WHAT PRICE BEAUTY?What's the difference between a €4 and a €500 anti-aging serum asked CLAIRE O'MAHONY, apart from a great big hole in your purse. Dermatologists say very little, and that sometimes the cheaper option is just as good
IF YOU’RE TRYING to understand what exactly your average anti-ageing cream is supposed to do, a degree in cosmetic chemistry might help.
Dimethicone, idebenone, and bio-mimetic water anyone? These are just some of the impressive-sounding ingredients used in the products which are designed to keep us looking youthful for longer. While consumers may not have a clue what these things actually are, they generally presume they stand for innovation, advancement and the triumph of science over wrinkles. In short, hope in a jar.
Grappling with jargon and assessing the various scientific and pseudo-scientific claims are not the only things that buyers of anti-ageing potions have to bear in mind. There’s also the issue of how much to spend.
And the prices vary hugely. For €4.79 you could pick up a 50ml bottle of Lacura Multi-Intensive Serum from Aldi. This became a cult beauty-buy last year after a survey of 1,000 women rated it top of the pile when it came to reducing the appearance of wrinkles. Mid-priced is the Boots best-seller Protect and Perfect Serum (€25.95 for 30mls), which sold out in a matter of hours after the BBC's flagship science show Horizonconducted a clinical trial and found it actually worked, unlike many of the more well known – and considerably more expensive products. If you were feeling flush, you could invest in Sisley's Supreyma, a night cream that promises to 'push back the skin's genetically programmed ageing' and costs a not-inconsiderable €490 for 50mls.
The reasonable assumption is that a product costing 100 times that of another will deliver noticeably better results. Yet experts are not convinced that this is the case. “The primary ingredients in the majority of anti-ageing creams are water, fatty alcohols, sunscreens, and moisturising ingredients,” says cosmetic chemist Perry Romanowski.
“The creams will also have ‘feature’ ingredients that help support the story that the marketing people are trying to tell. These are ingredients added at low levels that typically have laboratory support data to show they have some benefit on the skin. However, there are few ingredients that actually have an anti-aging effect when delivered from a typical cream.” In general, he believes that topical products have no long-term effects.
“The only ingredient that has been shown to work is Retina-A [a derivative of vitamin A which is available by prescription only].” While he acknowledges that ingredients like vitamin C, hyaluronic acid, or niacin, often hailed as having anti-ageing properties, could have an effect, he is not convinced as to their stability – and thus effectiveness – once placed in a product.
Romanowski, who has spent 18 years working in the cosmetics industry, is one of the authors of Can You Get Hooked on Lipbalm?, a book written by a group of chemists designed to help people decide what works and what to spend money on. Realistically, he says, the best thing you can expect from a good moisturising product is that it obscures wrinkles and covers age spots.
“People find products that work and they stick with them. Crème de la Mer is a good product and if someone uses it, they will get positive results,” he says. “However, the product [which costs €125 for 30ml] is way overpriced for the results delivered. In my opinion, it is a waste of money. The key thing for everyone who is concerned about ageing skin is that you should stay out of the sun and you shouldn’t smoke. If you use lots of sunscreen you will have the best looking skin you can have, short of a face lift”.
Dr Katherine Mulrooney, is a dermatologist based in Sandymount and she agrees that the cheapest anti-ageing product is a good sunscreen and that smoking is a no-no.
“They are the two greatest skin-ageing accelerators but no product will have a miraculous result. If you want that, you’ll have to go down the route of lasers and peels,” she says. And what’s the difference between a €4 and a €500 serum? “It’s very hard to say. The €500 cream is going to have more scientific research behind it, use superior ingredients like plant-derived active ingredients or clinically-proven ingredients and possibly have patent pending on active ingredients, all of which drives the price of manufacturing up. Whereas the €4 cream will use older, possibly less effective ingredients and possibly will contain nasties such as parabens and animal derivatives. But there’s probably not a huge difference in the relative efficiency of both.
“Personally I don’t buy into the idea of expensive creams myself. I do regard some as promising, but they may take a while to get there.”
Liz Dwyer, Imagemagazine beauty editor, is also of the view that extremely expensive creams do not represent the best value for money. She favours something in the €30 price range, with plenty of clinical research behind it.
“My own personal test is if I left my job and I didn’t have a lot of free stuff sitting beside me, what would I be putting on my face?” she says. “Instead of wasting your money on these super creams, go and see a dermatologist instead. Get some laser, get a good sunscreen, get a prescription for vitamin A. Expensive products work to a certain degree but not to levels of expectation.”
As to what compels us to buy them? Very clever marketing and the fact that everyone chases the Holy Grail of eternal youth, says Dwyer. “It’s not a modern phenomenon; anti-ageing products go back to ancient Egpyt. Our version of it is make-up and cosmetics. Also, we see how make-up works. Its effect is so instantaneous we probably expect the same from skincare.”
In March 2009, the British Advertising Standards Authority banned a TV ad for Olay Regenerist skin care cream as being misleading. The ad claimed that pentapeptides contained in the cream could reduce the appearance of lines and wrinkles but the ASA found that there wasn’t sufficient evidence to support the claim. Avon, The Body Shop and Nivea have all been criticised in the past for misleading adverts in relation to skin-rejuvenating assertions about their products. But in general, Romanowski doesn’t think that there is a chasm between claims made by cosmetic companies and the results delivered.
“The specific advertising claims are technically true,” he points out.
“However, the implied claims or the message that the consumer takes away from the advertising is certainly misleading and not reflective of what the science can do. The women that are used to advertise these products are genetically blessed and are made to look better than they really do. In reality, if people use anti-ageing products, they will likely be disappointed with the ultimate results. There is no cream or lotion that is going to fix wrinkles the way people want them fixed.”
So how much is your average Irish consumer buying into the idea of these amazing creams? According to Aisling McDermott of Beaut.ie, the Irish beauty blog which has 20,000 visitors a day, they are in general fairly realistic about what anti-ageing products can do for you. “They know there are no miracles but they want to look as good as they possibly can – and they are happy to spend money to achieve this, particularly in the 40-plus age category,” she says. “Irish women in general are deeply interested in anti-ageing. Inexpensive products that deliver are the ones that everyone wants to hear more about.”
