This morning, the Today Show presented Allure Magazine’s Best of Beauty awards. One of the products featured on the show was a skin care product that could treat the redness associated with rosacea. While the ingredients seemed interesting with promising science behind it, the number of ingredients seems small for such a complex condition as rosacea.
Avene has an entire line of skin care products that aims to reduce redness and the product featured on the Today Show is called “Eau Thermale Avène Antirougeurs Fort Relief Concentrate for Chronic Redness“. It is for sale for $46 (approximately 1 fl. Oz) and is available (according to the company’s website) only through doctor’s offices.
The company (Avene, a French skin care company) claims that one of the active ingredients, Ruscus Extract, is able to lower the VEGF protein in the skin and thereby reduce the formation of new blood vessels (one of the hallmarks of rosacea). The ruscus extract is also thought to be anti-inflammatory and to help in the constriction of blood vessels.
Another interesting ingredient is Dextran Sulphate. Dextran sulphate is a sulphate salt of a sugar containing polymer and is a popular ingredient in various eye drops products. Many of you may remember reading several discussions on rosacea boards in the nineties about the supposedly “anti-rosacea” effect of excess eye drops that sometimes flows over the skin when you use too much. Avene uses Dextran Sulphate in all of its anti-redness skin care products since it can reduce swelling.
Avene’s “Soothing Cream SPF 25”, which besides the Dextran sulphate and Ruscus extract, contains several sunscreens including Titanium dioxide, Octinoxate and Octocrylene. Many people believe that rosacea sufferers should always protect their skin from harmful UV rays, but I think that including sunscreens in a skin care product that you may use only at night, is not only expensive, but could leave the door open to additional skin irritation.
In any event, Avene has decided to keep the list of ingredients short. Rosacea is a very complex disorder, with many cellular processes and many systems involved including the immune system. I have always believed in more ingredients that work together to effectively treat the many underlying processes that cause rosacea.
Some of Avene’s products have been around for a number of years. In fact, Allure magazine seems to like them as they have recommended Avene products several times during the last 3 years. I did not intend to review Avene’s products here (since I have never used them), but I thought the ingredients were interesting in and of themselves.