Books > The Mind-Beauty Connection > Antiaging Products: What Really Works

American women drop nearly $2 billion on antiaging creams and potions. Are they worth it? Dr. Amy Wechsler, author of The Mind-Beauty Connection, has the answer.

In 2005, American women dropped a cool $664 million on antiaging creams and potions, and that was just in department stores. Today, that figure has jumped to nearly $2 billion. We're shelling out big bucks for ingredients like oil from the seeds of hand-harvested arctic cranberries and Koishimaru silk extracted from delicate cocoons. And if you add cosmetics in general that we buy to spruce up our natural looks (or cover up those blemishes and uneven skin tones) then the number skyrockets well into the billions.

Maddeningly, much of that money is being spent on products that have little effect on skin's aging process, because to halt the march of fine lines, sag, and pigmentation changes, you have to change skin's deeper layers. And if any of the bazillion department and drugstore products that claim to erase age's trademarks could actually do that — say, by increasing cell turnover in the dermis — the FDA would classify them as drugs. A few do exist, but you can only buy them with a doctor's prescription.

Why are so many cosmetic claims so convincing? Five reasons:

• Clever writing. Read the claims carefully and you'll realize they're full of qualifying words like "aim to" and "designed to diminish" and "reduce the appearance of" and… well, you get the idea. These promises are etched in anything but stone.
• Scientific trappings. Even if a product says, "clinically shown to…" remember that it's one thing to research how a component of coffee, such as caffeine, say, affects mouse skin, and quite another to claim that adding coffee to a lotion will perk up human skin. Also, little cosmetic research meets the scientific gold standard — that is, a randomized, double-blind crossover study, performed by a qualified researcher (who is usually affiliated with a university or teaching hospital) with no financial stake in the outcome. The studies are usually very small, typically lack a control for comparison, and are paid for by cosmetics companies, which have a vested interest in the results.
• The placebo effect. If you've just plunked down $27.50, or $275, for a moisturizer, you want it to make your skin look younger, smoother, firmer, so it's easy to see changes for the better. And let's not forget the psychological aspect of buying something luxuriously packaged. The packaging alone can lead you to believe it will work! Savvy beauty companies don't skimp on presentation, especially when they command mucho dinero for their goods.
• No cops. Cosmetics aren't regulated by the FDA, so if a product doesn't diminish fine lines, well, nothing really happens. And if you're not sure it did anything unusual, but it smelled wonderful and felt terrific, you might buy it again anyway.
• Vague promises. How many times have you seen a product marketed with the phrase "Clinically proven to reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles by up to 33 percent," or some such? Have you ever asked yourself, what does that mean, exactly? You don't live in a clinical setting, so does that percentage work in the real world? The term clinically proven sounds persuasive, but as we just saw under "scientific trappings," it's often more marketing than science. Generally, the phrase means that at least one component of the product has been shown, in one study or another, to have had some biological actions, such as helping wounds heal faster by stimulating cell division. But it's not necessarily true that it has been demonstrated by a well-controlled, independent clinical study to have significant effects in skin.