Babies' Foreskins Turned Into Beauty Products

On the off chance you've ever wondered what happens to the leftover foreskins from babies' circumcisions, Christie Haskell at Cafe Mom has three words for you: "Penis wrinkle cream." Turns out the foreskin—"or more accurately, the fibroblasts from the cells of the foreskin"—can be turned into an array of skin byproducts such as a collagen, which is used in beauty care products. "Oprah's beloved SkinMedica product? Yup! Foreskins!"

But it's not all frivolous: Another use "is to create bio-skin grafts for burn victims and ulcers and other large-area open wound sites," Haskell writes. Also, cosmetic companies—which shell out thousands of dollars for a single foreskin because it can grow thousands of fibroblasts—test products on the resulting pseudo-skin rather than on animals. All this may complicate the debate over circumcision, but "there's got to be a good common ground somewhere," writes Haskell. Click here for more.
(More circumcision stories.)