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Consumer Reports Skin Care Study

What Consumer Reports Really Said About Skin Care Products

Consumer Reports Slams Anti-Aging Skin Care Creams

Not really.

I read the original January 2007 CR Report and thought, “OK, that all makes sense.”

Then I started seeing the reports on the CR report.

One headline blared, “Most Wrinkle Creams Don’t Work … Consumer Reports Says”. Another said, “Ingredients Didn’t Matter” according to CR. I won’t rehash the whole study here but just want to make some observations.

CR selected nine well-known skincare products that make anti-aging claims in their ads.

Each product was tested for 12 weeks by 17 to 23 fair-skinned women between the ages of 30 and 70.

The women were told to apply the test product on one side of the face and a control moisturizer with sun protection but no anti-aging ingredients on the other side.

CR found that “even the best performers reduced the average depth of wrinkles by less than 10%.” Granted 10% is not much, but consider that this improvement occurred while the women actually aged 12 weeks.

That is true age-reversal.

Also consider that the number of products studied was small. CR selected “a sample of top-selling mass-market lines.”

I am much more interested in some of the newer products which include multiple anti-aging ingredients, like LiftFusion, Peter Thomas Roth and Xeridian.

That segues nicely into the comment that “Ingredients Didn’t Matter”, which I’ll address next.

Consumer Reports Says “Ingredients Didn’t Matter

Again I say, “Not really.” This was just one reporter’s interpretation.

What Consumer Reports (CR) actually said was, “We found no relationship between the types of active ingredients in the products and their overall performance.”

CR offered that “Our consultants say it’s possible that the supposedly inactive ingredients in products can affect the performance and absorption of the active ingredients.”

That may certainly be part of the explanation. Certain ingredients are known to work synergistically.

However, a more obvious explanation jumps out at me. If one believes that ingredients do matter, then the concentration of the active ingredient and the frequency of application are paramount.

CR’s top-rated anti-wrinkle line was Olay. CR’s #7-ranked product was StriVectin-SD.

Both companies include high concentrations of Palmitoyl Pentatpeptide-4 (PP-4) as the main active anti-aging ingredient in the skin care products tested by CR.

So how did Olay come out as #1 and StriVectin as #7?

I can think of two reasons.

First, CR downgraded StriVectin because of its higher cost. If you look at the symbols in CR’s results table, you’ll see that StriVectin performed as well as the #4 pick, Neutrogena Visibly Firm Night Cream, with respect to its anti-wrinkle and moisturizing effects.

In addition, StriVectin performed better with respect to tolerance.

Clearly then, the variable which pulled StriVectin down in CR’s estimation, was the only remaining one – price.

The second reason I suspect that StriVectin fell so far below Olay (which has the same active ingredient) is that the Olay line which CR tested includes three products: a day cream, a night cream and a day and night serum.

So the Olay users were applying the PP-4 four times a day. The StriVectin users were only getting two doses of PP-4 a day.

Consumer Reports: the RoC Wrinkle Cream Anomaly

If you read CR article, “Wrinkle Creams: Selling Hope in a Jar” and found it odd that two RoC products were rated third best (#3) and dead last (#9) – so did I.

I was curious enough to look up the ingredients and I concluded once again that ingredients do matter.

The #3 ranked anti-wrinkle product was RoC Retin-Ox+ which contains a high concentration of Glycolic Acid. It scored better than average with respect to its anti-wrinkle and moisturizing effects; but was less-well tolerated than average by the test subjects.

Glycolic Acid is a fairly strong non-prescription exfoliant. On more sensitive skin, it is known to cause redness, scaling and flaking.

RoC Retinol Correxion Deep Wrinkle ranked #9 because its anti-wrinkle performance was worse than average. On the other hand, it was better tolerated and did not cause any irritation in the test subjects. Both of these results can be explained by its ingredients.

It was well-tolerated because it contains no harsh exfoliants such as Glycolic Acid.

As for its wrinkle-reducing power, it contains Active Copper (as Copper Gluconate) which is a highly effective topical collagen stimulant yet scored worse than average because the Active Copper seems almost an afterthought (fourth from the bottom of the ingredient list).

The Why and Wherefore of Consumer Reports’ Skin Care Product Report

After parsing through the CR article as I wrote this, I am more convinced than ever that ingredients do matter.

Remember that CR also considers price/value in its ranking. Keeping that in mind, I can go down the list and pretty much tell why each product ranked as it did just from reading the ingredient lists.

Olay Regenerist (3 products) ranked first because it requires four applications of Palmitoyl Pentatpeptide-4 (PP-4) a day. PP-4 is believed to stimulate the production of new collagen.

Lancôme Rénergie ranked second with the highest rating for moisturization and better than average scores for tolerance and anti-wrinkling, despite it high cost of $176.

This is the only ranking that really puzzles me. CR didn’t appear to downgrade Lancôme for price and I can’t see any ingredients that would have a cumulative anti-wrinkle effect.

Lancôme Rénergie doesn’t even contain any of today’s most powerful moisturizers. What it does contain is Caffeine which temporarily tightens the skin and Cyclopentasiloxane which is a form of silicone.

Cyclopentasiloxane has a silky feel and is non-irritating. It is not absorbed through the skin and therefore can have no real anti-aging effect.

RoC Retin-Ox+ ranked third due to the exfoliating power of Glycolic Acid, in spite of the irritation it caused on some test subjects’ skin. Exfoliation clears away dull dead skin cells and stimulates the body to produce new skin.

Neutrogena Visibly Firm ranked #4 because it contains Active Copper which also stimulates collagen production. Active Copper has been used for burn treatment for decades and is especially good for uneven dry patches and thinning skin.

Avon Alternative (#5) has a high concentration of Glycolic Acid and a fair concentration of Palmitoyl Tetrapeptide-7 (PP-7).

L’Oreal Dermo-Expertise Wrinkle De-Crease (#6) has no real age-reversing ingredients but does contain Glycerin which gives it a very silky feel.

StriVectin-SD (#7) contains a high concentration of Palmitoyl Tetrapeptide-7 (PT-7) as well as PP-4 as the main active anti-aging ingredients. PT-7 is believed to stop glycation damage (stiffening and thinning of the skin's collagen fibers). As I mentioned previously, I believe CR downgraded StriVectin due to its cost, despite the fact that it performed better than #4-ranked Neutrogena.

La Prairie Cellular (#8) and RoC Retinol Correxion Deep Wrinkle (9) contain pretty run-of-the-mill ingredients. When I pay this much (La Prairie $115) for an anti-wrinkle cream, I definitely want something special.

My Last Word (Promise!) on Consumer Reports’ Skin Care Product Report

When I started this article, I said “I am much more interested in some of the newer products which include multiple anti-aging ingredients, like LiftFusion, Peter Thomas Roth and Xeridian” than the “sample of top-selling mass-market lines” which Consumer Reports (CR) selected for its anti-wrinkle cream study.

For me, ingredients not only matter, but are the most important consideration when selecting an anti-wrinkle product. Not only that, but I want multiple effective ingredients in each product. The fact that various companies are beginning to provide just such products is very encouraging.

I’m not alone in my thinking. Reuters interviewed Dr. Tina Alster, a dermatologic laser surgeon from Georgetown University Medical Centre in Washington, DC, and a member of the American Academy of Dermatologists, regarding the CR report conclusions.

In her opinion, it is overly simplistic to conclude from such a limited study that these products did not work.

"People would love to believe that cheap products are the same as the more expensive ones, and I may pooh-pooh someone paying $500 for a cream, but I do see the value of some of the luxury brands which are science-based. [The report] is a cautionary tale that people should be looking at the ingredients rather than just at the packaging."

Finally, Dr. Susan Weinkle, a dermatologist at the University of South Florida and a spokesperson for the American Academy of Dermatology, takes issue with the CR conclusions as well.

She says that the active ingredient in a wrinkle cream is the most important factor in how and whether it works.

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This article is for informational purposes only. It does not purport to offer medical advice.

 

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