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High-tech or natural beauty?
When it comes to beauty products, what's better: high-tech or natural?
By Beth Hitchcock
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Ladies, there's a war out there. The battleground? Your face. If that sounds indelicate, it's because the beauty business isn't always pretty. With sales of $159 million last year in Canada alone, the anti-aging skin-care category is exploding. Now, everybody from Aveda to Zeno is fighting for the privilege of erasing your wrinkles.
In one corner, the high-tech contenders -- like Lancôme's Absolue Premium Bx Advanced Replenishing Cream and Estée Lauder's Perfectionist Correcting Concentrate -- vow to immobilize creases and defend against signs of aging. In the other corner are mother-nature's favourites -- such as Curel's Natural Therapy line and Origins' Youthtopia -- offering an arsenal of botanicals to soothe, correct and boost your skin's texture. Both sides have their share of converts. "People who are more environmentally concerned are into natural skin care; those who are looking for the next big thing will probably opt for clinical skin care," says Laura Kenney, a beauty reporter for global cosmetics retailer Sephora.
But if you're neither an earth goddess nor a high-tech devotee, which approach holds the right anti-aging strategy for you? As it turns out -- and you'll forgive the pun, we hope -- it's a fine line.
Time fighters
The interest in looking younger certainly isn't new -- paging Joan Rivers -- but demographic changes have caused the category to boom like never before. "Women have more average per capita income now, and there are more single women, fewer children being born and smaller households overall," says Svetlana Uduslivaia, a Montreal-based market analyst for global research firm Euromonitor International. "So these women are spending more money on beauty; they are dating longer and want to take care of themselves."
And when it comes to pampering, those cutting-edge formulations can be pretty darned appealing. Stroll through the beauty section of your local drugstore or department store and the sterile lighting, gleaming jars and white-coated clerks might make you think you have stumbled into a laboratory. Vichy Laboratoires, the top-selling drugstore label, plays up its scientific personality, even creating dermatological centres within drugstore aisles for shoppers to have their skin analyzed and a personalized skin-care routine created. But in spite of Vichy Laboratoires' high-tech image, it has a natural secret weapon.
New molecules from the world of science
This fall, the company launched Neovadiol Intensive Densifying Care, a product created after seven years of clinical research that includes a new anti-aging molecule -- Pro-Xylane -- that's said to rejuvenate skin. And while the ingredient Pro-Xylane was derived from a natural sugar, the product itself is focused on science.
Sarah de Joybert, marketing director for Vichy Laboratoires Canada, emphasizes that women's interest in science-based products is part of a larger high-tech trend. "We live in a high-tech world, and skin care is no exception. Women are searching for innovation and solutions for their skin, just as they search for the latest innovations in everything." But how far are we willing to go? It turns out that we are still nervous of the needle and looking for topical products that mimic the results of injectable treatments.
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Products:
• (Top) Crabtree & Evelyn Naturals Botanical Body Buttter with Illipe Butter, Lemongrass & Sugar ($30, at Crabtree & Evelyn stores and select retailers across Canada.
• (Bottom) Chanel Precision Sublimage Essential Regenerating Cream ($325, at Chanel beuaty counters across Canada)
Product images courtesy of Geoffry Ross
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