Beauty And The Blog

If you are looking around at products that are meant to replace those expensive Botox injections, you have more than likely run across ads claiming this: “Better than Botox”. Right? I know I’ve seen plenty of them.

The ingredient that they are claiming is better than Botox is Argireline, or Acetyl Hexapeptide-3. This ingredient is a synthetically derived protein. Companies using this ingredient are claiming that it has muscle relaxing abilities. This ingredient is being put into products that are meant to be applied to the entire face. Now maybe I haven’t heard right, but isn’t Botox meant only for the brow and forehead area? And isn’t Botox a muscle movement minimizer, in other words muscle paralyzing?

Let me ask you this: Supposing that this ingredient works as well as the manufacturer claims and does relax the muscles of your face, is relaxing every muscle in your face something you really want? Doesn’t it make sense that if you were applying this on the entire surface of your face that the muscles of the face would all relax and you’d end up with sagging skin? Of course you would notice that, wouldn’t you? Are you using it? On your entire face? Is your face sagging? No? Then maybe it isn’t really doing anything at all.

This ingredient confuses me a bit. It may be useful in somewhat smoothing the surface appearance of a wrinkle but it isn’t going to replace Botox. Botox works on the premise that it prevents movement of certain muscles. That is why it is so widely used for those furrows between your brows, so lovingly referred to by dermatologists and plastic surgeons as your “eleven wrinkle, or “elevens”. Now tell me you haven’t heard that term! And yes, that set of lines do look like an eleven, I’ll give them that!

So when the claim of “Better than Botox” is made about Argireline, are we really getting something that replaces the actions of Botox? Relaxing a muscle does not equal minimizing movement. Relaxing is a loosening or sagging.

Further, the company producing this “Better than Botox” product has no published research backing it, only their own in house study. And they sure aren’t going to say anything other than “Gee, isn’t this stuff great?”. No cosmetic company is ever going to say anything less than complementary about their product. So it is up to the consumer to decide through actual use whether a product actually does what it claims.

Argireline may well have some effect as to the smoothing of a wrinkle, but I don’t think it is going to make your “11′s” disappear.  And at nearly $100 for this “Better than Botox” product you may as well save your money up and get the Botox injection. At least that is scientifically proven to work. And it will last longer than that $100 product.

And by the way. The only way Botox itself is effective is by injection into the skin. I’ve heard that research is being done to create a topically applied product containing Botox but nothing is actually on the market yet. Soon though..

So, now what do you think of “Better than Botox” ads? Hope you haven’t bought any of that stuff and are smiling.