Look Younger in Four Weeks

Aveda Green Science Skincare Collection

Featured item: MAY 7, 2008

The botanical beauty brand with three decades of green expertise drops some science on the natural skincare niche with a collection of four anti-aging products. Aveda's Green Science Lifting Serum, Firming Face Crème, Firming Eye Crème and Line Minimizer are formulated with a proprietary blend of high-tech active plant ingredients, ceramides, and peptides. And the products have been clinically proven effective in just four weeks; the brand says they’ll leave your complexion with a 41% more lifted appearance and a 37% reduction in the appearance of lines and wrinkles.

All of the Green Science products are made with certified organic ingredients, like organic argan oil (to restore skin's moisture barrier), organic plai oil (an antioxidant and anti-inflammatory), and organic cactus (which stimulates collagen production). These three ingredients are also responsibly and sustainably sourced in a manner that protects the land where they're grown and the people who harvest them. The packaging for all of the products is green, as well: The face and eye creams come in 100% post consumer recycled PET jars, the outer cartons are made with 50% PCR and 50% FSC-certified paperboard, and the serum is packaged in a recyclable glass bottle. Plus they offset all the electricity used in their main facilities.

I really wish I had paid more attention in chemistry and biology class. Maybe then I would fully understand how certain skincare ingredients really work. Sure, I've learned a thing or two as a beauty writer and editor about collagen synthesis, how antioxidants fight free radicals, the horrible damage I did to my skin during summers spent as a lifeguard, and lots more, but OTC skincare brands continue to create increasingly high-tech products—especially in the anti-aging realm—that test the extent of my skin smarts. Aveda's new Green Science line is no exception (I should have known from the name!). The products are loaded with exotic botanicals, like argan oil from Morocco and plai oil from Thailand, and spiked with a cocktail of moisture-boosting and skin-firming ceramides and peptides. This blend of ingredients apparently helps lift and firm the skin and minimize wrinkles so well that the brand's clinical tests found major improvements in skin appearance in just one month. In my far from clinical experimentation, I thought the products left my skin feeling softer and looking brighter and more even. Plus, the ingredients in the Lifting Serum are so active and so concentrated that they actually cause a slight tingling sensation, which I loved because it makes me feel like the stuff is working—and really, that's all we non-science nerds want to know that our products are doing anyway, right? To the researchers who stuck it out in chem class in order to create such eco-friendly and effective products—my skin thanks you!—Megan O'Neill

Note: Aveda Green Science skincare products (from $45 to $85) will be available in May. To purchase them directly, visit www.aveda.com.

Tags: aveda green science beauty anti-aging skin face