Best Way to Look Younger with Anti-Ageing Aids

To hell with growing old gracefully – take advantage of the latest weapons in the battle against ageing and stave off the wrinkles.

For years we’ve heard the same depressing message: ‘You can’t do anything to prevent or reverse ageing other than resorting to the knife’. Having always believed this to be absolute rubbish, when I hit the big 3-0 and realised that I was no longer immune to the forces of gravity, I dug out every scrap of research on ageing.

Anyone past thirty will know that ageing isn’t just about getting wrinkles: it’s also about half-a-dozen or so other age-related afflictions – under-eye bags, droopy eyelids, saggy and crepy skin, open pores and, as if all that wasn’t depressing enough, jowls and a slackening jaw line. Ageing is an unstoppable force of nature and there are no miracle cures for it – yet. Nonetheless, with a little help you can rejuvenate your skin and guard against the ravages of time. But before we look at anti-ageing aids, it is important to realise that the mind is the most powerful anti-ager: stop worrying about your wrinkles and you will be well over halfway towards knocking years off your age.

Anti-ageing aids:

Cosmeceuticals

If you know your AHAs from your BHAs, you are probably familiar with the cosmeceutical. For those who aren’t au fait with skincare jargon, the word was coined by Dr Albert Kligman, a leading authority on skin and a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. This label is given to anti-ageing products that are neither strictly topical drugs nor cosmetics, but lurk somewhere in the middle, containing as they do higher concentrates of active ingredients than their cosmetic counterparts. Retin-A, AHAs (Alpha-hydroxy acids), BHAs (Beta-hydroxy acids) and vitamin C are some the key ingredients found in such products.

AHAs and BHAs

Alpha-hydroxy acids, also known as fruit acids, were probably the most coveted ingredients in anti-ageing products in recent years. Lauded for their exfoliating action, they sparked off a craze in which almost every skincare range contained at least one AHA product.

Derived from lemon juice, sour milk, sugar cane, apples, grapes and red wine, the three main AHAs are glycolic, lactic and citric acid. AHAs slough off dead skin cells, causing living cells to divide more rapidly, and therefore stimulate cell metabolism. But Dr Orentreich stresses that AHAs can irritate the skin and for this reason prefers Beta-hydroxy acids as the less abrasive alternative for skin renewal: ‘BHAs have many proven properties but, unlike AHAs, they are non-irritant and anti-inflammatory’, she explains. The most widely used BHA is salicylic acid, which is derived from willow bark.

Topical vitamins and antioxidants

Antioxidant vitamins (A, C and E) neutralise the ageing effects of free radicals. In their topical form, these vitamins have recently been winging their way into skincare products. While vitamin-A derivatives (like Retinova) have been hailed as one of the biggest breakthroughs in cosmetic science, vitamin E, which is renowned for its nourishing effects, has long been a staple ingredient of anti-ageing products. More recently, however, vitamin C has created a wave of excitement among the cosmetic giants who have produced vitamin-C-enriched ranges which, by aiding the synthesis of collagen and defending against free radicals, claim to give skin a more youthful appearance. Cosmeceutical products like Cellex-C High Potency serum and C-Esta serum contain higher concentrates of vitamin C and are currently being used by some dermatologists to prepare their patients’ skin for laser-resurfacing treatment. Other antioxidants gaining popularity include green tea, lycopene and extracts from grape-seed, pine bark, bilberry and the Chinese herb Schisandra fruit.