The anti-aging skin care industry is booming, with hundreds of new products being released every day. This has led to what can be called “skin care overload.” People are overwhelmed and confused by the multitude of ingredients considered essential for anti-aging. Even some of these ingredients can no longer be obtained and used due to cost and time. We feel like we have to buy several products each month and apply them in layers to get the best effect on our skin. Yet, as we fill our medicine cabinet with creams and serums, we are faced daily with the question of which products to use, which ones are safe, and which ones actually work.
The need to rationalize and categorize the different categories of anti-aging products and the anti-aging ingredients themselves, in order to develop a comprehensive anti-aging approach, has been around for a long time. First of all, there are many signs of skin aging, and people may notice one or more of these signs over time. For example, some people have a genetically scaly skin, but little or no sun damage. Others have sun spots, but no flaky skin or wrinkles. Below is a proven taxonomy that assesses the signs of aging in four levels (mild, moderate, advanced, and severe).
Classification of skin aging
Laxity (looseness)
Wrinkles
Redness
Brown spots
Solar elastosis (yellowing)
Irregular texture
Abnormal proliferation (keratosis).1
This taxonomy of skin aging includes, as described above, a severity scale (0 = nonexistent, 1 = mild, 2 = moderate, 3 = severe, 4 = severe) that allows researchers and users to rank each person’s skin aging based on its characteristics and severity. This scale has proven to be very useful in testing anti-aging products and has been published in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology.1 Previous scales tended to categorize different characteristics into rough categories, such as pigmentation prevention, anti-redness, wrinkles, etc. and became less useful as products became more specific to different aspects of skin aging.
This state-of-the-art anti-aging scale allows us to quantitatively verify which categories of skin aging our anti-aging products target and how effective they are in each category. In this way, we can also tailor anti-aging products to your needs and logically cover all categories of anti-aging products by collecting or grouping the most effective ingredients in each category.
The many anti-aging ingredients available on the market were then categorized according to the signs of skin aging they target or treat. A table was then created to categorize the age categories targeted by the ingredients that have appeared in the last ten years.
Anti-wrinkle – DNA protection – Barrier improvement
Anti-redness – Cellular repair – Emollient/moisturizer
Prevention of dark spots – Damage repair – Skin thickening
Antioxidant – Aging repair – Retexturizing
With this taxonomy, it’s easy to see why people are overwhelmed and pack skin creams that meet their needs! However, since there are now anti-aging actives for each category, it would be ideal to include the best actives from each category in your daily skincare system to incorporate into your skincare system to optimally address aging.
Which category of anti-aging products is most needed depends on the individual, but an anti-aging regimen that covers all categories is the best way to prevent and fight all signs of aging skin. It’s important to be familiar with the ingredients in each category, incorporate a few ingredients from each group into your skincare system, and find products that logically cover the different anti-aging categories.
Here are some examples of key ingredients that work in each anti-aging category. Peptides against wrinkles; plant polyphenols and bisabolol against redness; amino acids against brown spots; vitamins C, E, and ferulic acid against oxidants; DNA repair molecules like acetyl-tyrosine and proline to protect DNA; resveratrol to repair cells. Bark extracts and phoretin to repair damage; Helianthus annuus and Ilex paragensis extracts to compensate for signs of aging; dimeticone to repair the barrier; glycerin and soy lecithin to soften the skin; hyaluronic acid to increase skin thickness; mushroom extract and sodium lactate to smooth out abnormal structures
In short, in the field of anti-aging, a system has been developed to classify skin aging into different categories and to evaluate the many anti-aging active ingredients to determine which anti-aging active ingredients should be included in the family pharmacy and which daily care products can cover the different categories of skin aging. With this scientific basis, we can now intelligently evaluate anti-aging products to ensure that they cover all categories of skin aging and that they contain different categories of anti-aging ingredients.
Finally, these comprehensive and proven grading and classification scales provide a foundation for the treatment of skin aging, with a classification system for skin aging and anti-aging ingredients to ensure that all anti-aging skin product needs are met.
About Author
Sara is a freelance writer, linguist, and communications expert based in Southern Europe. At age 10, she read a book called “1001 Questions about the Human Body” and has since dedicated her life to breaking down the complexities and myths around the human body like anti aging treatment Norwich and the culture surrounding it, especially in relation to mental and physical health. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
