What Are the Best Anti Aging Ingredients?
Our lives are marked by long days spent in the sun, windy afternoons atop hilltops, and strolls through busy city streets. However, a lifetime of sun and environmental pollutants can have an impact on our skin, causing the appearance of fine lines, pigmentation, and dryness.
Fortunately, there are anti-aging facial ingredients that can help to turn back the clock.
But, with so many products out there, you’ll most likely journey through a forest of creams, serums, and oils before you find the ingredients that can help to visibly rejuvenate your skin type in the way it needs.
To help you return to your natural glow, we’ve put together a handy guide of the best anti aging ingredients for oily, dry, and combination skin.
Real Quick: What’s My Skin Type Again?
Figuring out your skin type can be a little tricky, especially since it can change throughout your life depending on factors like your environment and your age. Fortunately, there are a few identifying factors that can steer you in the right direction.
Dry Skin
Essentially, if you have dry skin, your skin may not produce enough sebum, a natural moisturizing oil, to keep your face fully hydrated and protected at all times. If you have dry skin, you may experience:
- Feelings of tightness in your face
- Rough skin on your nose, cheeks, or forehead
Therefore, Those with drier skin should focus on looking for hydrating ingredients that lock in moisture.
Oily Skin
Simply put, oily skin is the opposite of dry skin. In this case, your skin may produce too much waxy sebum. If you have oily skin, your skin will often have:
- A shiny appearance
- Enlarged-looking pores
- Blemishes
So, the key to maintaining oily skin is focusing on lightweight hydration products that help to balance oil levels at the surface for a smoother, yet still glossy look.
Combination Skin
Combination skin is exactly what it sounds like. Those with this skin type experience skin that’s dry in some places and oily in others, typically the T-zone which comprises:
- Forehead
- Nose
- Chin
If you have combination skin, it can take a little bit of experimentation to learn how to achieve the best results for your face, but a smart place to start is focusing on moisturizers and lightweight products.
If you’re unsure whether your skin is truly a combination type, or simply dry and prone to blemishes, consult our skin type quiz to ace your skincare routine.
Now that you've identified your skin type, you can determine which anti aging ingredient to add to your skincare.
The Best Anti Aging Ingredients for Dry Skin
For those prone to flakiness or irritation, flood your anti aging skincare routine with hydrating ingredients that replenish your parched skin. For that, look for products that help your face retain moisture for a smoother appearance.
#1 Glycogen
Often made from corn, glycogen has hydrating properties that smooth your fine lines and keep your skin looking plump and bright. If you suffer from that dreaded tight skin feeling, products with glycogen can help to prevent your face from looking dull.
#2 Ceramides
Protecting the skin barrier is essential for any skin type, and ceramides in a skincare product can do the job. Ceramides serve an important role—making up your outer skin layer and helping to keep external aggressors out and keep moisture in.
What is the best wrinkle cream? Products that contain ceramides, like our Bio Retinoid™ Youth Cream, help to stave off:
- Dryness
- Signs of aging
So the anti aging benefits of ceramides? Keep skin aging at bay and moisture loss and dryness to a minimum.
#3 Red Microalgae
Yes, we’re talking about seaweed! A recent addition to many moisturizers, foods, and even toothpaste, are these microalgae—which may help to brighten your skin.1
When used in a skincare product, red microalgae has a visible lifting and smoothing effect. Reach for an Atlantic Kelp and Microalgae Anti-Fatigue Toning Body Oil to keep your skin looking supple and soft.
The Best Anti Aging Ingredients for Oily Skin
For those with oily skin, it’s essential to apply anti aging ingredients that reduce blemishes without clogging your pores. Fortunately, there are three essential ingredients you can incorporate into your daily routine that can support healthy-looking skin without snuffing your natural shine.
#1 Elderberry Flower Extract
This extract comes from the flowers of the elderberry tree and contains skin-soothing properties. When added to skin care products, the antioxidants in elderberry flower extract may also help to prevent environmental damage that can lead to puffiness around your eyes.
That’s why it’s a key ingredient in our Radiance Brightening Dark Circle Eye Cream, which is specifically designed to reduce the appearance of dark circles.
#2 Organic Rosehip Oil
Another naturally-occurring product that can be harnessed in your skincare regimen is rosehip oil. This oil contains Omega 3 and Omega 6 and is lightweight enough to be used regularly by people with oily skin.
When applied, rosehip oil is quickly absorbed into your skin, meaning it won’t clog your pores. The result is smooth, balanced-looking skin that shines in all the best ways.
#3 Niacinamide
This powerful vitamin is found in foods like fish and eggs and builds keratin, which helps promote the appearance of firmer-looking skin. Niacinamide may also reduce the appearance of wrinkles and pigmentation for a radiant glow, smooth complexion, and even skin tone.
The Best Anti Aging Ingredients for Combination Skin
Caring for your combination skin can often feel like a balancing act—lean over too heavily into the side of thick moisturizers and you could wake up the next morning with a garden of new blemishes; sway too far toward oil-removing washes and you may find your garden turn into a waterless desert.
Luckily, the following ingredients strike the perfect balance between oily and dry skin.
#1 Tara Pod Extract
Tara pod extract, which contains antioxidants, has a brightening effect also when used on any other type of skin. Like elderberry flower extract, tara pod extract helps prevent environmental damage and will leave your skin looking even-toned and beautiful.
#2 Stabilized Vitamin C
That’s right, vitamin C is good for more than fending off the common cold! Vitamin C is a potent ingredient that may brighten your complexion. It contains antioxidants that help to protect your skin against environmental pollutants and mitigate blemishes and irritation.
What is the best moisturizer for aging skin? Add vitamin C to your anti aging skincare routine with our Glow Daily Vitamin C Gel Cream Moisturizer, which combines vitamin C and tara pod extract to energize your skin.
#3 Sea Buckthorn Oil
With its nourishing and firming action, sea buckthorn oil reduces the appearance of rough skin texture that can make your makeup appear bumpy or uneven.
For those reasons, sea buckthorn oil is used in a number of skincare products (like our Bio Retinoid™ Youth Concentrate Oil).
Level Up Your Skincare Routine with REN Skincare
Whether you’re dealing with wrinkles, dark spots, or those fine lines that have begun to appear around your eyes, finding replenishing ingredients that are suited to your skin type is the key to a lifetime of glowy-looking skin. It's also never too early to start an anti aging skin care routine.
Here at REN Skincare, we’re here to help you harness the power of clean skincare ingredients like microalgae, elderberry flower, and tara pod. Each of our products, like Keep Young and Beautiful Firming & Smoothing Cream and V-cense Night & Day Cream is crafted with sustainably sourced key ingredients that help your skin look and feel its best.
That being said, we’re all a little unique and in different parts of our skincare journey, and there’s no one-size-fits-all formula.
With decades of experience in helping individuals find their way to bright and radiant skin, REN Skincare is leading the way in creating high-performance and clinically proven skincare products that address your distinctive needs, no matter what kind of skin type you have.
Plus, we’re committed to protecting our planet by making sustainable decisions about how we use resources to reduce waste at every step, from development and distribution to promotion.
We want to help you transform your skin and help transform the skincare industry at the same time. Learn more about our products and find skincare tips and tricks at REN Skincare.
About the Author:
Camille Poggi is a doctor in Pharmacy (PharmD.) and is passionate about skincare and how the skin works in general. She specializes in the cosmetic industry and worked for renowned companies in France like L’Oréal and Chanel before moving to London. After being a training manager for 4 years, Camille is at ease with explaining how products work in the skin and how to adapt her speech according to the audience.
She joined REN in January 2020 as International Training Manager and moved to the Research & Development team earlier this year to be the new Scientific Education Manager. A tailored-made role where she assesses and leads all technical communication and ensures scientific compliance is always met. She’s also involved in new product development from the earliest stages. Finding a way to create sustainable skincare products and making sure the message is properly delivered and understood is definitely a big challenge but also her favorite part working for REN.
Sources:
- Marine Drugs. Beneficial Effects of Marine Algae-Derived Carbohydrates for Skin Health. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6266229/
- Vogue. Diane Von Furstenberg Shares Her Philosophy on Aging in an Excerpt from Her New Memoir. https://www.vogue.com/article/diane-von-furstenberg-book-the-woman-i-wanted-to-be
- Food Science and Human Wellness. Microalgae: A potential alternative to health supplementation for humans. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213453018301435
- Lipids in Health and Disease. Abundance of active ingredients in sea-buckthorn oil. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5438513/
- Tags: pro-aging