Retinol: The Potent Cellular Communicator
A derivative of Vitamin A (from the retinoid family), Retinol is renowned for its ability to signal skin cells.
- Mechanism of Action:
- Cell Turnover acceleration and promotion of dead skin cells sheading
- Collagen & Elastin Synthesis stimulation
- Key Benefits in Skin:
- Anti-Aging: Significantly reduces the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles, improves skin firmness and elasticity.
- Anti-imperfections: Exfoliates the skin, prevents pore clogging, reduces inflammation, and normalizes sebum production.
- Considerations: Retinol's significant efficacy often comes with potential for initial irritation, redness, dryness, and peeling ("retinization") as the skin adapts. It also increases skin sensitivity to UV radiation, necessitating consistent use of broad-spectrum sunscreen. Furthermore, it's highly susceptible to degradation by light and air, requiring appropriate packaging.
Retinol's strength lies in accelerating cell turnover and powerfully stimulating collagen synthesis, primarily affecting epidermal renewal and contributing to dermal remodeling.
Hyaluronic Acid (HA): The Exceptional Hydrator
A naturally occurring glycosaminoglycan (GAG), Hyaluronic Acid is found in the skin's extracellular matrix.
- Mechanism of Action:
- Humectant Properties: famous for its exceptional ability to attract and hold large amounts of water—up to 1,000 times its weight.
- Helps to reinforce the skin's natural barrier function by keeping the stratum corneum adequately hydrated, thereby reducing trans-epidermal water loss (TEWL).
- Key Benefits in Skin:
- Intense Hydration: Provides immediate and long-lasting moisturization, making the skin feel soft and supple. This also favors wound healing.
- Plumping Effect, improved suppleness: By drawing water into the skin and forming a film on the surface, it helps to visibly plump up fine lines and wrinkles, as well as enhance the skin’s ability to stretch and recoil.
- Considerations: HA is available in various molecular weights. High molecular weight HA forms a film on the surface, while low molecular weight HA can penetrate deeper for more profound hydration.
Hyaluronic Acid primarily functions as a superficial and deep hydrator. Its strength lies in its exceptional humectant properties, drawing and retaining water to visibly plump and moisturize the epidermis and upper dermis. It provides immediate cosmetic benefits related to hydration and superficial fine lines.
Niacinamide (Vitamin B3): The Multifaceted Cellular Optimizer
A form of Vitamin B3 (nicotinamide), a water-soluble vitamin vital for skin health.
- Mechanism of Action (depending on concentration):
- Antioxidant (free radicals neutralization)
- Boosts the synthesis of ceramides and other intercellular lipids, strengthening the skin barrier and reducing TEWL.
- Can help to normalize sebum production, beneficial for oily and acne-prone skin.
- Anti-inflammatory properties
- Interferes with melanosome transfer.
- Key Benefits in Skin:
- Improved Skin Barrier Function: Leads to better hydrated, more resilient skin.
- Reduced Redness: Calms sensitive and irritated skin.
- Oil control and Pore Appearance: Sebum regulating properties.
- Even Skin Tone: Reduces dark spots and overall hyperpigmentation.
- Considerations: Niacinamide is generally well-tolerated across various skin types, including sensitive skin, with minimal side effects.
Niacinamide's prowess comes from its multi-faceted role: impacting barrier function, reducing inflammation, regulating sebum, and mitigating hyperpigmentation. Its action is largely focused on epidermal health and cellular metabolism.
Pro-Xylane™: The Architect of Youth, Rebuilding Your Skin from Within
Here's where Pro-Xylane™— protected by 66 patents and boasting more than 25 years of research —differentiates itself. Unlike actives that primarily work on one or two layers or focus on specific functions, Pro-Xylane™ offers a comprehensive, foundational approach to skin repair and aging. It truly rebuilds and strengthens the skin from within.
What’s the highest Pro-Xylane™ concentration you can get in a cream?
The Pro-Xylane™ Difference: A Three-Layer Structural Approach
- Epidermal Benefits: Beyond Surface Renewal
While Retinol directly stimulates keratinocyte turnover, Pro-Xylane™ boosts keratinocyte migration and epidermal maturation. Its profound impact on the underlying dermis and DEJ translates into significant epidermal benefits by: - Enhancing Hydration: By boosting dermal GAGs, it creates a more hydrated internal environment far more fundamentally than external HA application alone.
- Epidermal strength: favors epidermal wound closure and the creation of a strong barrier function.
- Dermal-Epidermal Junction (DEJ) Reinforcement: The Skin's Anchor
The DEJ is the crucial, often overlooked interface connecting the dermis and epidermis. Pro-Xylane™ excels here by stimulating the synthesis of specific collagens (e.g., Type IV, VII) and laminins. This reinforcement: - Ensures Better Cell-to-Cell Communication and Nutrient Flow: Unlike other actives that may indirectly support the DEJ, Pro-Xylane™ directly fortifies this vital connection, leading to a firmer, more resilient skin structure
- Dermal Action (Deepest Impact): Core Structural Rebuilding
Pro-Xylane™'s most profound action is within the dermis, the skin's core structural layer. It acts as a potent stimulator of: - Glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) Synthesis: Crucial for the dermis's ability to retain water, providing volume, resilience, and resistance to compression. This is a skin's own production of these vital hydrating and plumping molecules, going beyond superficial HA application.
- Collagen Synthesis: It actively promotes the formation of new, high-quality collagen fibers, the primary determinants of skin firmness and tensile strength. This is a direct rebuilding action, essential for reducing sagging and improving density, far more comprehensively than the general collagen boost from Retinol.
- Elastin Network Support: While less direct than collagen, by improving overall dermal health and structure, it contributes to the functionality and integrity of the elastin network, which is critical for skin elasticity.
The Outcome: Outstanding repair and anti-aging
Pro-Xylane™ promotes the skin's intrinsic ability to produce its own GAGs and collagen (13 out of the 14 found in skin). It actively rebuilds a mature epidermis and reinforces the fundamental support system of the skin (dermis and DEJ), rather than just delivering a hydrator (HA), enhancing barrier function (Niacinamide), or stimulating surface renewal or some collagens (Retinol).
This directly translates to visible improvements in firmness, density, and lifting that the other actives support but do not primarily orchestrate at such a foundational level.
This makes Pro-Xylane™ particularly effective for concerns related to loss of wrinkles, volume, sagging, and the profound architectural breakdown associated with intrinsic aging. It enables the skin to inherently repair critical components, providing a powerful, long-term solution for age-related structural decline.
Audrey Gueniche
– Scientific Director
Audrey GUENICHE is a Doctor in Pharmacy and has a PhD in skin biology. She has a distinguished career of over three decades at L’Oréal in Research and Innovation. Her scientific contributions have been in the areas of topical and food supplements of skin, scalp, hair health and beauty. Audrey’s experience is extensive: from vitro to clinical trials, to open innovation and development. She has published over 130 papers in peer-reviewed journals, presented in 80 international congresses and, additionally, has been recognized and guest speaker in 50 plenary conferences. By embracing an innovative mindset, Audrey is passionate in finding new areas to promote actives and formulas, prove new claims and scientific communications, and reinvent evaluations. As HELENA RUBINSTEIN’s Scientific Director, Audrey pursues the brand’s long-standing avant-garde research and science.
