their shells.
An analysis by the University of Tennessee Health Science Center found that common methods of snail slime collection include, as well as allegedly low-stress techniques that deliver less product, electrical stimulation, the application of salt solution ('osmotically drawing out a snail's hydration') and the use of force (featuring 'objects such as glass rods, cotton swabs, syringes, droppers, sticks or needles') to increase the yield. Alternatively, the shell might be cracked, generating more mucus, or the extractors might try vibrational, ozone-assisted and ultrasonic stimulation: 'These methods are less favoured as snails often die easily.' The authors prioritise, in conclusion, 'the need for ethical extraction'.
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But without the exposure of a cruel snail extraction facility, it's not obvious how snails get beyond their current designation as insensate slime machines. At some point, the popularity of mucus might give way to another miracle face-plumper, possibly a synthetic version of snail mucin. Alternatively, if the snails get lucky, this resourceful industry will discover superior secretions in another unfortunate animal, ideally one similarly docile, cheap and unlovable enough to be euthanised in its millions.
Not that consumers seem to be too picky. No matter how distressing the process, it's not so distressing, even among the usually tender-hearted, as the prospect of looking old.
Catherine Bennett is an Observer columnist

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