'Blood Sweat' and Hippo Tears? Find Out the Magical, Natural Beauty Serum Custom-Made by Fiona the Hippo
Just a few months ago, Fiona the Hippo was compared to Beyoncé in a New York Times article. But her latest claim to fame has fans likening the Cincinnati Zoo’s wunderkind to a different gorgeous superstar and mogul: Rihanna. Forget Fenty Beauty, this is Fiona Beauty.
In a March 27 tweet, the zoo shared the secret to the celebrity hippo’s glamorous, shiny skin.
“Check out Fiona’s shiny skin. That is because hippos secrete an oily red liquid, called blood sweat, which acts as a sunscreen, lotion, and even an antiseptic,” the zoo tweeted (and posted to Instagram), igniting a passionate discussion regarding skincare in the animal kingdom.
Check out Fiona's shiny skin. That is because hippos secrete an oily red liquid, called blood sweat, which acts as a sunscreen, lotion, and even an antiseptic. #teamfiona pic.twitter.com/F4oOFFfa3G
— Cincinnati Zoo (@CincinnatiZoo) March 27, 2018
Wait a second. So all this time we’ve been slathering snail goo all over our faces, but we ought to be applying hippo sweat? Well, as Jezebel points out, the secretion isn’t truly sweat at all. According to the Scientific American:
“Hippos secrete a reddish oily fluid sometimes called ‘blood sweat’ from special glands in their skin. But the fluid is not sweat. Unlike sweat, which some mammals (including humans) secrete onto their skin, where it evaporates and therefore cools the body, this fluid functions as a skin moisturizer, water repellent and antibiotic. It appears red when exposed to full sunlight, which led the first European discoverers in Africa to call it ‘blood sweat’ … Hippos mostly try to avoid direct sunlight by lying in water during the day and feeding at night. Their skin is very sensitive to both drying and sunburn, so the secretion acts like an automatic skin ointment. It also protects the skin from becoming waterlogged when a hippo is in the water. The detailed chemical composition of this secretion, which is unique to hippos, remains something of a mystery.”
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You hear that, it’s a mystery, much like the rest of Fiona’s preternatural, supernaturally anthropomorphic and magically relatable, yet simultaneously aspirational, qualities. She’s truly a queen among mammals, and a role model to zoo babes everywhere.
