Friday, October 24, 2008

How Does Argireline Work in Anti Aging Creams?

By Julie Samtsonn

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.

Facial and skin muscle regrowth or retrain uses peptides like a muscle relaxer. Peptides will work on a deeper level than topical cream treatments. Argireline is the trade name for the ingredient 'Acetyl Hexapeptides-3' which is a synthetic anti aging chemical that is made from natural proteins that make a chain of amino acids. This chain of amino acids can then be used to stimulate things like muscle relaxation as well as reflex reaction, both of which can be a cause of wrinkles.

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.

The nature of argireline's treatment process (treating the underlying muscles rather than the skin cells on the surface) makes it like a topical form of Botox. It may relax facial muscle contractions but this is only temporary (as it is with Botox). The makers of Argireline use slightly less than 10% ingredient composure to avoid side effects on consumers (the side effects include over relaxation of facial muscles causing sagging). Argireline has been on the market for some time now, but not long enough to accurately measure long-term effects, for now, Argireline appears safe an very effective as a topical anti aging or anti wrinkle cream. There are many formulations available today. - 15252

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