Anti-ageing products: the bare facts

Do you look in the mirror each morning and frown at your wrinkles? If so you're not alone. In 2002 we spent £652 million on anti-ageing products and 72,000 cosmetic surgery procedures were carried out.

But who can blame us? With airbrushed models at every turn, it's not hard to see why our laughter lines are, ironically, causing us untold misery.

Whereas a wrinkle or two on a man 'adds character', on a woman they represent a slippery slope to old age. So is there anything we can do to stop them appearing in the first place?

'While genetic factors play some part in the overall ageing process, lifestyle has a much greater impact,' said dermatologist Dr Nicholas Lowe at a recent conference of the Royal Society of Medicine. 'About 30 per cent of facial ageing is genetic, but a lot of the rest is repetitive sunlight, smoke and other hazardous things we expose ourselves to.'

So what about the creams? Are we wasting our money or can they really do anything to repair the damage?

Well, the ingredients found within many anti-ageing products do have proven effects on the skin.

• Vitamin A can help diminish the depth of wrinkles, thanks to its light inflammatory action which 'puffs up' the skin to make wrinkles look less deep.
• Vitamin C has a brightening effect as it can help to boost circulation and collagen production.
• Alpha-hydroxy acids (AHAs or 'fruit acids') improve the skin's appearance by speeding up the shedding of old, dead cells from the skin surface.
• Retinoids are chemicals that make the skin produce new cells more quickly, making it thicker and more compact. After a month or two of use, the skin becomes smoother and fine wrinkles are reduced, but after six months it will be as good as it's going to get. If you discontinue use, the skin reverts to its previous condition. Has no effect on noticeable deep lines or thread veins.

Which? magazine decided to put anti-ageing creams to the test. It selected 12 ordinary moisturisers and 12 anti-ageing creams. Groups of four women tested each product for four weeks. None of the 96 women knew which product they were using and at the end of the trial they were asked to guess whether they'd been using a moisturiser or an anti-ageing cream. Read the results on the next page.