5 Underrated Skincare Ingredients For Healthy Skin & Slow Aging That Deserve More Hype | Dr. Idriss

Skin care, the beauty industry, like every other industry, has its own celebrities. And I'm talking about the Vitamin Cs of the world, hyaluronic acid. We beat that horse to death. Niacinamide, which for a while and kind of still continues to claim to be a miracle in a bottle. When it comes to skin care, formulation is about an ecosystem of ingredients that work together to deliver the best results. But that being said, within this ecosystem, there are some quiet workhorses in the background that really deserve to be put in the spotlight. They are doing a lot of the heavy lifting and they are offering something unique in a different way that really the consumer doesn't fully know about. And today I really want to spotlight a couple of these ingredients, some that are really newer technologies that are changing the game in which how familiar ingredients are formulated, others which are tried and true and that have been around within the industry for decades. Like, I have to give myself a little bit of credit. And who the hell am I? I'm Dr. Shereene Idriss, a board-certified dermatologist based in New York City. For the resurgence of glycerin, if you go back to my content 2018, 2019, which was on Instagram and back to 2020 on YouTube, I was really talking about the benefits of glycerin as a humectant, but also as something that can help to promote collagen production. And I've been saying this for years, and I was also saying that hyaluronic acid was way overhyped, which I still fully believe it is. I never said it was the devil, but it's not something that should be in every single skincare product. Glycerin, however, can really be much better tolerated and not only offers the benefits of hydration, but it also offers the benefits of potentially producing collagen in the long run, which by the way a brand can never claim because that borders on a drug fact. Anyway, that is something that I want to bring up today. I want to talk about 5 underrated ingredients, not including glycerin, because I think we have in this community really understood that by now. And if you haven't, I will link the glycerin video below. But without further ado, let us jump in today into the 5 underrated skincare ingredients, what they are, exactly how they work inside our skin, who they're best for, and I will link a few products that incorporate them in their formulation because pourquoi pas? Let's jump in. Starting with number 1, and how this ingredient is not more famous or hasn't caught on like wildfire is beyond me, but I am talking about hydroxyphenylpyrrolone retinoate, also known as HPR. And for simplicity's sake, we're just going to call it HPR. But HPR belongs to the retinoid family, and I want to really just take a quick moment to understand why this family is important. And how this family is made up. Okay. Because we have to understand the dynamics if we're going to understand why something is special. Number 1, this family is important because vitamin A's, right? Retinoids are really a tried and true. They have been around for decades. And when it comes to aging well or quote unquote anti-aging, it is one of the only skincare ingredients that we have that has such a long track record that can do multiple things at once. It can help with cell turnover because as we age, our skin cells stay on our skin longer. So we can therefore look more radiant, more glowy, but it can also help with pigmentation and discoloration. And because we know it helps to stimulate collagen, it helps with the looks of fine lines and wrinkles and can even help with texture. So it really is one of those things that we want to try to incorporate into our skincare routine because it is about consistency over intensity. Being consistent with the retinoids is essential, but that has been the problem because of something called— that I like to call, I made it up— a retinol rebellion. Because these retinoids, retinol included, can be so harsh on our skin, we tend to fall off the wagon and give up and say, maybe I'll try it later, or I'm not going to do it now because I'm too scared. And fear is a huge part of this. And getting over that fear is something that has been very difficult with retinoids until HPR came on the market because it doesn't have as many crazy side effects. But let's now quickly understand how is this family dynamic made up? Okay. Retinols, O-L, are the slowest. They take the longest scenic route, okay? Taking their damn sweet time on that highway at like 10 miles per hour, and you just want to lose your shit. And then it gets off at Exit A. At Exit A, it decides to become retinol. Okay, all right. Retinol then goes back on the highway, maybe moving at like 30 miles per hour, and then it's going to get off at Exit B, and then retinol is going to go become retinoic acid. Which now can enter the building. And that is the goal because the building is the receptor where you want retinoic acid to stick to, to turn it on. And once you turn it on, you're going to get the benefits that we talked about. But it can be very harsh and irritating despite the fact that it is slow. And so it has been hard to get people to want to use it because they're not seeing the results right away. And so they kind of quit. And because they're getting harsh side effects, they don't want to see it through. And it's something that you have to convince, like you have to convince people that love exists. Right? Retinols are a little bit faster, but they tend to be more irritating. Retinoic acid is the prescription, which is already active upon application. So it's not even taking the highway, it's just entering the building and sticking on to the receptor right away. But HPR is a little tiny smart bitch, okay? Because she doesn't go from the entrance, she doesn't take the highway, She goes in through the service entrance, and people who work within the service industry have my heart for life because I know what it's like having to see nearly 100 patients a day. But she goes in and activates the receptor through a different mechanism without taking the highway, and therefore it's not a retinol alternative. It is the badass cousin who wants to walk in from the side door entrance to get to her destination faster than the rest so you can see the results. But it also tends to be way more stable. It's more elegant in formulation. And the track record is showing that it tends to also be less irritating overall, especially depending on how it is formulated. So that is why it is so exciting. So people can actually try this family, this class of ingredients without having to deal with the retinol rebellion, without having to deal with the fear and hopefully able to see it through to actually see the results on your skin when your skin is looking overall brighter, more dewy, more radiant, less wrinkly, firmer overall. It's not necessarily a brand new hidden discovery. It's been around for a couple of years now, but it is newer. And I do think this one really deserves a place in the spotlight, especially for somebody who has been curious to try a retinoid, who has been scared to try a retinoid, or who has tried a retinoid and has had a terrible terrible experience with it, please, this is where you start. But like with all retinoids, you got to start slow, build it up. Even if it's HPR, I would say do it 2 or 3 nights a week and slowly add a night every other week until you can tolerate it more nights a week than not. Also, I wouldn't recommend it if you were pregnant. And products that I love with it, I'm going to link them below, but Caroline Hirons has her Skin Rocks, which incorporates HPR with a retinal. So it can still be irritating because of the retinal factor, but it is much less irritating than the traditional ones. At number 2, we have panthenol, also known as provitamin B5. So like how retinol is a pro-retinol because it has to get converted to become retinoic acid, provitamin B5 has to get converted to become pantothenic acid, AKA vitamin B5. And vitamin B5 plays such an important role when it comes to your skin's function and cellular metabolism. And it is one of my favorite ingredients when it comes to barrier repair because it is a barrier-supporting ingredient that is going to help to but also hydrate while your skin recovers. So first, panthenol is a humectant. It's going to hold on to water, especially on the upper layers of your skin, and it's going to allow your hydration of your skin to be at a better level. Great. But that's just part of the story. So if you think of your skin like a brick wall with bricks, which are your skin cells, and the mortar between the skin cells, right, as the lipid layer holding the bricks together, That is a healthy skin wall. Every once in a while, we get the mortar, the grout, the cement part, the lipid part holding cells together to break up a little bit, and we have little holes in our wall. And what panthenol does is that it minimizes the water that is lost through those holes, also known as transepidermal water loss, TEWL, T-E-W-L. And so panthenol— I'm sorry, my phone keeps falling— helps to minimize the water loss. Through the wall. So not only is it holding on to water, it is also minimizing water loss, and it has anti-inflammatory properties as well that can help to promote a healthier repair when it comes to irritation, over-exfoliation, etc., especially if, for example, you had the retinol rebellion and you're trying to get your skin back in check because you haven't tried HPR yet. That's where panthenol can be helpful. Who is it for? It is for people with both dry or dehydrated skin. So if you are somebody who lacks oils in your skin, or if you're someone who's lacking water content, panthenol is for you. Anybody with a compromised skin barrier or people who have used, for example, retinols that couldn't tolerate it, or even exfoliating acids, I would say give it a try. If you have sensitive skin— sensitive skin is always a tricky one because everyone's sensitivities are different— I would patch test it first. But normally people with sensitive skin can tolerate panthenol, and it's actually great after any sort of procedure. Like, let's say you got microneedling done, wait 24 hours, and it's a great thing to apply on your skin because it's going to help your skin recovery go better. La Roche-Posay, obviously, the B5. B5 stands for vitamin B5. And interestingly, in the Dr. Idriss Major Fade Flash Mask, a.k.a. my brand, I put panthenol in with the exfoliating acids, especially glycolic acid at 15%, because the exfoliating acid is going to be exfoliating those dead skin cells off. It can be aggressive. But what I have been very pleasantly surprised by is how many people can tolerate it because of the panthenol, which helps to calm the skin down and allows your skin to recover. So you're exfoliating while recovering. And so you're not getting that crazy reaction that you would normally get from a 15% exfoliating acid. At number 3, we have ergothioneine. Now, whether or not I butchered how you say it is up for debate, but I'm going to just call it ergothioneine because that's what I'm going to call it. And it is a sulfur-containing amino acid and a very powerful antioxidant. But what's very exciting about this particular antioxidant is, like, unlike many antioxidants, your body cannot make it at all. You have to get it from your diet, especially, for example, foods like mushrooms. But what's more fascinating, despite the fact that your body can't make it, your body has now created a special transporter called the OCTN1 whose job is to grasp the ergothioneine and take it into your cells. So that's telling me that this is an important enough molecule that has been received by our bodies, that our bodies now has created a special pathway to grab it and to absorb it within our cells. And that is very, very exciting. And that's why certain scientists have named this antioxidant the longevity vitamin, although it's not technically classified as a vitamin in skincare because of its effects on healthy aging. So what are antioxidants and why is this exciting? Antioxidants help fight free radical damage, which comes from environmental stressors. So pollution, sun, stress, the bus, work, etc., right? It's basically your love life, work, straddle, bank accounts, all that shit is causing oxidative stress. And then what happens as a result of oxidative stress? You rust and free radicals form, and free radicals are going to eat up your collagen and allow you to age much faster than you want to age. And so what ergothioneine does is that because it gets absorbed into the cells, it allows your cells to fight this free radical damage on an ongoing basis and not just when it's applied on the skin, where antioxidants usually live in between the cells and not within the cells. And so it's offering you the double benefit of that immediate instant impact of helping your skin because it's within your cells, but also that longer-term benefit of helping your skin cells fight free radical production, oxidative stress from life. And so I think that is fascinating, and I think that is one thing that nobody talks about because I think it gets too scientific and too nerdy. And as somebody who now owns a brand, I understand that people kind of zone out after a certain point in time. And if you're still watching this video till now, you're not that person, but most people are. And so I think it is extremely exciting to see that ingredient in particular formulations. And I kind of consider it like the bodyguard, quite frankly, of your skin cells. So if you were trying to prevent premature aging, if you're somebody who is, you know, not interested in doing a lot of procedures, but you really want to help your skin over time, especially as you are exposed to different environments, I think this one's for you. It is very expensive and that is why you don't normally find it in mass skincare products. But Augustinus Bader, for example, incorporated it within the Vitamin C Serum and he combines it with their Vitamin C to offer that additional support of antioxidant protection. I will link a couple others as well. At number 4, we have, and I love this one, diglucosyl gallic acid. Di-glucosyl gallic acid doesn't have an acronym like DGA. So unlike, for example, HPR, don't go calling it DGA because people will not know what you're talking about. So unfortunately, we're going to have to learn how to say it. Di-glucosyl gallic acid. And this is a water-soluble derivative of gallic acid, which naturally occurs from plants like grapes, tea, and oak. And it's one of the newer brightening ingredients that's starting to really catch the eye of many cosmetic chemists because of the way that it works, but also because of the benefits that it can offer. It cannot just help you in terms of brightening, in terms of pigmentation. If that was English, I hope you followed. But basically, it doesn't just help with dark spots and pigmentation, but it also helps with redness. And if you've been following me for a while, you know that any form of discoloration, whether brown or red, both of these things can contribute to you looking way more tired and wiser, older in life. And so what makes this very, very, very interesting is that it actually interacts with your skin's microbiome. So once you apply it on the skin, your skin's microbiome is going to convert it into its active form known as gallic acid. And gallic acid is going to interfere with the pigment pathway, which leads to the discoloration of your skin in terms of brown spots. What normally triggers the pigment pathway? Sun exposure, UV exposure, but also oxidative stress. Gallic acid is also an antioxidant. That is going to fight oxidative stress. And it's also in the process going to help minimize redness as well. So if you have post-acne marks, red marks that are going to eventually turn brown and leave scars, this is a great ingredient to use because you're going to minimize the redness, which is then going to minimize the brown spots. And you're also going to minimize any brown that was already created. So hopefully you can level out any sort of discoloration. But it's also a great one to incorporate when you are somebody who has, for example, melasma, because we need to be on a very strong over-the-counter skincare routine. We need to also think of this if you have sunspots and uneven skin tone with some variation in skin color. And if you're somebody who's just very sensitive, let's say, and you cannot tolerate pigment-fighting ingredients, this is a great one for you to try as well. And on to número 5, which is my last most underrated ingredient. I'm gonna have to give it up to zinc PCA. Zinc PCA is not zinc oxide, and that's why I want to spotlight the PCA part of Zinc PCA because Zinc PCA is probably one of the most underrated, underappreciated ingredients when it comes to acne-prone skin, especially if you are not just acne-prone but you're also somebody who lives in the world of redness. Okay, because zinc is known as an anti-inflammatory. With that, you're going to have a reduction of redness, you're going to have a reduction of excess oil production, but it also has oil-regulating properties which is going to keep that oil production at bay. But the PCA part of Zinc PCA is going to help your skin hold on to moisture. So you're not getting rid of the oil and over-stripping your skin. You're going to be a beautiful dewy dumpling, as Nam Vo says, because the PCA is allowing you to hold on to your skin's moisturizing factor, and it's going to help balance your skin without sacrificing the hydration. It prevents 5-alpha reductase, which is an enzyme involved in oil production, and usually it goes up during puberty. And it also creates a less favorable environment for acne-causing bacteria while supporting healthier skin and more hydrated skin. Anyone who's combination skin, anyone who's acne-prone, anyone who has rosacea, anybody who's looking to control their shine without overdrying their skin, this is the ingredient for you. And I've talked about Glossier's serum for years, um, their Niacinamide and Zinc Serum, because of the fact that it has the zinc PCA in it. And I will link several other products as well below. So there you have it. I hope you guys have a better and a deeper understanding on some skincare-worthy ingredients today that people don't often talk about. And remember, it's never about a single ingredient story. It is about an ingredient ecosystem that is working together in harmony to offer you the best results. Why, if you are somebody who's constantly sensitive, it is very worth your while to get patch tested so you know specifically what you are reacting to and not assuming it is one of these ingredients that is married to many other in a formulation. Let me know what you would like me to review next. And in the meantime, I hope you guys have a beautiful Saturday. I'll see you next week.