Wrinkles in the facial skin have various causes. They are part of the natural aging process, as skin cells lose fat content, elastin and collagen, over exposure to the sun over a period of time, and repetitive facial gestures, such as squinting or pursing the lips in the case of smoking. In addition, the skin cells lose their ability to retain moisture, as the fat contents become depleted, causing once plump cells, to take on the look of shriveled, dead skin cells and the underlying facial muscles to lay in a position they have been trained over time. This is where the smile lines, frown lines, eyebrow and forehead lines and crow’s feet lines start forming.
The objective of anti aging creams is to keep the lines and wrinkles from appearing in the first place. In the case of anti-wrinkle creams, the aim is to try to retain the skin cells. To keep their moisture and skin muscles to relax the positions they have formed that eventually cause certain skin wrinkles. Like smile lines and crow’s feet lines. There are ways of ‘rebuilding the skin structure’ or ‘remodeling skin cells’, that you may have heard about. It usually involves the use of peptides, a wound healing process like that used on burn victims, where the skin is remodeled to restart new skin growth.
Peptides is often used with facial and skin muscle regrowth or retraining a sort of muscle relaxer. Peptides work on a deeper level than topical cream solutions. Argireline is the trade name for Acetyl Hexapeptide-3, which is a peptide. It is also a synthetic anti-aging chemical created from natural proteins, that can be used to stimulate muscle relaxation as well as reflex reactions. It’s a way to treat the underlying cause of a wrinkles that show up in a certain position over time.
Argireline has been found to be very successful in reducing the muscle reactions over a period of time, with a small improvement over a 4 week period, and twice as good again over week usage. As with any anti-aging cream or anti-wrinkle creams treatment, when you stop using it the wrinkles will come back again.
Argireline, by the nature of it’s treatment of the underlying muscles versus treatment of the surface skin cells, make it much like a topical form of what Botox, by injection to the muscles does. The relaxation of the facial muscle contractions is a temporary solution, even with Botox. Manufacturers of Argireline use less than a 10% ingredient composure, as a higher concentration could have adverse effects, by relaxing the facial muscles too much and resulting in sagging. While Argireline has not been on the market long enough to measure long-term effects, it appears safe and effective as an ingredient in topical anti aging creams and anti wrinkle creams, and is available in many formulations on the market.
