Wrinkles Round The Eyes: Do Expensive Creams Really Help?

Should You Buy A Good Anti-Wrinkle Cream?

Are you concerned by the development of eye wrinkles? Perhaps you've seen a few advertisements on TV for creams that promise to significantly diminish their development or appearance, and you're wondering if they'd be worth the investment. (How much would you be investing? Well, beauty doesn't come cheap!)

Do expensive night-creams and eye area creams really work? Are they worth the money? Can their claims be backed up with research data? Well, there have certainly been some naughty ads for beauty products out there. A few have had their knuckles rapped by advertising authorities for making misleading claims, one for claiming visible improvement with a night cream without data to back it up.1

A study by Loden et al, comparing effects of an anti-wrinkle cream with those from a regular moisturiser, produced some interesting results. Test subjects used either an expensive nightcream from Chanel, or a regular moisturiser. However some used the anti-wrinkle cream in its regular jar while others were provided with it in a plain no-frills jar. The ordinary moisturiser was provided in an expensive 'luxury product' jar. Thus the expectations of the test subjects as to what product they were using could be tested for their effects on the results perceived.

The interesting result was that the plain moisturiser in the fancy jar was perceived on at least one parameter (luxuriousness) as being superior to the fancy expensive cream! Also, clinical and lab results demonstrated no significantly different results for skin quality after six weeks with either the expensive anti-wrinkle cream or the cheap moisturiser. Do you really want to shell out a whole lot of dosh on fancy eye-area creams with inflated prices that promise you the world?1

Are You 'Worth It'?

Certainly some anti-wrinkle eye-creams have hilarious advertising campaigns: I surely can't be the only person for whom the term 'boswellox' has become a synonym for, well, an old Anglo-Saxon term that's shorthand for 'fiddlesticks'...

So are you just as well off with a cheap moisturiser and hanging on to your moolah instead of spending it on expensive nightcreams? The above study certainly seems to suggest so – although it's only one study, after all. But it's also possible that the placebo effect of using expensive, highly researched products is about more than just the effect on wrinkles around your eyes. Why do people continue to buy these products? Maybe it's because they feel that they're 'worth it', and the boost that a purchase gives to their expectations, confidence and self-esteem makes that little pot of magic worth it to them. And it's certainly a lot less scary than laser wrinkle removal or fillers for wrinkles!

References:

1. Loden, M., Buraczewska, I, Halvarsson, K. "Facial anti-wrinkle cream: influence of product presentation on effectiveness: a randomized and controlled study." Skin Research and Technology. 13 (2007): pp. 189-194.