Super serum: Can a £29 face cream have the same wrinkle busting powers as a £300 lotion?

Miracle cream: Snoxin promises to reduce eye wrinkles, increase collagen production and transform the texture of saggy-looking skin

Sharpen those elbows beauty addicts, because from today, a new wrinkle-fighting serum called Snoxin will be hitting the shelves at Boots, priced £29.99. But in a market flooded with anti-ageing products, why are we so excited about yet another launch?
Snoxin is the latest offering from the makers of Nanoblur — the revolutionary light-reflecting face cream that appears to magically erase fine lines.
Nanoblur sold at the rate of one every ten seconds after its launch last autumn, and the Mail’s beauty editor Elsa McAlonan hailed it as one of her hero products of 2011. So can Snoxin possibly live up to its hype?
First, the packaging. There’s no heavy gold pots or tiny silver spatulas here — the 30ml serum comes in an unassuming white tube.
To slash profit margins and put the maximum amount of investment into the formula within, Snoxin’s manufacturer has not spent millions on glossy packaging or ad campaigns and instead, ploughed money into hi-tech active ingredients.

This powerful formula can reduce eye wrinkles, increase collagen production and transform the texture of saggy-looking skin.
Snoxin contains the same peptides from the same laboratories as some of the most sought-after and expensive skincare products on the market — the ones that cost £200 a pot, not £29.99.

And the maker, Indeed Labs, claims it’s the only High Street product that uses three different peptides at the highest possible concentration. It’s the peptides that have an anti-ageing effect. They are found in expensive creams such as Dior’s L’Or De Vie L’Extrait (£282) and La Prairie’s Cellular Cream (a staggering £442)
‘Peptides are short strings of amino acids that can carry messages to skin cells to achieve certain goals,’ explains Harley Street dermatologist Sam Bunting. ‘They can trick your skin into producing more collagen to reduce the appearance of wrinkles, and lessen excessive facial expression to reduce dynamic lines.’
Of course, the real success of Snoxin will become clear only once the general public has tried this so-called wonder serum.
But the makers are so confident about the results of their own trials, they’ve pitted Snoxin against two luxury anti-agers (although the won’t say which) in a six-week test — the length of time they say it takes to see maximum results.

Affordable anti-ageing: At £29, Snoxin is cheaper than rivals which use similar ingredients

Testers used Snoxin on half of their face and expensive serums on the other. The women reported less prominent crow’s feet at the corners of their eyes, fewer wrinkles and more even pores on the Snoxin side.
Impressive results when you consider that the two serums being used on the other side of the women’s faces were around £300 and £400.
Of course Indeed Labs will be championing Snoxin — the question is whether the science backs up its claims?
‘It’s true that peptides feature high on the list of ingredients and these are designed to build collagen and lessen the activity of excessive facial expression muscles to reduce lines,’ explains Bunting. ‘However, it’s not yet proven whether the active agents can penetrate into the dermis and have an effect on skin.’
There are also some doubts over a product’s potency over time.
‘Protein fragments are inherently likely to be susceptible to breakdown because proteins themselves are; shelf life could alter their performance,’ Bunting adds.
My verdict on Snoxin? Two months in, I have to agree my skin looks the best it has for a long time. The biggest change is to tone and texture. If you want the punch of a high-priced serum without spending a small fortune, you could do worse than splash out £29.99 on this