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Retinol is all over social media, beauty shelves, advertising. But its early origins were much uglier than most people know.
The creams, serums and pills that millions rely on today to make themselves younger have a dark past. In the 1950s in America, a doctor arrived in a prison in Philadelphia. His name was Albert Kligman. What he saw before him when he looked around the prison was not prisoners but test subjects. In his words “acres of skin”. He set up a testing programme and started working with some of the biggest pharmaceutical companies in America. But his commercial operation at the jail would stretch far beyond cosmetics...
Dr Skin is a Samizdat Audio production for the BBC World Service.
Presenter: Alzo Slade
Series producer: Tom Fuller
Series editor: Joe Sykes
Sound design: Richard Ward
Commissioning senior producers: Anne Dixey and Sarah Green
Commissioning editor: Jon Manel
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