3D printing, epigenetics and telomeres: 3 futuristic areas inspiring high-performance anti-aging skincare
Flexible glass is coming soon to curved cellphone displays. Suspension furniture held together by tension is eliminating the need for glue. And 3D printing is being used everywhere from the medical world—to recreate miniature human kidneys and livers in hopes of eventually using them in transplants—to the runway, where Dutch designer Iris van Herpen incorporated it into her couture collection last July.
The ways in which we’re now able to change a form’s shape are multiplying by the minute. Referring to the trend as “shape creation,” Loretta Miraglia, corporate senior vice-president of global brand product development and innovation at La Mer, says she believes it’s the third industrial revolution. “It’s going to influence almost every industry, including ours.” And it’s what inspired her to bring the concept to anti-aging skincare with The Lifting Contour Serum ($330, at Holt Renfrew).
For Miraglia and her team, that meant creating a product that could raise and reshape the face. “I started thinking about the architecture of the skin,” she says. “How can we build a structure, a scaffolding if you will, or the elasticity of a trampoline?” The first step was increasing skin’s density by arming the fibroblast cells with energy to spin more collagen and elastin. To achieve that, they amped up the quantity of “miracle broth,” the fermented sea kelp mixture in every La Mer product. “It brings a direct line of energy into the fibroblasts,” claims Miraglia. “This is the food they need to create collagen and elastin.”
But the formula needed additional support. Aging skin cells generate enzymes called collagenase and elastase. “They’re the ones that snip snip snip snip the collagen fibres from the fibroblasts, so then they’re just floating around doing nothing at all,” says Miraglia. In other words, they sever the bungee cords that keep our faces taut. The team came upon perennial brown algae, which is found in the shallow coastal waters of the North Atlantic and is already being used in the medical and food industries. It delivers oxygen that fuels the fibroblasts, giving them additional energy to produce more fibres and stay securely attached. “It’s helping anchor the fibroblasts to the dermis, and that’s critical,” Miraglia says. Rounding out the formula are marine peptides and copper-rich blue algae, all of which is fermented for 72 hours to make it biocompatible.
The final concoction, which Miraglia jokingly calls “liquid Spanx,” aims to make skin as firm and resilient as pliable glass. “It’s the idea of creating a flexible structure with something that’s bringing the elasticity back and allowing the edge to lift,” she says. Ideally, the skin would also become stronger, in the same way a luxurious fabric’s density is enhanced. “It’s like it has a warp and a weft,” says Miraglia. “The higher the collagen and elastin thread count, the tighter the knit. And everybody wants to sleep on a 1,500-thread-count sheet.” That we do.
—Lesa Hannah
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