For users of cosmetics, a youthful appearance is becoming increasingly important. So, it’s no surprise that anti-ageing is the largest category in the skin care market.

Awareness of ageing starts young; nearly 25 % of American women are concerned about skin ageing from as young as 25 years. European women start thinking about ageing as soon as they spot the first signs of ageing. Cosmetics users aged between 30 and 54 would like to counteract the signs of time, with just under 50 % of American women and 60 % of European women using anti-wrinkle creams and antiageing products for problem areas on the face, eyes, abdomen and neck.

Nonetheless, consumers still remain to be convinced of the effectiveness of products: “I don’t actually know whether anti-ageing products are effective at all, but I use them all the same”, is the claim of one in five consumers in Europe and one in three in the USA [1]. At first glance this doesn’t seem to provide much confidence in the cosmetics industry. “Hope or help”: which role are cosmetics going to adopt?

There are excellent modern anti-ageing ingredients which aim to delay the typical symptoms of skin ageing. Protection and prevention play a major role here, but are not the only ones. When the skin ages, it loses strength and hence function. Declining function can be rebalanced to a certain extent by cosmetics. The proteasome is a tiny bundle of strength in our skin cells, which systematically recycles proteins in healthy skin and detoxifies the skin from harmful cellular waste. Unfortunately, as with most things, its function declines with age and stress caused by sun, pollutants or chemicals. But when reactivated it works as a miracle remedy against the signs of time

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