The science behind YOUTH^® Skin Care

Chris Kyrou is the Vice President of Skin Care Research & Development at Shaklee Corporation and chief scientist behind the new YOUTH^® Skin Care line.  Prior to joining Shaklee, Chris led the skincare development program in Research & Development for a major Fortune 500 company, and he has over 20 years of beauty industry experience formulating and leading development of skincare products and color cosmetics.

With 8 patents and patents-pending, YOUTH Skin Care represents a breakthrough in skin care science. Our promise is you will not only dramatically improve the health of your skin with YOUTH, but it’s 100% guaranteed to shift the appearance of your skin to a younger age.

We were able to talk to Chris about the new YOUTH product line and the science behind it:

Q: At the 2017 Global Conference Shaklee launched YOUTH Skin Care. How is this skin care line different from others in the market?

There is clearly a growing trend in today’s skin care market where women and men are seeking more natural beauty products. The challenge to meeting this consumer need is delivering nature-based products that also deliver on high performance anti-aging benefits consumers are satisfied with.  What we consistently hear from consumers is that they often have to trade-off for purity and safety and instead use brands that rely on many questionable chemicals to deliver the desired efficacy. Essentially, you have these mutually exclusive spaces in the market today where you’re either free of questionable chemicals or you deliver high performance…until now…

 This is what YOUTH really answers for these consumers. We’ve found that “sweet spot” where safety & purity meets results, something we call Clinical Results without Compromise. With YOUTH, we have developed products that we’ve clinically demonstrated deliver amazing efficacy. But we didn’t have to rely on questionable chemicals to deliver on that efficacy.

Q: What are some key highlights that you can tell us about YOUTH Skin Care?

Our Breakthrough YOUTH Complex is at the center of our new YOUTH skin care line.  It is designed to work at the cellular level in the skin and is truly on the cutting edge of skin care science in that it is designed to address the multiple causes of skin aging:

1. As we age, our skin cell renewal rate slows down dramatically, causing our skin to lose its youthful radiance and softness.  Our YOUTH complex has a powerful combination of Apple Cell Extract and gentle Vitamin A retinol to help accelerate skin cell renewal to a more youthful rate.
2. Another thing that changes in our skin as we age is that it is not able to transport nutrients to where they are needed so that our skin cells have the energy they need to function properly. Our YOUTH Complex also contains Shisandra chinensis fruit extract to help structurally provide more nutrients and energy to the skin.
3. In addition, our skin produces less collagen and elastin as we age, and unfortunately this process starts early in life…in our 20’s. The latest scientific research indicates that skin cells responsible for producing these proteins receive fewer signals to product them as we age.  Over time, this leads to the appearance of wrinkles, loss of firmness and sagging of the skin.  Our YOUTH Complex contains a first-to-market Lotus Japonicus extract that activates a newly discovered Youth Protein in the skin that has been shown to signal these cells to produce more collagen and elastin.  Our research indicates that we are first in the market to target this newly discovered Youth Protein.
4. Last, but certainly not least, it is not only important to rejuvenate your skin, but you must also protect it from the damaging effects of the environment. Not only do these environmental factors accelerate aging of the skin starting at an early age in life, but as we age our skin is also less equipped to defend itself.  This is why we incorporated our exclusive, patent-pending Muscadine Grape Polyphenols and multi-patented Vital-Repair+ (a blend of nutrients and vitamins) into our YOUTH Complex.  Both of these ingredients have been shown, in laboratory studies, to protect our skin cells from key damaging environmental factors that can lead to premature aging of the skin.

Q: YOUTH is formulated in accordance with the “Free of” list. What is the “Free of” list and why is it a big deal?

Our current “Free of” list for YOUTH is an excess of 2,500 questionable chemicals that we chose NOT to use when formulating our new YOUTH skin care products. The fact that we’ve been able to deliver clinically proven and demonstrable benefits in products that are a delight to use without relying on all of these questionable chemicals is really a breakthrough.  This was not easy to accomplish!  If there was ever an ingredient that has any question about its potential safety on skin, we put it on our “Free of” list. If we could find a safe alternative to any questionable chemical and preferably sourced from nature, we did that.  Shaklee has unparalleled quality and safety standards in the industry and we followed the strictest standards when formulating YOUTH.

 A great example of the use of our “Free of” list is the sun protection system in our Age Defense Mineral Moisturizer SPF 30. Sun protection is the best thing you can do for your skin from an anti-aging and health perspective. There are many chemical-based sun filters that are approved by FDA, but we chose to look to nature and develop our mineral SPF moisturizer with one of the only FDA approved nature-based sunscreens,  Zinc oxide. Zinc oxide is naturally derived, it is mineral-based, and it is one of the most effective and safest broad-spectrum sunscreens approved by the FDA.

Q: Can you tell us about the Skin Age Index and why it was important for the development of YOUTH?

We wanted a very scientific and objective way to measure the effect of YOUTH on the age and appearance of the skin.  This is what led us to the newly developed Skin Age Index.  The Skin Age Index was clinically developed by world class skin experts in conjunction with Dermatologists at a 3^rd party clinical research laboratory.   They studied the skin of over 100 women in their 20’s through 60’s and determined the 10 key skin attributes that change the most as we age.  From this research, they were able to develop a novel way to calculate the age of your skin’s appearance based on the presence or absence of these 10 key attributes.  This is what we call the Skin Age Index, which was interesting to us for two reasons: First, it was a breakthrough in how you objectively measure the age and appearance of skin with actual clinical data that has never been used before. Secondly, it provided us a way to measure whether YOUTH could actually shift the appearance of women’s skin back to a younger age.

 Our YOUTH Advanced Anti-aging Regimen was tested by an independent 3^rd party clinical testing laboratory.  60 women had their Skin Age Index measured before they started using our YOUTH products.  They used our Advanced Anti-aging regimen twice per day as directed and had their Skin Age Index measured again after using YOUTH.  The results were remarkable.  Women started to show significant improvements in their skin as early as 1 week.  100% of women in the study showed a measurable improvement in their Skin Age Index by 4 weeks, meaning they had younger looking skin based on clinical data!  And with continued use, two-thirds of women actually shifted their skin age into a younger decade!

 Q: Why are you personally are excited about the launch of YOUTH Skin Care?

I think YOUTH represents an exciting new opportunity for Shaklee. It’s exciting that we’re entering the skin care market with a new product line again. A line that is true to what Shaklee represents—science based products that deliver unparalleled performance and products designed In Harmony with Nature^® with the highest purity and safety standards—I am honored to be a part of bringing this new skin care brand to our Shaklee family so that they can share YOUTH with others.  YOUTH is really going to deliver on an unmet consumer need in today’s skin care market.  We are already seeing and hearing about the great results real people have been experiencing with YOUTH and this is also exciting.

Click here to Learn more about YOUTH Skin Care.

Click below or swipe to read the book.