With age the skin’s structure and its overall appearance change. Traditionally, anti-aging cosmetics have been designed to combat typical, visible, aging effects such as wrinkles. In contrast, the goal of an interdisciplinary team of skin specialists from Henkel and the product development team for skin care is new: cell renewal.

The experts want to awaken certain skin cells, the fibroblasts, from their age-typical sleep and bring them back to life. The number and activity of the fibroblasts, which give the connective tissue its tone, drop significantly with age. After their active division phase, they enter a period of inactivity and finally die. As a measure of whether a fibroblast cell is still active or has entered the inactive phase, the Henkel scientists use the activity of the enzyme ß-galactosidase on fibroblast cell cultures. They can easily detect the activity of this enzyme. In an old cell, also called a senescent cell, the activity of this enzyme is high, while in a young cell it is low.

Caviar for the skin
Encouraged by scientific studies with yeast cells, whose life cycle can be extended by a substance that is also present in red wine, the Henkel scientists tested its effect on fibroblasts. The result was astounding: the grapevine extract caused the dormant fibroblast cells to start dividing again. Moreover, the cells were extremely fit. Like young fibroblasts, they had excellent contraction capacity – a property that gives the connective tissue of young people its tone. The cosmetic specialists have tested this substance together with a high quality caviar-protein complex – as a supplier of nutrients to the cell – in an anti-aging cream. The work also includes volunteer studies.

In late 2007, the new product Diadermine Age ExCellium was launched simultaneously in Belgium, Germany, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Austria, Portugal, Russia, Switzerland and Spain.