When was the last time you thought about your neck? Seems like a strange question, right, but it's taken me 44 years to take any real notice of mine. And that's because it's one of the first areas of my body to really start showing signs of ageing.
There is a definite lack of elasticity and crepiness to the skin on my neck now, so I was intrigued to find out more about Trinny London's new neck product 'The Elevator'. The formulation of this product makes for an impressive read – Japanese plant extract that works like a glue, growth and carrier peptides for smoothing and alpha arbutin to help reduce discolouration.
But how would that formulation help the skin on my neck, which is thinner, drier and has less collagen than my face – and would I see visible results? The Trinny London team shared before and after photos of three women (below) who used the product for eight weeks – and the difference is remarkable.
"I didn't start looking after my neck until I was in my 40s – It was the last thing in my beauty routine," founder and CEO of Trinny London, Trinny Woodall tells me. "I began to get that crepiness in my skin, so did some research on products, and nothing with the word 'neck' on it worked. There seemed to be a contradiction on what a product said it would do and what it did."
And so began the process of creating The Elevator, which has taken Trinny and her team years to develop, from finding the unique and rich ingredients, to getting the balance of all of them right.
Much like you'd find with the best cream foundations, The Elevator is a silky smooth cream, which smells delightful. It includes extract from a Japanese plant (with no bark) that grows straight for two metres. "It becomes the glue in this formulation to get two layers of our skin slightly meeting each other again to help reduce that separation," Trinny explains.
Skincare specifically for the neck, you can really feel how active the ingredients are upon application. A smooth, light and creamy liquid which glides on and leaves your skin feel soft and hydrated, The Elevator should be part of everyone's skincare routine.
I've been using The Elevator for a week now, and while I can't (yet) share visible results, my neck feels amazing. What I particularly like is how it has made me pay attention to that otherwise forgotten part of my body, but more so how the formulation is so active – I can really feel it working.
But who is The Elevator for, exactly?
"It's for three different types of women", Trinny reveals. "I thought 'who actually needs this product?'. The most obvious candidate is the lady who is premenopausal and is just starting to notice it and thinking 'what can I do for my neck?'. The two less obvious candidates, firstly, are women aged 60 plus, who think 'it's too late for me', and they just wear polo necks and cover it up.
"About four months ago we got the results back of our first clinical trial with a dermatologist, and it was this 62-yr-old woman (pictured middle above), who used it every day for eight weeks, and it literally looked like she'd had a face lift – it was incredible. For the woman who thinks it's too late, I want her to look at that picture. And I don't believe it's ever too late to do anything - how you dress - it's never too late for anything.
"That messaging is important because we could just think let's let it go, why bother. And the why bother for me is 'I want to look in the mirror and feel full of energy. I want to look in the mirror and feel I'm not tired in life, and sometimes things that made me feel tired in life is looking tired, is slackness in skin, so what can I do to not have that feeling?"
But it's not just for women over 60, Trinny explains. The introduction of technology has meant there's a whole new group of women who would benefit from this formula.
"The difference between the woman who is 30 and me, is at 30, I didn't have one wrinkle in my neck," Trinny says. "It wasn't until I was 35, and I had a phone, and I started looking down at it all the time. Women who are 30 have done that for 20 years, and they have lines in their neck. I also strongly believe, as with SPF, there is such a thing as future-proofing."
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