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.
In the case of facial and skin muscle regrowth or retraining, peptides have been used, as a sort of muscle relaxer, as peptides tend work on a deeper level than some topical cream treatments. Argireline is a trade name for Acetyl Hexapeptide-3, which as the name implies is a peptide, a synthetic anti aging chemical derived from natural proteins, making a chain of amino acids, which can be used to stimulate muscle relaxation and reflex reactions, that can be the underlying cause of a wrinkle appearing in a certain position over time.
Argireline is very successful at reducing muscle relaxations over time. Improvement begin at the 4 weeks period, with the effect double over 27 weeks. However, just like all other anti wrinkle cream and anti aging creams, once you stop using the product the wrinkle begin to reappear 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.
