Britain’s ‘The Telegraph’ newspaper recently carried an interesting report about an anti-wrinkle face cream that has become a huge hit – surprisingly, it is ‘venomous as it is strikingly similar to the venom of an Asian snake.

Gwyneth Paltrow is reportedly a supporter of this ‘Planet Skincare’ daily moisturizer, the makers of which claim that the cream can actually ‘stuns’ the skin in the same way as a snake bite does, thereby resulting in facial smoothness.

Priced at $100, this anti-aging cream, with the claimed ‘Botox-like’ results was recently put on sale in Selfridges.

In the words of Christine Benson of Selfridges “Beauty products containing snake venom have been used for a few months now in the US, actresses especially love the effect.”

Within days, this cream has become the bestselling skincare product at the London department store, with a reported daily sale of nearly 50 pots.

In fact, this moisturizer is not the first product in which snake venom has been used as a beauty treatment. Lip Venom, a lip gloss by Du Wop, has already used the venom to enhance the ‘pout’.

The active ingredient used in the cream has already won the 2006 Swiss Technology Award. It comprises a synthetic version of the poison from the Temple Viper, which is native to Malaysia and is a distant cousin of the rattlesnake. It is the amino acids in the venom that block nerve signals directing the muscles to contract. This automatically stops wrinkle formation.

The Medical Director of the Harley Street Medical Skin Clinic, London, Aamer Khan opines: “This could work for somebody who doesn’t want injections. The effects are not going to be as dramatic as with Botox. It will also need to be re-applied as the body gets rid of it quickly.”