Sheena, Queen of the Jungle has nothing on cosmetic companies of late. The trend for exotic-sounding plant extracts in beauty creams has inspired hosts of scientific teams from industry behemoths to hike off to diverse parts of the planet in search of the one rare ingredient that, when stirred into a moisturiser, will yield spectacular anti-ageing results. I have attended so many of these product presentations (complete with slides of various Indiana Jones types, tagging and bagging samples of leaves and flowers) that I have often wondered what would be the correct protocol when the Estée Lauder team encounters the Lancôme team as their canoes pass on some Amazon tributary. Do they wave? Compare specimens? Well, I need concern myself no longer. The world’s rainforests are quiet once again. As a destination for beauty research, they’ve been replaced by the sea.

Today, everywhere you look, beauty scientists are donning their wetsuits and exploring a whole new world under water. It’s not just beauty companies that are investigating oceanic resources – many marine organisms and plants are of interest for pharmaceutical use, too, evidenced by China’s state-level research programme into ocean medicine.