The secret to immortality may be closer than you think…
Take a look at the above photo and see if you can notice anything unusual about these women.
No…? What you might have failed to pick up is that the people in this photo are mother and daughter, and there’s a twenty-five year age gap between them. In fact, the woman on the left, ex model and UK celebrity Yasmin Le Bon is an astounding 50 years of age. Really.
So what makes Le Bon so remarkable? Why is it that she, unlike so many of us, appears to have shrugged off the ageing process? Scientists think they have the answer.
There may be an actual genetic code which makes some of us what’s being deemed as ‘exceptional skin agers’, in other words, people who, like Le Bon, appear to have defied time itself. We all know someone who appears to have discovered the secret to immortality, that client who sheepishly admits she’s slack when it comes to skincare and yet has the complexion of a 20-year-old in her forties. Is it her diet? Her lifestyle? Or is there something she knows that you don’t?
According to scientists, that client’s youthful looks have nothing to do with eating macrobiotic or having booze free weekends. Her exceptionally young skin may be, frustratingly, just good luck.
The unique skin fingerprint of exceptional skin agers may hold the key to successful ageing…
To put this theory to the test, researchers at Harvard Medical School analysed over 20,000 human genes to identify a kind of genetic ‘fingerprint’ among exceptional skin agers as well as specific tipping points in women’s lives responsible for affecting the way the skin ages, including a decline in antioxidant response during your twenties and in the skin’s barrier defences in your fifties.
And they’re results cosmetic companies are keen to harness in anti-ageing product development.
“The unique skin fingerprint of exceptional skin agers may hold the key to successful ageing,” said Procter and Gamble beauty research fellow, Dr Rosemarie Osborne.
“Decoding which pathways they affect and understanding why they are acting differently in these women – nature or nurture – can enable Olay researchers to help more women achieve skin that looks like the exception, not the rule, at any stage of life.”
Indeed, the findings, which will be announced at the World Congress of Dermatology in Canada this week may have a profound impact on the way skincare companies think about targeting the concerns associated with ageing.
“The understanding of exceptional skin agers enables us to create the next generation of products to delay the onset of visible skin aging better by offering more personalised solutions,” said Procter and Gamble vice president of global beauty care research and development, Dawn French.
“We want to empower every woman to be exceptionally ageless.”