Social Change Model

Most people will agree that an integral part of any beauty regime is wrinkle cream. Wrinkle cream purportedly keeps skin looking young through the use of different additives, from the natural, such as vegetable oil, to the chemical, such as retinol. These creams can range in price from inexpensive, often costing no more than five or six US dollars, to the very expensive, as high as three hundred dollars in some cases. So a common question becomes ‘How do I pick the best wrinkle cream for me?’ The answers are numerous, for you have to consider several factors.

NATURAL VS CHEMICAL

First, you must consider if you’d prefer a natural wrinkle cream, or a chemical one. Natural, in this case, refers to a cream that contains ingredients found in nature, which have little to no processing. One such natural wrinkle cream is the “Mad Hippie” brand face cream, which claims to reduce wrinkles through the use of such natural ingredients as Argan oil, vitamin B3, Green Tea extract, and antioxidants from fruits like pomegranates. The efficacy of such natural ingredients is uncertain, though there are leagues of women, and men, who swear by them, claiming that they do less damage to your skin than chemical compounds.
Wrinkle cream containing chemical ingredients, however, have been around for a long time, and are perhaps the most widely available. The most common ingredient is retinol, which is a chemical derivative of vitamin A, and is a less potent version of the compound tretinoin, the FDA approved wrinkle reducer that is only available by prescription. Unfortunately retinol does have some side effects, including increased risk of birth defects.
Another common ingredient is hydroxy acids, which act as exfoliants. Unfortunately, these acids carry an increased risk of sunburn, so extra precaution must be taken when out in the sun.

INEXPENSIVE VS EXPENSIVE

This delimma is, perhaps, the easiest and the hardest to solve. The simple solution is to buy the wrinkle cream that you can afford. If you are poor, this narrows down the selection considerably. Unfortunately, lower priced options might not have the same potency as the more expensive ones, or might lack some key ingredients. The more you have to spend, however, the wider your options become. The best solution in that case may very well be trial and error – buy a cream that seems to fit your needs, and try it out for a little while. There are many mid-range brands, such as Clinique and Estee Lauder, which are easily obtained, and usually receive good marks from users. And there are even some pharmacy-brand wrinkle creams that are well known, such as Revlon, Aveeno, RoC, and Neutrogena.
Or you might try word of mouth, by asking friends and family which creams they use. Another idea is research. Magazines such as Consumer Reports often test wrinkle creams and other beauty aids and report what they find to subscribers. Consumer Reports is perhaps the most trust worthy of the reviewer websites and subscription services, as it maintains neutrality when testing products.