Loud, screamy, new anti-ageing skincare advice: EASE UP ON THE PEELS!

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• Attention, Please: A Brand New Product Has Just Arrived

How often do you exfoliate? Do peels? Mircrodermabrasion? Once a week? More? Okay, we need to talk. And what we need to talk about is the new anti-aging skin care philosophy: Be gentle, and rather than speed up cell renewal by constantly peeling off layers of skin and forcing new ones to come though, slow DOWN cell renewal. I know, I know, it’s confusing. Let me explain.

Actually, there’ll be two of us explaining: Myself and Dr Daniel H, Maes, Senior VP Research and Development for Estee Lauder worldwide. (Read: Majorly smart labcoat guy who knows LOTS about skin and who I have learned so many things from over the past six years.) I interviewed him when I attended the launch of Estee Lauder’s new anti-wrinkle moisturiser, Time Zone, which is available this week, and which is kind of ground breaking actually.

Ready to learn how to stop your skin from ageing unnecessarily? Good. To keep it all simple, cause this stuff definitely will make your brain bend a little bit, I will break it up into easy to digest, important bites:

1. For years exfoliation (in all its forms) has been viewed as one of the Kings of Skincare: It clears off all the old dead skin cells, gives you a fresh, glowing face and allows all those expensive creams and serums to penetrate the skin properly. However, there is now research to indicate that going gung-ho with physical (exfoliating beads) or chemical exfoliants (glycolic acid etc) will end up being detrimental to your skin health and appearance. And I for one, am listening.

What Dr Maes said about this that made my head snap to attention:

“You’re born with a specific number of cell division in your life. That’s it. You don’t get any more. This is why you must be conservative with peels and so on: It’s fine when you’re young and you have plenty of cell divisions left, but after you’ve had too much exfoliation, too much dermabrasion, too many peels, the skin you’re left with isn’t that youthful glowing fresh skin you’ve been accustomed to. It becomes thin, worn out and taut, because your skin cells are exhausted. On top of this, white marks (similar to stretch marks) can even appear. These marks are the result of Keloids, which are caused by the excessive collagen formation that occurs during connective tissue repair.”

What about that, huh? And here I was LOVING my weekly glycolic peels! I still do them, of course, (because I am typical woman who sees great fresh glowing skin come through after a peel and forget what Dr Maes said about that being a temporary thing while you are young) but now they are monthly. I do NOT want to end up with thin, taut, papery creepy skin (yes, I meant to say creepy, not crepey, although both are relevant) like those scary Double Bay women. I’d rather look like Diane Lane, with lines, sure, but with happy, thick skin.

2. When you peel or exfoliate or perform peels or dermabrasion on your skin, you are inducing a wound response system within your skin cells in order to be given a batch of fresh new skin cells. Think about it: Why do you think you get such gorgeous fresh skin after these treatments? It’s because you have injured (via chemicals, or acids, or physical removal) the top layer of skin cells on your face, and they shit themselves and quickly start dividing to create lovely, fresh new skin cells, because the layer that was currently doing the job is now in trauma.

What Dr Maes said about this that made my head snap to attention:

“I’ve been telling beauty editors around the world for years to be gentle with their skin, and to slow down cell renewal rather than speed it up (which is what we do when we do peels etc). We need to leave the skin cells alone! Don’t force cell renewal. If they divide too fast, by 55 you will have reached the end of your cell division and they will be sluggish, and so will your skin. I spoke to some of the UK beauty editors recently and they’d started to finally listen, and thanked me for the warning.”

3. You will begin to see more anti-ageing creams that are trying to actively slow down cell renewal. Estee Lauder’s Time Zone and Clinique’s Youth Surge are just two so far doing this.

What Dr Maes said about this:

“Estee Lauder performed a five-year Age Measurement study on women between 20-70, and found that age can be measured by clinical (lines, wrinkles, crow’s feet, pores etc), biometric (firmness, density, texture, tone) and biological elements (cell proliferation, protein cross-linking/glycation etc). Basically, it came down to the age of the cells Vs the age of the genes… (Meaning you can have great genes, but if you live in Australia and the sun ages your cells, your genes won’t matter much.) So, obviously the next step is to work out how to slow down cell renewal, so that the age of the cells stay young, even younger than that of the genes. In Time Zone we use Sirtuin EX-1 technology, which tricks the cells into thinking they’re in ‘starvation mode,’ which means they will economise on proteins and growth and resist dividing. It’s like they’ve gone into hibernation.”

Oh, so CLEVER. Now do you think you might cut down on all that cell renewal activity and put that peel off for a few weeks? Of course, exfoliation is still important, but in the interest of preserving that lovely youthful skin, maybe go for a very gentle one, and cut back on how often you do it. (Perhaps if it’s a deep clean you want, and a lovely fresh complexion, switch to a clay mask?)

Oh, and regarding Time Zone? It’s $80 for 30ml and $115 for 50ml and it’s just landed this week. It has been a YUGE success in the states, where women have gone ballistic for a face cream that makes their skin not only look younger (that would be the Tri-Hyaluronic acid complex - HANDY HINT! Anything with hyaluronic acid is very very hydrating - that replenishes and rebuilds and sustains the moisture levels in your skin so it looks lovely and juicy) and behave younger too (all that cell renewal slowing-down I was on about up above)

Oh GOD, it’s all just so dingin’ interesting, right? My inner nerd loves this part of my job.
Can you believe how scientific skincare has become?

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