The Truth About Anti Aging Products with Fairy Glow Mother

Have you ever wondered if all your expensive anti aging products are actually working to help “reduce fine lines and wrinkles?” If these products are actually doing what they say they’ll do or if “anti aging” has become as overworked and overused as “organic.”

With so many products on the shelves promising you the fountain of youth in a bottle with great before and after photos, I get it; it’s hard to tell. I’m just as guilty as everyone else when buying anti-aging skincare products. I think I’ve been wearing anti-aging moisturizer since I was 13 years old. My mother always taught me these products are about helping prevent and prolong any signs of aging, and in my head, if I started early, well, then we are golden. What do you know about youthful skin forever! Okay, maybe not forever, but as I’ve said before, this Asian refuses to raisin. 

As I’ve gotten older, the products have been getting more expensive. I believe that skincare is an investment, but I sometimes look at all my products and wonder if they’re doing anything? Or if I’m just another person buying into a scam? The collagens, the retinol, the face maks, etc. Are they worth the hype, and even more importantly, are they worth my money?

To help bust some anti-aging myths, Chauncey and I sat down with the Fairy Glow Mother herself, Hadiyah. She is an esthetician, but she is well known as a skincare guru with a bomb skincare line to match. We got right down to it, and we found out. 

Do anti-aging products actually work?

So anti-aging, in general, is a marketing term, and most of those products, nine times out of 10, are just hydrating products. Because the older we get, especially as women, when we go through menopause and all that, our body dries up. Our skin is dry; our vaginas get dry; everything gets super dry. So many anti-aging products are primarily going to be focused on things that are keeping hydration within the skin. They may be a little bit more an emollient or more on the occlusive side to prevent trans epidermal water loss, but it's mainly things that will hydrate. The firm is also another thing that happens in anti-aging skincare to avoid the fine lines and wrinkles, but it never really does that because if you're old, you're old, and you're going to get wrinkles. You may feel like you're prolonging it, and maybe you are. Perhaps you're not aging as quickly, but it's almost like if you have a water balloon with a hole and put gum on the spot to stop the leak, it's still going to leak out at the end of the day. If you do not like your wrinkles, there is no cream that I can sell you to fix that. Unfortunately, you're just going to have to visit a plastic surgeon.

So are all products labeled “anti-aging” really just scamming you?

There are perfect things on the market that are classified as anti-aging that really do help prevent fine lines, but not wrinkles. I don't know what to tell you if you got the wrinkles other than getting some laser tightening or some facelift. There are things like peptides and retinoids that generally help with fine lines, and then there are a lot of other products that will assist with firming the skin, like kind of plumping things out a little bit. For the most part, when it comes to anti-aging, you're mainly just staying very, very well moisturized.

They're probably hydrating unless sold as an exfoliant, no matter how marketed products are. There are a lot of different spins to things, but most of those products are going to be hydrating. The only difference is if I had to put all of the skincare into two categories, there would be an acne-specific category and then everything else. And everything else, more often than not, can be solved by just better hydrating the skin and protecting your skin's barrier.

what’s better retinol or collagen?

So here's the thing about collagen, which honestly is one of my favorite skincare scams. Much of the research on collagen, mainly how it works within our skin or how it beautifies our appearance, is primarily about how it works internally. So collagen is something that we naturally produce. It's something that keeps our skin firm and plump; the collagen is what gives us our youthfulness. When we see skin with wrinkles, we see a lack of collagen and elastin in some ways. So much of the research around collagen and why we want to preserve our collagen is to keep us looking youthful for longer. But it doesn't translate by just applying collagen on top of the skin. The molecular structure of collagen is enormous, and it cannot penetrate and get into the dermis, which is the layer of skin in which collagen is produced. So we're putting it on because collagen sounds nice, but it's not doing anything internally. Collagen has to work from the inside out. There's nothing we can do on the outside that will produce more collagen. So many products that you see with collagen are generally translated as being just really good moisturizing products and could help protect your skin barrier. Still, they're not helping you produce more collagen, which is a misnomer for consumers. Many consumers who buy collagen products believe that they're making more collagen.

What about collagen supplements?

The same is very true for collagen supplements. So a lot of beauty supplements are collagen-based as well. And with collagen supplements, you'll see better glowing skin or firmer skin or the promise of looking more youthful for longer. But when we ingest collagen via supplement form, our skin is the last place that it will go. When we ingest collagen, it goes to our bones first, so if you want knees like Megan the Stallion, absolutely you should get those knees the collagen support. But when you're taking collagen internally, it's not really doing much for your skin. The body only produces so much collagen, and it's hard for you to reproduce. Once we start losing collagen, we don't really get it back. At least supplements help your joints, not your actual skin. A fraction of it may get to your tissues and muscles, but I think it's primarily going to your joints

Follow The Fairy Glow Mother for all your skincare tips!

Listen to the full interview with the Fairy Glow Mother to learn more about products in the “anti-aging” world as well as her highly recommended youthful maintenance skincare routine.