One minute everyone’s raving about the time-stopping powers of retinol and the next the world is wiping snail slime on their faces (yes, really). When it comes to preserving our youthful visages, we’re slathering, injecting and ingesting anything and everything that claims to help us turn back time. And, with so many ingredients, treatments and conflicting information out there, the anti-ageing world can be a confusing, daunting and overwhelming place.
But fear not – for we tapped skin guru Dr. Nadine Pernodet, PhD, Senior Vice President, Bioscience, The Estée Lauder Companies to find out everything you need to know about putting your best face forward. From the ultimate anti-ageing skincare routine to the latest advancements in the industry, here’s what she had to say…
At what age should we incorporate a strict skincare routine?
When you’re 25. Even though we don’t see the visible effects of ageing on the skin at this age, the skin starts to accumulate damage and collagen starts to decrease. So, around 25 is when you want to start a skincare routine, even if a very simple one.
How much of ageing is determined by genetics and how much can we actually control?
It’s now very well recognised that genetics is responsible for around 25% of the ageing process, while 75% is attributed to epigenetics – the influence of the environment and lifestyle. So, that’s actually good news because that gives us 75% of control, right?! In terms of how we’re going to age, how we’re going to influence the way we age, or how we’re going to influence the way we do not age.
So, genetics aside, what are the biggest causes of skin ageing in today’s day and age?
As I just mentioned, 75% of ageing is directly related to the influence of our environment and lifestyle. So, where we live, for example. Is it polluted? Is there a lot of sun? Lifestyle-wise, are you sleeping ok? Are you stressed? Are you eating right? Basically, anything that our skin is going to experience is going to be translated into different signals in our skin, which is going to directly influence the ageing process.
The good thing about epigenetics is that, while we have some negative signals coming from the environment and our lifestyles, we also have positive ones. So, the research is to understand what the positive signals from epigenetics are. Identify them, amplify them and decrease the negative ones. This gives us a lot of control because we have 75% of opportunities to really slow down this ageing process and to influence the skin.
Should we be using different skincare products depending on our skin type?
Generally, serums are suitable for any skin type, but when it comes to creams, oils or other more emulsifying products, that’s when you have to be very clear on what skin type you are. Of course, you can always ask a professional to help you determine that. Oily skin will appear more shiny. Avoid using very harsh treatments on oily skin, such as very strong cleansers, because oil is produced to moisturise your skin. If you strip everything from it, you will produce even more oil. If you have oily skin, it’s very important to use products that have been designed specifically for oily skin. For dry skin, you’ll want something more nourishing.
If you have more skin sensitivity, you need something to reduce irritation and inflammation, because that’s going to influence the way your skin is ageing and the way it looks. For this, we just launched the Advanced Night Repair Rescue Solution, which is extremely efficient and works very quickly.
How should our skincare routines change as we age?
As I said, it’s really important to start your anti-ageing routine in your twenties to really keep what you have as long as you can. So, using Advanced Night Repair is perfect for this, alongside a moisturiser and, of course, always making sure you use sunscreen every day because the sun is going to affect the way your skin ages.
Now, as we go to more mature skin in the forties, that’s when you add more. You can add Perfectionist Pro Lift + Firm, for example, and a moisturiser that has protein boosters to retain young skin.
As we get even older, so in our fifties and when we hit menopause, we need to add more and to turn to different forms of the products you were using. In terms of creams, what we see is that, especially for women going through menopause, they need richer textures that really deliver high levels of moisturisation and that strengthen the skin barrier. Also, that really calms and soothes the skin.
What’s the next big thing in the anti-ageing world?
The big revolution in scientific research and in skincare is that we are moving away from anti-ageing and we are moving to age reversal. What does that mean? It means that by understanding the key pathways and the biological functions essential to fight ageing, we are able to help sustain the activity of these pathways in order to reverse ageing. A lot of this research comes from epigenetics and one of the breakthroughs we’ve had, which we’ve been working on for over 15 years, is the field of sirtuins, which are longevity proteins. Sirtuins have been shown to increase longevity but also increase health span, and that’s really the key. Why? Because we want to live longer, right? But we want to live longer and be healthy. We don’t want to live longer with disease. So, a huge amount of research is being done now to avoid diseases as we age.
When it comes to skincare, we have found that sirtuins are able to not only fight ageing but can actually reverse ageing in skin cells. This research was just presented at the World Congress of Dermatology in July in Singapore, where we basically showed how we are now reversing age in skin cells!
Wait, so ageing can actually be reversible?!
Yes, definitely! What we’re seeing in mature skin cells is that we can give them the ability to regain youth by supporting them through the activity of sirtuins. This gives them the ability to reverse their mature age to a much younger age. We’re talking up to 23 years younger!
What three products should every woman use to slow down ageing?
Advanced Night Repair, Perfectionist Pro Firm and Lift and the Revitalizing Supreme Plus Moisturizer. Plus, of course, an SPF product to protect. You can always pre-order these products before you travel at Dubai Duty Free.
Are there any techniques or ways to apply them to make them even more efficient?
Something that’s really not considered very often is cleansing. Cleansing is so important. That’s basically the first step of your skincare treatment! Just be careful not to use cleansers that are too strong or that will strip your barrier, because then you go outside and you have no protection and you’re getting more irritation and of course more oxidative damage, etc. You want mild cleansers that respect the pH of your skin. Also, massage your products in gently.
What about key ingredients we should be using to turn back time?
There are always trending ingredients. Let’s take hyaluronic acid, for example, an ingredient that’s very well known. Mrs Estée Lauder first used it over 40 years ago – for the first time in the industry – with Advanced Night Repair. Now it’s trending! So, all the ingredients we are developing now, of course, are not going to be trending.
We have developed sirtuin activators to deliver the optimal activity to maintain skin beauty at its peak, regardless of age. This can be with ferments, botanical extracts or peptides, depending on which activity we want and which one is the best. Now, peptides are usually considered for collagen-boosting, but they are molecules found in our skin and that are specific to many, many different activities. We developed an exclusive peptide – Tripeptide 32 – to synchronise the skin’s day and night rhythm, aka the circadian rhythm. Why? Because we wanted to optimise repair at night and skin protection during the day. Tripeptide 32 is going to make sure that our skin functions are optimised both during the day, and at night.
In terms of botanical extracts, the way we do it is to really become experts in understanding how nature has developed potent actives. I’ll give you an example – moringa extract, which is the star of AR Revitalizing Supreme Plus. Why did we use moringa extract? Because we were interested in the molecule isothiocyanate, which is highly potent in activating functions (antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and repair functions) in our skin cells. It can be found at a very high level in broccoli, which is why it’s always good to eat your broccoli! [Laughs]. But unfortunately, once you extract this molecule from broccoli, it’s very unstable so can’t be used in formulations. So, we turned to expert Dr. Raskin from Rutgers University, who is a very well-known botanist expert. We discovered that broccoli is a very far cousin of the moringa tree and shares some of the same genetics. We saw high levels of isothiocyanate in moringa, but not enough, so we went back to how the different parts of the tree function.
Something that we had missed, and that comes really by observing nature, is that the seeds fall on the soil, and they’re responsible for the survival of the species. We got the seeds, put them through mechanical stress, and we got a huge level of the isothiocyanate molecule, which we extracted and that is stable and is now at the core of Supreme Plus. It might not be trending now, but we are always after the best actives for the best benefits.
Watch this space…!
