Can cream and serum bring fashion advertising manager Sherida Brindle’s skin back from the brink of early-onset wrinkling?

Name: Sherida Brindle

Age: 36

Length of treatment: Nine months

Skin concern: Fine lines

From the age of nine, I remember my mum telling me, “Don’t frown, you’ll get wrinkles.” So, I suppose I had that concern subconsciously drummed into me before I even knew what skincare was. My mum’s always had pretty good skin: she’s never smoked and now at 70, she has a ‘youthful’ appearance, but with a noticeable amount of wrinkles around her eyes, understandably. My younger sister, 33, also has visible wrinkles under her eyes which started to become far more apparent a couple of years ago (sorry, Delaney). This led me to be more mindful of my under-eye area which has seemed to worsen in the last year or two. And lately, I’ve been particularly conscious of wrinkling – especially when I smile. I suppose you could say it runs in the family. I’m sceptical about ‘miracle creams’ but the prospect of softening out the lines around my eyes was too tempting to pass on – so I happily agreed to play guinea pig.

Home improvements

My first face scan before I changed my skincare regime left me feeling deflated: I was the oldest of the three of us taking part in the experiment so assumed my skin would have more obvious signs of ageing, but I didn’t expect to learn that my crow’s feet were developed enough to place me in the bottom 32nd percentile, meaning two thirds of all other people my age and with my skin type have fewer wrinkles. Interestingly, Nick Miedzianowski- Sinclair at the Visia scan clinic, explained that my wrinkles aren’t all down to age. They could also be the result of ‘mimic lines’: the natural creasing of skin triggered by how the facial muscle structure causes the face to move.

Apparently my facial muscles are formed in such a way as to move more around my eye area when I smile, rather than around my cheek and mouth area. Consultant dermatologists Dr Stefanie Williams and Dr Sam Bunting seem to have the same opinion. They recommended products based on retinol (a form of vitamin A which boosts the renewal of skin cells) and collagen (the naturally occuring elastic part of the skin) to reduce the appearance of fine lines by plumping the skin.

I’ve always maintained a regular skincare regime over the years, so I found it pretty easy to adapt to this one – just a daily application of day cream, serum and eye serum. Of course, it helped that the skin scans showed steady improvements in my wrinkles as the months went on. Still, there wasn’t a noticeable overnight change. The scan is able to pick up more detail so it charted improvements that, frustratingly, I couldn’t see myself. And admittedly, were it not for the scans, I’m not sure that I would have been as diligent about the test, given that I didn’t see any big visual improvements.

At a push I would say that my skin began to appear clearer and more luminous, but I think that may be because the experiment made me hyper-aware of my skin. It felt nice when friends said they could see improvements in the clarity of my skin; that I looked less tired and I looked ‘brighter’. It also made me consider sun protection and I started to use an SPF in my daily moisturiser.

Now the experiment is over and I’ve seen big improvements in my eye wrinkles from the scans, I’m a complete believer in investing in good skincare, but I really did need to see the hard evidence from the scans before I could believe there was any change.

Against my expectations, the retinol and collagen have made a genuine difference – one which I’m pretty sure I can see for myself now – so I’m determined to make a beeline for any serums and creams which contain those ingredients forever. And hopefully, one day, I’ll have skin that looks as good as my mum’s.

Skincare Experiment 3: Texture and Radiance

The big skincare experiment