As a beauty editor who writes a lot about cosmetic treatments, moisturisers claiming to be ‘better than Botox’ frequently take over my email subject lines. It’s one of my biggest pet peeves – usually met with an audible groan, followed by a speedy click of the ‘delete’ button.
No topical skincare product can ever truthfully act like Botox – or compete with how it makes your forehead look smoother than an ice skating rink. After all, Botox (a portmanteau of botulinum toxin) is injected into wrinkles to restrict muscle movement for between 3-6 months – a ‘freezing’ effect no amount of moisturiser can achieve.
That’s not to say that there aren’t some great beauty products out there to help you cheat your way to similar results, though. Some treatments, such as Noble Panacea’s The Exceptional Eye Lift Concentrate, contain peptides to soften muscle contractions and temporarily reduce the appearance of expression lines. Microcurrent devices including NuFace can make facial contours look more lifted for 12 hours, while new at-home laser Nira promises to soften the look of fine lines.
As someone who is dithering about starting on the Botox merry-go-round, I’ve recently found myself adding 111Skin’s Wrinkle Erasing Retinol Patches into my routine for instant and long-term smoothing. Here’s my verdict.
111Skin Wrinkle Erasing Retinol Patches: First impressions
I have to admit, the patches were met with an eye roll when they landed on my desk earlier this year, especially when I saw the words “wrinkle erasing” on the packaging. That first impression wasn’t helped by the fact that I used them for the first time when I was on the tail end of a cold, which meant I found them quite uncomfortable, especially on my forehead.
It’s not often that I give a beauty product a second chance. But, as they say, necessity is the mother of invention – and I had run out of my regular serum-soaked eye masks so I decided to give the 111Skin Wrinkle Erasing Retinol Patches a whirl a few hours before an important work event. And, boy, am I glad I did (side note: according to the brand they need at least two hours to get to work).
I was immediately reminded of just how different they are to regular sheet and eye masks. For starters, the Wrinkle Erasing Retinol Patches aren’t slippy to the touch like a hydrogel mask.
Rather, each pack contains dry-to-the-touch silicone patches shaped to the face zone it is targeting: two semi-circles for crow’s feet or nasolabial folds; two strips for forehead creases and one triangular-shaped patch to target the frown lines between the brows.
When you peel them from the backing, you can immediately see the tiny, needle-like structures (known as microcones), which release retinol, vitamin C, hyaluronic acid and peptides deep into the skin before self-dissolving.
My user experience
111Skin is the first non-medical brand to use microcones, a Korean technology said to double the absorption of ingredients compared to topical skincare. Given that I’m a big fan of Korean formulations – and retinol, vitamin C and hyaluronic acid are all science-backed ingredients I regularly seek out in my skincare – I was intrigued.
