Anti - Ageing Cream

Cleopatra bathed in sour milk for it. Dorian Gray traded his soul for it. Ladies of this age are using a face cream made from machine oil and sleep carcasses for it. It is a radiant, youthful complexion, something thousands of women believe an ‘anti-ageing’ cream will buy them. But can cosmetic really repair the ravages of time? Or is it, as some skin experts say, just ‘hope in a pot’?
What is anti-aging?
Skin doctors divide skin ‘ageing’ into two categories: natural ageing, which happens after 60 and is irreparable, and ‘photo ageing’, due primarily to damage by UVA radiation from the sun. Un-like UVB rays, which cause redness and soreness and are at their most virulent around mid-day at the height of summer, UVA ray are constant all year round, in any weather. They penetrate further into the skin, damaging cells at a far deeper level. It is this damage that anti-ageing aim to redress.
The anti-aging
The claims made by anti-ageing products fall roughly into five categories. Your cream may boast several of these functions.
Hydration

All anti-ageing creams and moisturizers hydrate the skin-trapping its natural moisture, not replacing moisture it has lost. Various oils do this, preventing skin from drying out as quickly and plumping it up so it appears less lined and irregular. Sophisticated creams are lighter as they use products with a higher moisture retention said to absorb up to 1,000 times its weight in water. And firms combine these with pleasant extras like softening jojoba oil, soothing aloe-Vera and calendula and borage oil, said to improve the epidermis’ elasticity.
Lift
The skin’s dermis contains two types of protein fibers: Elastin, for skin flexibility, and collagen, for resilience. As these fibers weaken with age, the anti-ageing creams try.
Regeneration
A youthful skin depends on the state of the stratum corneum. This normally provides a strong barrier against the elements, but the intercellular ‘cement’ can be come damaged or be defective, allowing cells to slide apart and the skin to lose tone and fail to hold in moisture as effectively.
It’s also argued that insufficient oxygen pumped via the blood through the skin reduces cellular activity and renewal and results in wrinkles, lines and a tired, lackluster complexion. Most creams contain vitamins and proteins that should be supplied by the blood but are often lacking. These are said ‘nourish’ the basal layer of the epidermis, where the new cells form.
Damage limitation
The skin’s ageing process is accelerated by two factors:
Ultraviolet lights or by free radicals, high-energy molecules that attack healthy skin cells and speed up dehydration and wrinkles. So many good anti-ageing creams mop up these high-energy molecules. The main antioxidants used are.
Do they work?
It’s often said that using any old cheap moisturizer is just as ‘anti-ageing’ as of a top-range product. The basis of many claims is liposomes, microscopic capsules which deliver the cream’s ingredients to the skin. These capsules were initially criticized for being too unstable to even make it out of the pot. Makers say the new breeds are now composed of lipids or fats that are very similar to the epidermis’ own and so easily fuse with the skin cells to release their ingredients. Now it’s said even molecules that are too big to penetrate the skin, like collagen and elastin, are being chopped up and grafted into these liposomes
But while experts acknowledge that liposomes do act as carriers through the skin, they say we still do not quite know how or to what degree this happens. A lot of evidence now points to the idea that most chemicals take very tortuous paths round the cells. They travel a very long distance compared to the thickness of the skin. So the variation of absorption of drugs between people can be three to fourfold; in cosmetics the uptake is likely to be far less.
Other experts worry about the content of liposomes. The materials they contain probably don’t any biological effect.
Those cosmetic companies don’t do their homework. They invest heavy money in finding new ingredients and refining technology to make creams as user-friendly and effective as possible. The result is delicious products that refine, soothe and imbue a satisfying glow and sheen to skin.
Perhaps the real issue lies else where, anyway. Why are we so terrified of a few wrinkles in the first place?