Skincare is complicated. We’re sure you’ve seen that for yourself: skincare lines touting semi-mystical products with tons of ingredients from the familiar (like lemon juice) to the downright esoteric (like methylisothiazolinone). With so many popular skincare ingredients—not to mention the hundreds you may not have even heard of yet—it’s difficult, if not impossible, to wade through all of them by yourself to find those few ingredients that are truly evidence-based and not just hopes-and-dreams-based.
That’s why we did it for you.
At Aramore, we brought together experts in a variety of fields, including PhD dermatologists, stem cell experts, peptide chemists, aging researchers, and health compound experts to create a one of a kind interdisciplinary approach to skin care with evidence-based ingredients for your skin and overall health.
First, our experts searched for potential ingredients across the globe and through time, searching through databases of thousands of ingredients from medical literature, natural product libraries, Chinese medicine, and traditional Ayurvedic medical history. We considered both chemical ingredients (such as retinol, hyaluronic acid, and NAD) and biological (like dill, honokiol, and nanoberries) to create a large pool of potential ingredients.
To narrow down our list, we assembled our team of in-house scientists for frequent and intense science meetings to examine the available evidence for every ingredient we might want to include. We took a deep dive into the scientific literature, spending hundreds of hours examining the available evidence in research papers and journals. Throughout the entire process, we stayed laser-focused on asking: What does the data actually say? What are the facts? Is there hard evidence that this agent is really, truly effective?
We focused on four key scientific points as we narrowed down our search for ingredients:
- Does it address at least one of the biological mechanisms of aging? For example, has it been shown to sustain your body’s natural DNA repair, cellular metabolism, or skin tissue support?
- Is there significant clinical evidence for efficacy, and if so, at what dose? How is it best absorbed?
- Does it work synergistically with our other main ingredients, like our NAD+ complex?
- Is it safe to use on skin regularly without causing irritation or other side effects?
Our relentless pursuit of the evidence often led us to surprising places. For example, we excluded some ingredients in our supplements, despite their common use in the supplement industry. To be frank, there just wasn’t enough scientific evidence for their efficacy when taken orally. On the other hand, popular ingredients like retinol, hyaluronic acid, and good ol’ vitamin C had enough scientific backing to include.
Even when ingredients have been shown to work in vitro (on skin cells in the lab), we only selected ingredients that have also been tested clinically, or in vivo (aka on or in real humans). By carefully examining in vivo data for each ingredient, we could understand how it works in practice, not just in theory. This is important for a number of reasons:
- Clinical studies are important for understanding what dose is required for health and skin appearance benefits. Many skincare products on the market contain helpful ingredients, but not at the dose shown to be effective in clinical trials. This is often the case for retinol skincare products, which frequently contain only a fraction of the retinol concentration tested in clinical studies. All of our products contain dosages backed by scientific evidence.
- Of course, none of this will have much of an impact if the ingredient can’t get to the appropriate place in the skin. That’s why we also looked at evidence for the best methods of absorption: from the outside (applying directly to the skin) or the inside (ingesting it orally). In essence, we evaluated each ingredient twice—once for our topical skincare line, and once for our supplements. Remember collagen? While the evidence didn’t show it benefits your skin when taken orally, we did find enough evidence of absorption through the skin to include it in our topical skincare products!
Since we’re bringing together ingredients from different schools of science/thought, we also cross-checked all potential ingredients with each other. A potential ingredient might be a great product on its own, but may interfere with other ingredients or react in an unexpected way. We performed a chemical literature review, ensuring that no ingredients would chemically interact in a way that could cause side effects or reduce the efficacy of our star ingredient: (our NAD+ precursor complex).
As you might have guessed, this process was not a walk in the park. It took over a year, and hundreds upon hundreds of hours, to formulate the products we’ve developed. This involved not only extensive scientific research from our in-house team, but consultation and work with industry-leading experts in a variety of related fields, from talking with colleagues in cosmetic clinics to ensure that products wouldn’t interfere with their cosmetics work, to getting in touch with key members of the American Contact Dermatitis Society. We talked to leaders across fields—from PhDs to on-the-ground clinic operators—to make sure all of our ingredients will work synergistically with other skin products and procedures.
If nothing else, we hope that hearing a bit about our process has made clear our unflagging commitment to evidence-based, research-backed anti-aging products. After all, the science behind skincare is complex: that’s why we’re here, to put those hundreds and hundreds of hours of research to work for you and your skin.
