The quest for the fountain of youth is one that no longer entails sailing the seven seas and conquering unexplored jungles but merely a trip to the cosmetic products section of your local department store. Well, cosmetic wrinkle cream products aren’t really that close to what the fountain of youth claims it can do but the demand for them isn’t showing signs of dwindling anyway.
More and more people are looking to anti wrinkle creams for their anti aging skin treatment needs and although these products are not thoroughly evaluated by regulatory bodies like the FDA, some clinical trials done on them are providing evidence that some of them might indeed be working as claimed.
Take for example the case of a recent clinical trial done on Boots No. 7 Protect and Perfect anti wrinkle cream which showed some surprising evidence of its efficacy in reducing wrinkles when used as recommended. (See Guardian.co.uk’s report on this). This product, by the way, contains the same components as many other similarly marketed products so this is good news for users of these type of skin creams.
But how do these things work anyway and why would they work even if no extensive clinical testing are done on most of them.
Most of them work on the same principle of attacking the root of the problem to solve the problem.
Wrinkles are potentially caused by a number of things, most of which can be prevented. The only one cause that can not be stopped is aging. All of us eventually will age and that can not be reversed.
But for women (and men) in their 20s and 30s, where premature skin aging may be experienced due to preventable causes, these variety of skin care cream products can be a boon especially now that there is evidence of their effectiveness.
If you think you need to use these anti aging wrinkle cream products, the best way to go about it is consult a dermatologist. But going for them off-the-shelf skin care treatments may also be a good way to go. Just be sure that you use them as recommended because most of them will need to be used continuously for a certain span of time (usually months) to see its full positive effects.
In searching for the best anti aging wrinkle cream, you will need to consider a lot of things in deciding if a certain product or program is right for you. The most important consideration naturally would be whether the product is effective in treating wrinkles.
There are two general types of anti wrinkle cream products: the prescription variety and the over-the-counter (OTC) variety. There are more OTC anti wrinkle products out there than there are prescription anti wrinkle products because most of them are classified as cosmetics and are considered to have no medicinal value.
This is the reason why most anti wrinkle treatment out there are unchecked by regulatory bodies like the US FDA in terms of efficacy (although they did approve tretinoin in 1995 for use in treating wrinkles).
Are prescription creams more effective than OTC ones?
Many believe that they are but since no extensive clinical studies are being done on most OTC skin wrinkle cream products, there is really no way to confirm this right now. Clinical trials on cosmetic products are very rare but there have been some high profile trials have made the news lately and they are showing some evidence that at least some OTC products are indeed the real thing and may actually work as claimed by their manufacturers.
This perhaps is due to the fact that components of these products are usually thought to be effective against the known causes of premature aging and wrinkles.
Moisturizers, sunscreen and collagen skin treatments are believed to be good against countering the effects of the harmful UV rays of the sun on the collagen content of the skin.
Antioxidants and vitamin creams are believed to help us eliminate free radicals which also affect cellular regeneration and natural collagen production.
Hydroxy acids are known to be good exfoliants that help the skin shed dead skin cells and stimulate the creating for fresh ones.
While prescription wrinkle treatments may be a better way to go, there are evidence that OTC products may be worth a closer look because the principle behind their treatment claims are based on well-accepted facts. All they lack are the comprehensive scientific trials to back them up (though some of them are doing this already).
