I
’ve been researching the science of skin care and deciphering its complex facts for people all over the world for years. Wherever I go there is endless confusion about what skin needs and what skin-care products can and cannot do. As many of you know, this isn’t surprising given the never-ending lunatic claims the cosmetic industry comes up with.

Without question, skin care is complex, and cutting through the hype is still a challenge! This is why I love The Dr. Oz Show.

The show’s entire premise is to only present information that can be supported by research. Their producers are eager to know the facts. I’ve done the show four times this year, and am always flattered to be asked to come back. Despite the show’s no-hype format, there just isn’t time in my four-minute segment for me to explain even a fragment of what is needed to understand a particular skin-care issue.

After the airing of a recent Dr. Oz segment I was on (Did That? Try This! For Your Aging Skin!), a woman wrote to us wondering why I suggested serums weren’t necessary, given I have three serums as part of my Paula’s Choice line. Now I know I didn’t say serums were superfluous. It was clear to me she misunderstood my point.

On the show, I was trying to explain to a woman with oily skin why using five different moisturizers every night as part of her skin-care routine was a serious problem. This woman was assuming she needed a moisturizer, anti-wrinkle cream, serum, firming lotion, and a treatment gel of some kind. What I knew for sure is that she didn’t need to use a serum, lotion, cream, gel, and moisturizer all at the same time!

What got lost was my message that serums or any other texture of moisturizer/anti-wrinkle product, when well formulated, can be a brilliant way to take care of skin. The prerequisite: It must be formulated for your skin type and skin-care concerns.

I really wanted to help this woman narrow down the number of products she was using and to only use ones targeted for her skin type, regardless of the name on the label. That might include a serum, but it would completely depend on the product’s formulation and the other products she was using. How could I get that across in four minutes knowing that there were two other women I needed to help as well on the same segment?

There is much more that I would have added, but it’s not The Paula Begoun Show, it’s The Dr. Oz Show. Here’s what I would’ve said if given more time:

• Packaging is as important as the product! Jar packaging exposes the air-sensitive ingredients in a product to light and oxygen, which causes sensitive ingredients to deteriorate after opening. Plus, it isn’t sanitary to dip your finger into a skin-care product.
• There is no single ingredient more important than another. Vitamin C or some exotic plant from a remote part of the world isn’t going to reverse the aging process or get rid of your wrinkles. Applying a product that only contains vitamin C is like eating only oranges; it’s a healthy addition to your diet, but you can’t live off them! You need a variety of antioxidants and nutrients for optimum health. Skin, as our body’s largest organ, isn’t any different.
• Fighting wrinkles involves an AHA or BHA exfoliant, products that are loaded with antioxidants, ingredients that help skin produce normal cells, and skin-repairing ingredients. But most importantly, you need a sunscreen 365 days a year. The best anti-aging products on the market are useless when you aren’t protecting your skin from UV exposure.
• Fighting oily skin requires gentle, non-irritating products so you don’t stimulate more oil production.
• Someone with oily skin should only be using products with a gel, liquid, or extremely lightweight serum or lotion base.
• For oily skin, it helps to use a mattifying product during the day.
• Age is not a skin type! What works for oily or dry skin at 30 will work at 50 or 60. “Mature skin” is a marketing buzzword, nothing more.
• Ignore the claims! It is the rare skin-care product that doesn’t have misleading information on its label.

Skin care is complicated, and there is (and always will be) a lot of misinformation, half-truths, and blatant lies to sell women products that can’t live up to their promises. Explaining how to really keep skin younger and healthier longer, how to reduce acne, fight wrinkles, heal dry skin, and on and on is far beyond what can be stated in a few minutes on a talk show. Dr. Oz is doing his best, but there is just so much time in an hour to talk about your liver, kidney, heart, knees, and skin!

Paula and I get lots of requests to review the glut of lash growth products being sold. We’ve covered the big ones, but there was one we hadn’t reviewed until recently: RapidLash. After analyzing the formula and scouring published research to serve as the basis for our review, we came to the following conclusion: RapidLash doesn’t work as claimed.

I am sure many women were disappointed, as they really wanted to believe this was a slam-dunk alternative to prescription lash-growth product Latisse (which really does work and, unlike RapidLash, is supported by published studies confirming its efficacy). After all, RapidLash is widely available (I’m surprised I haven’t seen it sold at my local Safeway, right there in the checkout aisle) and, at $49.95 per tube, is a relative bargain compared to Latisse.

Even though we couldn’t find any ingredient in RapidLash that is proven to grow longer, thicker, darker lashes (and eyebrows), the number of online comments from women who use this product were too great to ignore. In fact, I mentioned this in our review: “What I can’t account for is the number of women who’ve tried RapidLash and swear that it worked for them. You can find pages and pages of positive reviews for this product, not to mention a legion of fans on Facebook, and endless mentions in fashion magazines.” Even though we presented this perspective, it hasn’t stopped several women from writing to us, describing our assessment of RapidLash as unfair, one-sided, or just plain wrong.

Sigh. I admit, to some extent, I expected a bit of a backlash. After all, if RapidLash works for you you’ll know it: the results are staring back at you with each glance in the mirror. It could be (and probably is) a placebo effect, something that often happens in the cosmetic industry, but that doesn’t change the emotional personal experience. However, there may be another reason we hadn’t considered before. Given that RapidLash doesn’t contain anything proven to grow longer, thicker lashes, perhaps the company that makes it (International Research Laboratories) is using something in their product without revealing to consumers what it is. We have no proof that this is true—it’s merely speculation on our part—but it would explain why women are seeing results if it isn’t just a placebo effect.

Arkansas plastic surgeon Dr. Ramona Bates also thinks something may be amiss with RapidLash. Why? As she reports on emaxhealth.com, there have been concerns from consumers over irritation along the lash line and pigmentation changes to the eye from RapidLash, two potential side effects for the prescription eyelash growth product Latisse. We know Latisse’s active ingredient and how it functions. We also know its potential side effects, which include what some users of RapidLash have reported. Whether or not there’s a legitimate connection has yet to (and may never) be confirmed. If it were me, and I have used lash growth products in the past, I’d go for the one with research behind its formula, not to mention up front information about safety concerns and known side effects. That means Latisse, even though it’s more expensive and requires a prescription. When it comes to the health and safety of your eyes, why wouldn’t you go with what’s been proven safe and effective rather than a similar product awash in the art of cosmetic claims?

Estee Lauder has a new anti-wrinkle product (I know, what a shock; add this to the other 300 anti-wrinkle products they sell from their various lines). Perfectionist [CP+] Targeted Deep Wrinkle Filler ($39.50 for 1 ounce) is said to be a “powerful daily treatment for your deepest wrinkles”. It’s designed to be used on lines around the eye, creases in the forehead, furrows between the brow—anywhere you have lines that don’t go away when your face is expressionless.

This type of product isn’t anything new. Estee Lauder’s defunct Prescriptives brand offered a version of this product years ago in their Magic line, Lancome had their Touche Optimage Line Blurring Concentrate, and Lauder-owned Good Skin (sold at Kohl’s department stores) sells TriAktiline Instant Deep Wrinkle Filler. All of these are silicone-based serum-like products that serve as a soft spackle for wrinkles and large pores. You pat the product into and over creases, and they have a superficial, temporary filling effect. How long results last depend on the formula and, more critically, how expressive you are. And of course, none of these products have even a fractional ability to work like Botox or dermal fillers, but that’s another story.

We’re about to review this new Perfectionist product on Beautypedia, and although we don’t typically try products before we review them (we prefer to focus on the ingredient list, product claims, and research rather than personal experience which doesn’t help thousands of women know what really works) I decided to give this a go. At age 36, I have some minor lines around my eyes and wanted to see how Perfectionist would work to “push up” my wrinkles, as the copy on the packaging reads.

I followed the directions provided and dispensed a small amount of this wrinkle filler into my lines, gently patting to smooth the excess. This filler has a texture that is very much like spackle, so I instantly felt like I was doing some serious patchwork under the bright lights of my bathroom. Perfectionist feels supremely silky and sets quickly to a soft, powder-like matte finish laced with subtle sparkles, which I didn’t care for. The filling effect was impressive. It really did a good job of smoothing superficial lines—definitely better than my usual moisturizer.

Here’s the part where things started to go downhill. I reasoned that most women using this product are likely to apply it before makeup. After all, why bother with the cosmetic effect of filling lines right before going to sleep? You want your lines to be less apparent during the day, right? So once Perfectionist had set, I pulled out a Lauder foundation and applied it around the eyes. Imagine my surprise when the makeup looked TERRIBLE over the area where Perfectionist was applied. Lauder’s liquid foundation looked patchy and, as the day went by the skin around my eyes looked cracked and crepy—Perfectionist + foundation actually made me look older! How depressing is that?

Back at the office, I tried several other foundations over the Perfectionist Wrinkle Filler. Any liquid or cream-to-powder foundation with any type of silicone in it didn’t look good. In fact, the combination made wrinkles and even minor lines more apparent. When I applied a silicone-free foundation (Laura Mercier’s Oil-Free) over Perfectionist, the result was great. This combination kept the lines filled while actually allowing the foundation to look better than it does when used alone. The problem is that the majority of foundations, concealers, and most tinted moisturizers sold today contain one or more forms of silicone. You shouldn’t have to give up your favorite foundation or concealer in order to experience the benefits (however temporary) Perfectionist offers.

Oddly enough, the aforementioned TriAktiline Instant Deep Wrinkle Filler from Lauder-owned Good Skin works beautifully with foundations and concealers that contain silicone.

One more comment: Lauder isn’t known for offering fragrance-free skin-care products, and Perfectionist is no exception. After a few days of applying this product around my eyes, I experienced stinging and tenderness on my skin and in my eyes. Both issues went away as soon as I stopped using this product, which has a much stronger scent than what anyone should be applying so close to their eyes (and what woman who purchases this product to fill wrinkles isn’t going to try it around her eyes?)