Looking perky with peptides

They can be a skin saviour – with a bit of know-how

‘PEPTIDE’ HAS BECOME a major buzzword in beauty circles. They’re in everything all of a sudden: eye creams, day creams, night creams, haircare… So what the heck are they?

The simple answer – that’s what we do on this page, in reaction to the beauty industry, which likes to make things very, very complicated – is that they’re compounds made up of amino acids.

Amino acids are protein builders, and when it comes to our skin, the loveliest protein is collagen – the stuff that keeps everything plump and dewy. The good news is that the body makes its own collagen. The bad is that, as we get older/more grown-up – guess what? – collagen production slows down.

Enter the peptide, which is a protein builder par excellence. ‘Certain peptides,’ says Shabir Deya, the pharmacologist and co-founder of victoriahealth. com, ‘may help slow down the degeneration of collagen. Others may actually boost it.’

Note the use of ‘may’. It’s Deya’s resistance to beauty hype that makes him a trusted source of knowledge. Don’t imagine this makes him a peptide sceptic, though – he uses a peptide serum morning and night before moisturiser. I’ve seen him and he doesn’t look his age, so I’ve started using it too. Not just any serum, but one he formulated himself (Garden of Wisdom for Victoria Health Anti-aging Multipeptide Serum, £20, victoriahealth.com). He’s adamant that we need multi-peptides, ‘because there’s no one single peptide that is the silver bullet when it comes to keeping skin youthful’.

Any effective treatment will also contain antioxidants, because these help keep proteins in the peptides intact (he included superoxide dismutase in the GOW serum because it’s a potent weapon in reducing the effects of internal and external stress on the skin).

Another highly regarded font of nonbs information is hallowed facialist Alexandra Soveral. She too loves peptides and has just reformulated her Forever Young Eye Cream with vitamins E and C (powerful antioxidants) and lupine peptides, a plant-derived source (£39, alexandrasoveral.co.uk). But she warns against formulations containing solvents, as these kill off peptides. Why would any brand include them in that case? No idea.

‘Yet,’ says Soveral, ‘nearly all of them do.’ They’re not necessarily called solvents. ‘They might have the word glycol or glycolic in their name.’ Fruit acids are another form of solvent. Fine in low doses, when they’re classified antioxidants, but not when they’re too high. ‘More than one per cent of vitamin C can stress the skin,’ says Soveral.

Conclusion: read those damn labels. And eat plenty of berries, avocados, almonds, carrots and dark-green veg, because they’re naturally high in peptides too – vital for healthy hearts and other organs. Beauty? It really does come from the inside out.