Can you just blowdry away your crow’s feet?
WHEN it comes to wrinkles, which are years in the making, most of us accept that they won’t just vanish in an instant. Even the miracle worker that is Botox takes up to three days to take hold, while most skin creams promise results only after weeks of use.
So, when a new serum turns up on the market, Erase Cosmetics 3-Minute Instant Face-Lift Serum, it sounds like a bold promise — not to mention a possible breach of the Trade Descriptions Act.
But there is plenty of buzz circulating the U.S.-made product, which has just sold its 1,000th bottle in Britain since launching just a few months ago.
Most of this is due to a video on the manufacturer’s website in which a woman with more wrinkles than a Shar Pei puppy has one side of her face treated with the product. Then, when cold air from a hairdryer is blasted to dry it, the wrinkles appear to soften and fade before your very eyes.
Trickery? Special effects? As the first British newspaper journalist to try the product (one of a number claiming to offer a face-lift in just minutes), I have to say I was sceptical.
However, being needle-phobic — and in my 40s — if there’s a way of softening the crow’s feet developing around my eyes without any frightening, painful pinpricks, I will give it a try.
Before we start, Lee Brine, of Lysis Medical, which has brought the serum to Britain, tells me how it’s supposed to work. FROM around the age of 25, we all lose collagen (the ‘glue’ that holds our supportive, underpinning skin cells together) at a rate of 1 per cent per year.
The places where the skin is not supported by this elastic, connective tissue then start to dip, causing those dreaded fine lines and wrinkles.
The 3-Minute Face-Lift Serum contains ingredients, including sodium silicate and magnesium aluminium silicate, said to help pull together the widening spaces between the cells in the skin’s top layers, making it tighter again — albeit temporarily.
I start by applying a couple of peasize drops of the odourless, clear, sticky liquid to the area around my eyes. I soon feel a cooling sensation, which turns to a tightening when, as instructed, I give my face a blast of cold air from my hairdryer to speed things up.
Left untouched, it would take 20 minutes to take effect, Lee tells me, but drying it onto your skin speeds up the process and I am promised it should take just three to get the full effect. I do a feel a contracting immediately, a bit like when a mud mask starts to cake on your skin.
Indeed, some women have reported an effect so dramatic that, initially, they have had trouble moving their mouths and talking.
When I take a closer look in the mirror, my crow’s feet do appear a little blurred, as if they have been airbrushed — the effect is clear to see in the before and after pictures of me (above), which I can assure you have not been airbrushed or Photoshopped in any way. There has been no technical trickery, not even flattering lighting.
When I first try the serum, there is a slight sheen, which makes it look as if I have egg white on my face. However, Lee tells me this is because less is more: the secret is to apply the product sparingly on cleansed skin, so the oils in your moisturisers and make-up do not break it down.
I admit, in my enthusiasm, I did apply a bit more than the amount recommended.
But, though it may appear to act fast, the effects are only temporary — around eight hours, according to the blurb. However, I found the results started to wear off much more quickly than that.
Checking my face as the day wore on, I could see wrinkles creeping back around my eyes as the tautness began to ease after only a few hours. I had to keep dabbing on extra serum to top up the effect.
But multiple applications left a rough, grainy feeling on my skin.
Over the coming week, I tested its efficacy on wrinkles around my eyes, forehead and cheeks. Ultimately, I found the most dramatic results to be on the fine lines around my mouth. Recently, I have begun to notice my lipline is not as defined as it once was — with age, we all lose volume in our lips, which leads to tiny wrinkles forming (much like a deflated balloon), into which lipstick bleeds annoyingly.
The serum kept this area slightly pumped and helped keep my lip liner in place, like a super-charged primer, and stopped unflattering bleed-lines in their tracks.
So, is it worth it? A 30ml bottle — supposed to last a few months — will set you back just under £60. But there is another cost on top.
For best results, the manufacturer recommends using the serum with expensive, mineral-based make-up and moisturisers that don’t contain oils that break down the product.
Dermatologist Rita Rakus, who has started stocking the serum at her West London clinic, says many of her clients test it by trying it on only one side of their face — and tell her they have been impressed by the contrast.
While it won’t have a permanent effect, Rita says some like to keep it for special nights out. ‘ People are impatient for results, so some clients use it while they are waiting for Thermage (a treatment that uses radio frequencies to tighten the skin) to kick in, as that can take a couple of months.
‘Some clients also respond better than others. If you have looser skin above your eyebrows, it will tighten that and even give it a slight lift, too. If you have heavy jowls, those are harder to raise.
‘It’s the same as putting on Spanx for a special evening. You put on your three-minute face-lift and away you go. But, like Cinderella, you need to get away before midnight because the effects will fade.’ HOWEvER, cosmetic dermatologist Dr Sarah Tonks, of Omniya clinic in Knightsbridge, is more sceptical. ‘From what I can see on the ingredients list, like most moisturisers it contains humectants — which draw fluid into the skin — water, preservatives and emulsifiers to hold it together.
‘It is also slightly acidic, which means that, when applied to the skin, it will make it swell slightly and mask wrinkles a bit.
‘Overall, it seems to form a thin film on the skin, which tightens as it dries. You are setting it hard with the cold air from a hairdryer — a bit like using hairspray or a sticking plaster.’
Consultant cosmetic surgeon Paul Banwell is also dubious about the claims made. ‘Basically, products such as this contain a combination of silica to “fill” wrinkles and other ingredients such as cellulose to help tighten superficially as they dry.
‘The effect certainly does not last very long. Based on my experience, I would have to question whether it would last eight hours.’
While it’s clearly a long way from a face-lift, it is nice to have a morale booster in your make-up bag to get you going in the mornings.
But, when it comes to getting rid of wrinkles, the truth is we still need patience to see results.
ErasE Cosmetics 3-Minute Instant Face-Lift serum, £59.95, instant-beauty.com and amazon.