I have read about face creams etc but it’s very difficult to identify the truth from the marketing. From what I can tell, the whole industry is nonsense and preys mostly on insecure women. It seems like there is no way to prove it since if the results are less than expected, the reply would be “imagine how much worse it could have been.” Maybe too many questions but is there any correlation between cost and effectiveness?
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Not a scientist or anything, but from my own research etc collagen generally seems to be a scam. Collagen indeed is the “netting” of our skin to make it tight, when it’s loose we get wrinkles, so they’re not lying.
However collagen are long protein chains that cannot penetrate our skin in the first place, so applying it topically wouldn’t do anything. Collagen foods go to our stomach, and are broken down into, well not collagen, so it doesn’t help if if we ate it anyway.
The no1 method to prevent wrinkles is sunscreen, like many will say, apply it everyday. Why? Cause the thing that breaks down collagen is UV light, and there’s tons from the sun. The reason why the advice is to apply it even when it’s cloudy, is cause there’s always UV rays regardless if it’s that hot or not.
Inci decoder is great for identifying ingredients in a product that actually work if you know what you’re looking for.
If anti wrinkle creams really worked…. how come people using them for a prolonged period of time still have fingerprints?
If you listen to podcasts start listening to Beauty Brains. It’s 2-3 cosmetic chemists discussing what’s real, what’s marketing, and answering listener questions. They give accessible, real world advice on what ingredients are worth splurging on and what is nonsense. They refuse to endorse any particular products though, so the onus is on the listener to read ingredients labels and apply the information they share accordingly. The older episodes go into more detail.
My TLDL (too long, didn’t listen) to years of the pod:
if its *actually* effective, due to U.S. FDA laws, it has to be listed as a drug.
Many products have “star” ingredients (things like argan oil) to impress the consumer when all the benefit is from regularly applying a product that is a good moisturizer/barrier/film former. Very few things absorb into the skin.
Basic, inexpensive, mass produced products are just as good if not better than expensive boutiquey brands because the giant conglomerates have way more resources to pour into research & development of good formulas- and it’s less expensive because they have economy of scale.
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