Night Creams - Rejuvenation or Rip-Off?

Night creams are a line of products which magically enable (mostly) women to labor at the task of keeping their skin healthy and young-looking while they sleep. Their marketing tags claim that they rejuvenate, regenerate, restore, resurface, and re-everything your skin, all while you loll away in slumberland.

StriVectin's Resurfacing Serum promises to gently remove “surface imperfections, minimizing the appearance of large pores, evening skin tone and improving the overall health of skin for a smoother, younger-looking, more vibrant complexion.” And Estee Lauder's got their Synchronized Recovery Complex, which offers a "comprehensive, high-performance anti-aging serum-inspired by groundbreaking DNA research-brings your skin a dramatic reduction in the visible signs of aging." Woah.

But do they work? That is nearly impossible to say, at a scientific level at least. The problem is that beauty products are not subject to the same stringent FDA rules when it comes to revealing research methods and findings, so the cosmetic companies are tight-lipped about how they come to make (let alone prove) their assertions. When it comes to skin revitalizing products, the claims basically hinge on the idea that the skin has an internal clock, knows night from day, and at night the skin cells go through a natural revitalizing process that these products enhance.

So, the best way to know is to try them and see how your skin looks and feels. One woman I know who uses the cream, NY actress Stephanie Bolt, swears by them, claiming "my skin feels fresher and smoother when I put the cream on at night." Or, as they say, the proof is in the putting.

Photo via Estee Lauder.