THERESA CALLAGHAN
Callaghan Consulting International, Hamburg, Germany

Abstract

The Enigma of Ageing
‘Age is just a number’… ‘Age is how you feel’… ‘Behave and think younger’… So many statements like these are common today, and over the years our cosmetics industry has successfully taken advantage of people’s fears and anxiety when it comes to getting ‘old’. The process of ageing however, is a complicated one. While brands and product advertising focus on what we ‘see’, our health and how we ‘feel’ play very important roles, since ageing of the skin is also tied to ageing processes of our body in general. So, how do we see ageing skin today? What lessons have we learned from the past? What could the future hold? This commentary article discusses the perspectives of eleven panellists from providers to the cosmetic industry, and considers what challenges we still face, and opportunities for the future.

Skin Ageing - Where We’ve Been & Where We Are Now
During the last 35 years or so, the skin ageing category of the cosmetics industry has seen major developments in both the progress of scientific understanding of the skin as a vital organ of the body, as well as much success in selling the concept of ‘anti-ageing’ to consumers. The industry still sells a wide variety of consumer products to counter this natural process, to the point that visible ‘ageing’ is considered a horrifying prospect by many. The consequences and social impact of this litters the press, internet, and social media alike, with the global market value for so-called anti-ageing cosmetic products reaching a staggering 62.6 billion USD in 2021 (1). While we have made great strides in scientific advancements, product developers have dwelt on reducing, or even getting rid of, the visible signs of ageing such as wrinkles, blotchy skin, greying hair, ridged nails, etc. However, in more recent years the industry and the consumer has come to accept that skin ageing is so much more. We are trying to strike a better balance between the ‘causes and effects’. The causes being both ...