Instant Miracle Anti-wrinkle Creams - Do They Really Exist?

What do we actually want from an anti-ageing product? I for my part would certainly want my anti-ageing skincare to help regenerate my skin and boost collagen and elastin production to have long-lasting benefits.

But you see - true changes in skin biology (such as an increase of collagen and elastin production with improved skin elasticity and firmness) do take time - typically at least 4-12 weeks. It’s impossible for a skincare ingredient to induce true biological changes such as the ones I mentioned in a few minutes or even seconds, something we are made to believe when watching those YouTube videos with miraculously disappearing wrinkles.

Any immediately visible effects are pure visual effects for that moment, not changes in skin biology with an increase in collagen production or anything like that.

So what is causing those instantly visible ‘effects’?

I suspect what might be responsible for the demonstrated immediate miracle ‘effect' is that one or several of the ingredients (maybe the silicone derivatives also present in this product) form an invisible film on the skin surface. When drying, this transparent film might retract and shrink, thus making the skin APPEAR tighter - nothing more and nothing less. This is in my opinion a purely temporary effect and I don’t think it’s even the Argireline causing this.

Anyway, no worries there, as this was of course a very temporary effect. Once I had applied my make-up and was ready to leave the house, the effect had already worn off, so much so that during the day I couldn’t see any beneficial effect on eye bag and line reduction under my eyes any longer.

A very interesting self-experiment indeed!
 
So what’s my conclusion?

Well, Argireline itself is a good anti-ageing ingredient in itself and has been shown to have some beneficial anti-ageing effects (albeit at a much, much, much longer time scale and much more subtle, nothing to do with the immediate strong ‘tightening' we can see in the videos).

How Argireline (really) works is the following: it is said to interact with the neuro-muscular junction (the junction between the nerve and the muscle) and subtly inhibit neurotransmitter release here. With that it is said to reduce the activity of tiny muscles in the skin, thus reducing micro-movements in the skin.

On paper, this mechanism of action is similar to that of injected botulinum toxin (i.e. Botox® or Bocouture®). However, of course, Argireline in topical form does not have anywhere near as strong an effect compared to injected botulinum toxin. And in fact, I have never in my entire career experienced any effect as remotely dramatic with injected Botox or Bocouture as the supposed ’tightening' I saw under my eyes after applying the Argireline serum. Also, if this topical serum would really inhibit facial muscles to such a strong degree as it makes us believe, I would certainly expect it to be prescription only. In any case, I saw that the effect was very short-lived.

So my verdict: short-lived shrinkage of some transparent film on the skin surface, but no true changes in skin firmness and elasticity. Too good to be true? YES!