Skincare driven by science

Look­ing after your skin is as much about under­stand­ing which inter­nal and exter­nal fac­tors can dam­age it, as it is about opti­mis­ing your skin­care rou­tine. Sun expo­sure – UVA and UVB – and ozone pol­lu­tion can cause vis­i­ble signs of age­ing such as fine lines, wrin­kles and pig­men­ta­tion, but you can mit­i­gate these by using pro­fes­sion­al skin­care prod­ucts that will help achieve healthy-look­ing skin.

The mar­ket for skin­care, or more specif­i­cal­ly for cos­me­ceu­ti­cals, is big­ger than ever. It’s dif­fi­cult to know where to start when choos­ing what to rou­tine­ly use on your skin, let alone under­stand­ing why you should con­sid­er using advanced for­mu­la­tions.

There is now an abun­dance of over-the-counter skin­care prod­ucts, with increas­ing­ly tech­ni­cal-sound­ing mar­ket­ing, offer­ing “youth in a jar”. Most of the pro­mo­tion­al mes­sages are care­ful­ly chore­o­graphed and deliv­ered by celebri­ties, but how many of them can tru­ly call them­selves a cos­me­ceu­ti­cal and are con­sumers just left baf­fled?

Savvy skin­care buy­ers have become more knowl­edge­able and have high­er expec­ta­tions from their skin­care rou­tine. They are look­ing for effec­tive prod­ucts with fast-act­ing and long-last­ing results they can see.

Cos­me­ceu­ti­cals incor­po­rate effec­tive, potent and bio­log­i­cal­ly active ingre­di­ents. One such pio­neer­ing brand is SkinCeu­ti­cals. Their prod­ucts are clin­i­cal­ly proven to pre­vent skin dam­age from envi­ron­men­tal­ly age­ing fac­tors, to cor­rect exist­ing dam­age and to pro­tect healthy skin.

These prod­ucts are not found in high street depart­ment stores or super­mar­kets, but stocked in ded­i­cat­ed out­lets such as cos­met­ic clin­ics, medi-spas and a selec­tion of lux­u­ry spas.

SkinCeu­ti­cals stand strong in their belief in the use of proven lev­els of sta­ble, effec­tive and potent ingre­di­ents, such as pow­er­ful antiox­i­dants like vit­a­min C, vit­a­min E, fer­ulic acid, resver­a­trol and phloretin, which work togeth­er syn­er­gis­ti­cal­ly to help pre­vent free rad­i­cal dam­age. Oth­er key ingre­di­ents include hydra­tors, such as hyaluron­ic acid, along­side well-known and pow­er­ful ingre­di­ents, such as retinol (vit­a­min A), vit­a­min B5, cho­les­terol and niaci­namide.

A focused and dri­ven brand, SkinCeu­ti­cals has a long his­to­ry of work­ing with mul­ti-dis­ci­pli­nary teams of der­ma­tol­o­gists and researchers to devel­op skin­care prod­ucts that work and are backed up by sci­en­tif­ic find­ings. SkinCeu­ti­cals work hard to com­mu­ni­cate their mes­sage respon­si­bly; you won’t find cos­met­ic jar­gon, but you will find clin­i­cal data and prod­ucts that are designed to deliv­er the results you should expect from a sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly proven skin­care range.

They tell it how it is – sci­ence doesn’t lie and good sci­ence doesn’t need to

The brand is borne out by the dis­cov­er­ies of Duke Uni­ver­si­ty pro­fes­sor of der­ma­tol­ogy, the late Dr Shel­don Pin­nell, father of under­stand­ing how top­i­cal vit­a­min C can be absorbed into the skin, found­ing the “Duke para­me­ters”.

This patent­ed for­mu­la­tion with­in the SkinCeu­ti­cals vit­a­min C serums ensures that pure L‑ascorbic acid can be absorbed into the skin effec­tive­ly. The para­me­ters dic­tate that L‑ascorbic acid needs to have an acidic pH to pen­e­trate through the skin lay­ers, and the use of a con­cen­tra­tion of between 10 and 20 per cent to achieve ben­e­fi­cial lev­els of vit­a­min C. This dis­cov­ery places SkinCeu­ti­cals firm­ly as an author­i­ty on antiox­i­dants, and the vit­a­min C for­mu­la­tion is found in all their core antiox­i­dant-rich prod­ucts, includ­ing C E Fer­ulic, Phloretin CF and AOX Eye Gel.

Com­mit­ted to their foun­da­tion in sci­ence, they have more than 40 pub­li­ca­tions to val­i­date the clin­i­cal research they under­take. A key focus is to eval­u­ate the link between skin age­ing and envi­ron­men­tal fac­tors. Their most recent, cut­ting-edge study data shows the pro­tec­tive effects of their vit­a­min C for­mu­la­tions, C E Fer­ulic and Phloretin CF, against the effects of ozone pol­lu­tion in human skin.

Edu­ca­tion is also impor­tant to SkinCeu­ti­cals, which is why they are rais­ing aware­ness that sun­screen use alone isn’t enough to defend your skin against envi­ron­men­tal fac­tors; you need antiox­i­dants too as an addi­tion­al shield. The dou­ble-defence con­cept com­bines their top­i­cal antiox­i­dant serums with a high SPF sun pro­tec­tion. This pro­vides a com­pre­hen­sive pro­tec­tion against envi­ron­men­tal aggres­sors.

One of the newest prod­ucts in their Cor­rect range is H.A. Inten­si­fi­er, a cor­rec­tive serum which incor­po­rates hyaluron­ic acid (HA), pro-xylane, plus extracts from pur­ple rice and liquorice. This for­mu­la­tion aids hydra­tion by enhanc­ing nat­ur­al HA syn­the­sis to help renew plump­ness, elas­tic­i­ty and firm­ness in the skin. H.A. Inten­si­fi­er has been shown to increase the lev­els of hyaluron­ic acid in the skin by 30 per cent.*

This inno­va­tion is the cul­mi­na­tion of four years’ research. While many sci­en­tists have strug­gled to cre­ate prod­uct for­mu­la­tions that would deliv­er HA below the sur­face of the skin, researchers at SkinCeu­ti­cals turned the prob­lem on its head and found ingre­di­ents that appear to stim­u­late the nat­ur­al HA con­tent of the skin.

This focus on sci­ence and results means SkinCeu­ti­cals prod­ucts are designed, for­mu­lat­ed and test­ed to be effec­tive. This is not only done in a petri-dish, but in-vivo on real skin, on real peo­ple and on all skin types.

They tell it how it is – sci­ence doesn’t lie and good sci­ence doesn’t need to. They are per­haps guilty of hid­ing their light under a bushel, but under­es­ti­mate them at your per­il.

SkinCeu­ti­cals aim to pro­vide an inte­grat­ed skin­care solu­tion for clients by offer­ing an advanced, evi­dence-based, home-use prod­uct range as well as in-clin­ic treat­ments, such as pro­fes­sion­al skin peels. Not only do the prod­ucts com­ple­ment oth­er pro­fes­sion­al­ly deliv­ered cos­met­ic treat­ments, they also pro­vide results to pre­vent, cor­rect and pro­tect skin when used in a stand­alone regime.

To achieve healthy-look­ing skin, book your con­sul­ta­tion with a SkinCeu­ti­cals expert who can cre­ate a bespoke skin­care regime just for you.

Find you near­est SkinCeu­ti­cals pro­fes­sion­al clin­ic or medi-spa by vis­it­ing www.skinceuticals.co.uk/stores/ and learn more about SkinCeu­ti­cals prod­ucts at www.skinceuticals.co.uk

*Total hyaluron­ic acid con­tent eval­u­at­ed with ELISA (enzyme-linked immunosor­bent assay) method on skin biop­sies