698 Retinol: A better solution for skin anti-aging than retinyl palmitate

Abstract

The retinoids are a well-known anti-aging ingredients that show a clinical efficacy for wrinkle improvement. Retinol has been applied to many products as a representative ingredient for skin anti-aging cosmetics for many years. Recently, the use of retinol derivatives such as retinyl palmitate or retinyl propionate is increasing. The introduction of these derivatives is intended to use a more stable and to lower the risk of skin irritation. However, a technology to increase the stability of retinol has been developed and the problem has been sufficiently overcome. In this study, we conducted experiments comparing retinol and retinyl palmitate, a well-known retinol alternative, regarding the efficacy on skin anti-aging related markers in vitro. The efficacy of retinol on procollagen I expression, a representative dermal component for skin elasticity was increased in a dose-dependent manner in normal fibroblasts. Retinyl palmitate also induced procollagen I expression, but the effect of retinol was higher significantly. As a result of evaluating hyaluronic acid(HA) expression in normal keratinocytes, retinol showed a significant increase in HA secretion whereas retinyl palmitate did not induce HA secretion. The expression of MMP-1 increased by TNFα was reduced when retinol was treated, and retinyl palmitate had no inhibitory effect. Therefore, the efficacy of retinol was confirmed even in inflammatory aging in this study. In terms of antioxidant efficacy, retinyl palmitate had a lower radical scavenging activity compared to the high radical scavenging activity of retinol. Although not shown in this study, the antioxidant efficacy of retinol was superior to that of retinyl propionate. In conclusion, retinol can be expected to have an obvious effect than its derivatives by affecting the skin anti-aging targets. Retinol is a still attractive anti-aging ingredient in cosmetics.