Six Moisturisers were put to the test, ranging from £5 to around £60, firstly there was Nivea Visage, Olay Regenerist, L'Oreal Derma Genesis, No7 Protect & Perfect, Dior Capture R60/80 XP & finally the cheapest Simple Moisture Cream. All these creams are well known & probably most if us have given them a try at some point, I know I have....and to be honest I have seen results & in my opinion they were worth spending the money on, in particular No7 Protect & Perfect, my skin looks & feels great as well as many other people I know who use it religiously (again from the hype that came from another tv documentary..) but still I'm happy to splash the cash on them, so are we actually all wasting our money.....???!!!
The main buzz words & ingrediants that are flying around right now are of course Pentapeptides, Pro Retinol, Pro-Xylane, Hyaluronic Acid & Q10. When asking around the counters, the girls really did struggle to explain why these active ingrediants are so good & how they can make a real difference to your skin, one Dermatologist said that the protein fibres said to be in these ingredients cannot penetrate the skin to have any effect so you would be just as well slapping on a piece of steak(!!), also for any cream to have a real biological effect on the skin's structure it would need to be passed medically. It's also concerning to note that no cosmetic company is required by law to publish the clinical trials carried out before the product hits the shelves... The cosmetic companies are very careful how they word their adverts to lure us in, however L'Oreal's Wrinkle Decrease was pulled by the Advertising Standards Agency for claiming it could reduce wrinkles in just 1 hour, very far fetched indeed!! However all that a cosmetic firm needs to prove in order to market a cream as an anti-ageing product is that it contains SPF, that is it, the one ingrediant that is proven to reduce ageing by protecting the skin from UV rays, nothing else is actually scientifically proven to slow the ageing process down!
Also a lot of us look to our magazine editors to recommend the best creams & products available, at the end of the day no magazine is going to say a cream is dreadful, the editors themselves say that if a cream is no good then they just won't write about it as people only want to read about what is the latest best buy, and I completely agree... However the only slight concern with this is that beauty editors at our top magazines are pampered by large cosmetic firms with glamorous business trips abroad as well as gifts, no direct incentives but of course who would kick a gift horse in the mouth!
The final tests showed not so positive results unfortunately, although a lot of the women themseves felt they could see & feel a real difference to their skin with it being a lot firmer as well as more radiant, the tests showed that the deeper wrinkles had in fact increased or had stayed the same with only two people actually seeing a real difference. So from the 'Simple' cream at £5 to the most expensive 'Dior' cream the results were over all the same... The cosmetic firms insist that a larger trial is required & extensive research has been carried out on all products proving that they have a significant effect on the skin.
At the end of the day if the cream has an effect on the surface giving you well moistured skin with a brightening effect then what harm is it really doing, these creams give excellent protection from UV light, hyrdrate & plump the skin so are brilliant under make-up & give the skin a lovely finish, the main point I think is that cosmetic firms need to be a little less dramatic with their wording on what their creams can actually do... The main thing to take into account with skin care is to use a moisturiser that is right for your skin type whether you have oily or dry skin, ensure it has an SPF, eat well, drink plenty of water & take vitamin c as it is proven to help collagen production, if you want to spend £60 on a miracle cream then by all means do, it's not going to do any harm but it won't turn back the clock!
