The UK’s advertising watchdog has rapped beauty product firm Clarins over claims that its skin spray can protect against the Artificial Electromagnetic Waves and free radicals from mobile phones.

When the magic spray first appeared earlier this year, it was accompanied by scaremongering marketing material that prompted the paranoid and genuinely concerned to believe there was finally something out there less obvious than that tinfoil hat.

Indeed, it’s not just protection from the accelerated-ageing effects of all indoor and outdoor air pollution our skin needs but most significantly, the effects of artificially generated electromagnetic rays, which, Clarins reminds us, “are present 24 hours a day and effect men’s skin as well as women’s!”

The Expertise 3P Screen Mist claims to use the power of a “Magnetic Defence Complex” based on Thermus Thermophillus and an anti pollution complex made from white tea to create an imperceptible physical film on the skin to reinforce the skin’s own natural protective barrier.

But with so much debate and controversy flying around on the subject of whether radiation from mobile phones and laptops poses any kind of health risk, it looks like the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has actually weighed in on the debate with its decision.

In its adjudication, the ASA found that the adverts for 3P Screen Mist breached advertising code clauses on truthfulness and causing fear and distress.

“We noted some studies were based on exposure to radiation from a simulated mobile phone for six hours and other studies used a constant 24-hour exposure. We considered that neither of those time periods were representative of typical consumer experience,” a statement from the ASA said. “We also understood that mobile phones would age, if anything, only a very small area of the body’s skin, around the ear, and were also likely to affect only one side of the face, yet there was no evidence of such ageing effects on consumers, despite mobile phones having been popular for some time.”

“We considered that the studies were not robust enough to substantiate that electromagnetic waves generated by mobile phones could damage or age skin.”