Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
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Speaker 1: From House Towards dot com. Hey there, and welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast. This is Kristen and this is Molly. So Molly.
Speaker 1: If there's one thing that my mom taught me pounded
Speaker 1: into my head, well more than one. Mom, if you're listening,
Speaker 1: I know there's more than one. But for the sake
Speaker 1: of this episode, she taught me a lot about the
Speaker 1: importance of skincare. She was always very adamant about me
Speaker 1: wearing sunscreen, about starting up a skincare regimen of you know,
Speaker 1: cleansing and refreshing and then moisturizing. Uh. And I gotta
Speaker 1: say I should have listened to her, probably even better
Speaker 1: than I did, because she has fantastic skin now she
Speaker 1: is she's an older woman. I will not divulge your
Speaker 1: age because she might not like that. But let's just
Speaker 1: say that she does not look as old as she is.
Speaker 1: She has very few wrinkles in the face. And Uh,
Speaker 1: as far as I know, her skincare regimen was pretty simple.
Speaker 1: I mean it consisted of, you know, the general cleansing
Speaker 1: toning and things like that. But you know, you have
Speaker 1: all these creams and tonics and all sorts of things
Speaker 1: these days, and she just used a pretty simple just
Speaker 1: kind of vassoline type night cream that's where only seekers vassline. Yeah,
Speaker 1: asslet sunscreen. Yeah. Wow, it's very impressive because when you
Speaker 1: go to the store today, that is so far from
Speaker 1: all the options that you have. Yeah, it's dizzy ng.
Speaker 1: I have sat in a grocery store aisle well stood
Speaker 1: not but get you get the point for I don't
Speaker 1: know how long Molly tip fifteen twenty minutes looking at
Speaker 1: all of these different skincare things, looking at which one
Speaker 1: is cheaper, which one has the eye anti wrinkle lifting,
Speaker 1: rejuvenation send that I need. And you know what, at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, I usually just leave with
Speaker 1: like some generic cocoa butter or something like that. So
Speaker 1: that's the question is do these things work? I mean,
Speaker 1: like you say, you grow these aisles. There's all these
Speaker 1: different creams all promising you different stuff. They have these
Speaker 1: really scientific sounding ingredients. They sound like they should work.
Speaker 1: If I can't pronounce it, it's got to work right exactly,
Speaker 1: Like it's got all sorts of like scientific sounding pronouns
Speaker 1: like bio anti and that's not really but you know
Speaker 1: that's true. They have a lot of like words kind
Speaker 1: of meant to trick you. And then you've got to
Speaker 1: balance the price. Oh yeah, some of the first thing.
Speaker 1: Does not want to shell out fifty dollars for point
Speaker 1: five ounces of rejuvenation cream. That's even pretty low on
Speaker 1: the spectrum. There are some of these creams not in target,
Speaker 1: but I hear that are hundreds and hundreds of dollars. Well,
Speaker 1: let's take a look at what is actually inside these
Speaker 1: mystical anti agrian creams and get to the bottom of
Speaker 1: this mystery of what they're not. Maybe maybe thrifty Nickel
Speaker 1: needs to start spending some more cash on Okay, let's
Speaker 1: find out cream. First up, let's talk about antioxidants. Pretty
Speaker 1: standard facial ingredient. You might see it as green tea,
Speaker 1: vitamin E. All sorts of antioxidents are in there. And
Speaker 1: what these are gonna do are halt the sun damage
Speaker 1: that is coming into your face. They're gonna fight free
Speaker 1: radicals and prevent new wrinkles from forming because by protecting
Speaker 1: all your existing collagen, they prevent wrinkles. Okay, and next,
Speaker 1: up on common ingredients. We have high a lauronic acid,
Speaker 1: and that sounds scary. Yeah, it sounds really scary, but
Speaker 1: it actually soaks in moisture to plump up your facial tissue,
Speaker 1: so it makes you just I guess it makes your
Speaker 1: skin appears smoother. Yeah, like if you've got a wrinkle,
Speaker 1: it just kind of pops tobacco. Yeah, like a sponge. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: Also on sort of the scary sounding side, we have
Speaker 1: hydroxy acids and I can't remember when they started puting
Speaker 1: hydroxy acids and everything. Alco hydroxy it's a big buzz
Speaker 1: where no, yeah, you always hear about it in the
Speaker 1: in the skincare commercials. All this is, though, is an expoliant. Basically,
Speaker 1: it's just going to wipe off the dead skin and
Speaker 1: you hope that there's some beautiful skin underneath, all right.
Speaker 1: And continuing on, we have peptides. Peptides are thought to
Speaker 1: heal wounds by producing more collagen and molly. As we'll
Speaker 1: talk about in a minute. Collagen is the thing that
Speaker 1: we need to be targeting with this anti aging creams
Speaker 1: because collagen is what makes our skin look useful and glorious,
Speaker 1: and there's a lot of different peptides. Pena peptides and
Speaker 1: copper peptides are two that are pretty commonly thrown around
Speaker 1: these days, but you might see all sorts of peptides
Speaker 1: out there. And like Kristen said, we first learned about
Speaker 1: them because they heal wounds, and the thinking was, well,
Speaker 1: if they heal wounds, they must heal other kinds of
Speaker 1: skin damage, and then coming in last, but certainly not least. Oh, no,
Speaker 1: save the best for last exactly. Retinal. Yes, retinal is
Speaker 1: the over the counter version of retina and basically anything
Speaker 1: with rettin in the word is going to be a
Speaker 1: plus for your skin. It's a dermatologist number one recommendation
Speaker 1: because it does several things. First of all, it's going
Speaker 1: to prevent the things that are already in your skin
Speaker 1: that are breaking down your collagen. It's going to block
Speaker 1: those things so they can't break down your existing collagen.
Speaker 1: But staies of demonstrate that they can also create new collagen.
Speaker 1: And as Kristen promised, we should probably talk about now
Speaker 1: why collagen is just so important to target. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: reason why we get wrinkles in the first place as
Speaker 1: we age is because our bodies will gradually stop producing collagen.
Speaker 1: And this is a protein that keeps our skin firm
Speaker 1: and taught. And so when it breaks down, then you know,
Speaker 1: you get the sagging. And yeah, you get the sag.
Speaker 1: And two major things that are going to accelerate the
Speaker 1: that slow production of collagen is sun exposure, thanks mom,
Speaker 1: and smoking. You make it sound like your mom exposed
Speaker 1: to know. I mean sunscreen, told you were sunscreen. Yes,
Speaker 1: if you're young and you don't think you're ready for
Speaker 1: an anti wrinkle cream, the two things you should do
Speaker 1: our sunscreen and no smoking. Cut out the cigarettes should
Speaker 1: do that anyway. True. So now we know all of
Speaker 1: the ingredients, let's talk about Let's talk about retinal because
Speaker 1: only from your research that you did for an article
Speaker 1: on how stuff works called surprisingly do anti aging creams work?
Speaker 1: What a coincidence? How funny? Um, you found out that
Speaker 1: retinal is there's some good stuff behind retinal. Yeah, there
Speaker 1: was a recent study at the University of Michigan that
Speaker 1: listed the only three things that can have an effect
Speaker 1: on the actual architecture structure of your skin, um carbon
Speaker 1: dioxide laser treatments, which sounds kind of scary, and higher
Speaker 1: lauronic acid injections, not to be confused with the higheralonic
Speaker 1: asset you can just find in a cream. It needs
Speaker 1: to be injected into your face. But the only thing
Speaker 1: you can put on your face to get an effect
Speaker 1: is this topical application of retinal. And if retinal sounds
Speaker 1: familiar to you, uh, if it's ringing a bell, it
Speaker 1: might be because it's been It was used as far
Speaker 1: back as twenty years ago as an acne treatment. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think I was on some sort of retinee formula
Speaker 1: for at some point. And uh, when people started going
Speaker 1: on the retinal they realized that not only was it
Speaker 1: helping with the acne, but it was also helping the
Speaker 1: overall condition of the skin. So in nineteen eight, a
Speaker 1: group of scientists at in Michigan published the first double
Speaker 1: blind study of retine's effect on damaged skin and found
Speaker 1: that all of the thirty patients who completed the sixteen
Speaker 1: weeks study showed statistically significant improvement, including improvements in skin texture,
Speaker 1: diminished wrinkles, and brown spots. All of them, all the
Speaker 1: patients miracle care. Yeah, and you know this is something
Speaker 1: you can buy without a prescription retinal. I would say,
Speaker 1: if you're looking for an ingredient and a skin cream,
Speaker 1: this would be the one to look for. Peptides don't
Speaker 1: have the same research to back them up, but that
Speaker 1: sweems to be the new hot thing. But let's say
Speaker 1: you're in the store you find a cream with retinal.
Speaker 1: I don't think all your problems are solved quite yet, no,
Speaker 1: because you have to be careful about how much you use,
Speaker 1: how often you're using it, and there are some there
Speaker 1: are some side effects that can go along with it
Speaker 1: that might make you toss the retina before it's even
Speaker 1: had a chance to start working. Yeah, here's the problem
Speaker 1: is when you're looking at these labels, they will tell
Speaker 1: you they're active ingredient, but they likely won't tell you
Speaker 1: how much of the active ingredient there is. And especially
Speaker 1: with retina, is Christenas saying, the more you pump it up,
Speaker 1: the more you're at risk for side effects like rashes, irritation, uh,
Speaker 1: sunburn because become very sensitive to the sun. So usually
Speaker 1: cosmetics makers will sort of dial it down so you
Speaker 1: don't have those side effects and you keep buying their product,
Speaker 1: but it may not be enough to actually do anything
Speaker 1: right because they wouldn't want you to buy sholl the
Speaker 1: on their product. You bring it home, it makes you
Speaker 1: break out, you toss it away, and you're not going
Speaker 1: to buy it. And again they want to build brand
Speaker 1: loyalty exactly. UM. So, if you do find a product
Speaker 1: that is pretty concentrated, as you should, sort of use
Speaker 1: it very sparingly at first, give your skin time to
Speaker 1: adjust and whatever cream you buy, if I need about
Speaker 1: eight weeks before you see results. And speaking of the
Speaker 1: skin adjusting to the retinal, let's talk about what's going
Speaker 1: on beneath the surface, what we can't see. If maybe
Speaker 1: we were putting on this retinal on and it's causing
Speaker 1: our skin to break out, Let's talk about what's going
Speaker 1: on in the actual skin cells. Because our skin cells
Speaker 1: contain retinoid receptors that help regulate how these cells function.
Speaker 1: And then as we get older, the cells start to
Speaker 1: function a little more erratically, and the retinoid or retinal
Speaker 1: excuse me helps balance out that cell function, and it
Speaker 1: also causes skin cells to turn over more rapidly, shrinking
Speaker 1: dilated pores, and so we have fewer black heads and
Speaker 1: tighter skin and fewer wrinkles. But did you know that
Speaker 1: anything that at does as much to your face as
Speaker 1: that if it really makes a change in your biology,
Speaker 1: it can't be classified as a cosmetic. And that is
Speaker 1: why anti asian creams are so interesting in terms of
Speaker 1: their labels, because if they actually did really do something
Speaker 1: to your skin, they'd have to be classified as a drug. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So that's why you might not be able to put,
Speaker 1: you know, that much faith in these anti anti wrinkle
Speaker 1: creams because in order for it to be classified as
Speaker 1: a druggle you said that, the FDA would actually have
Speaker 1: to go through and test all of these claims, and
Speaker 1: they haven't done it because it's not a drug, yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's very expensive. Cosmetics companies are going to want
Speaker 1: to avoid these this years of testing and involvement with
Speaker 1: the f d A. And so as a result, when
Speaker 1: you read these promises on the label, they're very carefully
Speaker 1: worded to sound just enticing enough without actually guaranteeing you anything,
Speaker 1: because if they guaranteed something, then the FDA is going
Speaker 1: to get involved. Right. So, next time we are in
Speaker 1: the grocery store aisle, we are looking at those rows
Speaker 1: and rows and rows of skin care products. What should
Speaker 1: we do, Molly? You know, I think that first of all,
Speaker 1: hopefully we already have some sunscreen in our cart because
Speaker 1: we all learned from Christian's mom that sunscreen is one
Speaker 1: of the most important things you can do to preserve
Speaker 1: your skin. But after that, I think that any moisturizer
Speaker 1: is pretty much gonna do the job because a lot
Speaker 1: of these expensive moisturizers, when you boil them right down,
Speaker 1: it's just oil and water. It's the exact same thing
Speaker 1: in every single moisturizer. So you shouldn't feel bad about
Speaker 1: not shelling out the fifty bucks when any moisturizer is
Speaker 1: going to plump up your skin temporarily, right. I think
Speaker 1: it was a dermatologist in one of these articles that
Speaker 1: said that, uh, you could get you know, an eight
Speaker 1: to twelve hour just boost just from a simple moisturizer.
Speaker 1: What you really need to do is pay attention to
Speaker 1: the ingredients exactly. Yeah, and you know because as the
Speaker 1: thrifty Nickel knows, well, if you know you have to
Speaker 1: pay twenty more dollars with same ingredients, that's just that
Speaker 1: just doesn't make sense, does not make sense. And if
Speaker 1: you do feel that you have a very expensive cream
Speaker 1: that is somehow working miracles, a lot of it might
Speaker 1: be psychological. You're paying a lot just to be told like, oh,
Speaker 1: the skin is being plumped up by something that ten
Speaker 1: dollar cream could do. Um, and as soon as you
Speaker 1: stop using those products, your skin will likely return to
Speaker 1: how it was before. Right, it's not easy, simple fix.
Speaker 1: It's gonna last forever and ever because it has to
Speaker 1: be a drug. Right. And of course, if anyone has
Speaker 1: any questions about skincare and all that, you know, go
Speaker 1: to the dermatologists to people are so I think that
Speaker 1: wraps it up. So anti aging creams, you've got written
Speaker 1: all pretty good stuff. Peptides, anti aging potential. Yes, only
Speaker 1: time will tell. And at the end of the day, moisturize, moisturize,
Speaker 1: protect yourself from the sun, and stop smoking. Advice that's
Speaker 1: good for any time. All right, well now now, all
Speaker 1: right now, my shopping trip will maybe be cut from
Speaker 1: twenty minutes in the beauty aisle too, maybe maybe five.
Speaker 1: That is some time saving. We'll see how it goes
Speaker 1: well if you prefer to read your information as opposed
Speaker 1: to listen to us tell it, which hopefully you don't
Speaker 1: because you listen to this far. Uh. There is an
Speaker 1: article on the site do anti Aging Cream's Work. It's
Speaker 1: written by Molly. It is um I I stand hind it.
Speaker 1: So There's also a ton of other information about skincare, sunscreen, etcetera.
Speaker 1: And you can also check out our blog it's called
Speaker 1: how to stuff at how stuff works dot com. If
Speaker 1: you have a question, you can email Kristen Emmy at
Speaker 1: mom stuff at costaff works dot com. For more on
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics. Is that how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. Want more how stuff works, check out
Speaker 1: our blogs on the how stuff works dot com home page.
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