The Next Big Thing in Skin Care: Power Plants Klaudia Tirico
We all know that plant-based diets (or just eating a lot of fruits and veggies in general) are vital to maintaining beautiful skin, so it’s no surprise that our skincare regimens include a botanical garden of ingredients that promote a flawless, younger-looking complexion. The new crop of spring skincare highlights a variety of unique, plant-based ingredients that promise to tighten, brighten and help your skin stand the test of time. Here are nine to look out for.
Native to: Pacific Islands, Southeast Asia, Australia, India
Skin benefits:The noni fruit is packed with antioxidants, which help the skin to retain moisture and improve its overall appearance. Noni has even been known to treat dermatitis.
The newest addition to Fresh’s beloved Black Tea collection is this noni-juice-packed eye treatment that promises to hydrate, restore and firm the eye area. The juice is rich in sugar and antioxidants, and, when blended with the firming benefits of black tea and blackberry leaf extract, provides youthful, rejuvenated eyes.
The folks at Burt’s Bees picked wild, white daisies from the mountains of Macedonia to offer an all-natural way to brighten our skin. Mixed with a multi-fruit complex of bilberry, sugar cane, sugar maple, orange and lemon, the five-product collection erases dark spots and discoloration while providing skin with a hydration boost. It includes a Daily Facial Cleanser, Refining Tonic, Dark Spot Corrector, Eye Treatment and Even-Tone Moisturizing Cream.
Just a few drops of this silky formula provides instant hydration and poreless-looking skin, with a significant change in skin’s texture after two weeks of use. The elixir is blended with artichoke extract, Siberian ginseng extract, niacinamide and a SK-II’s signature ingredient, Pitera, to promote healthy, flawless skin and a more relaxed you with every whiff of the botanical scent.
Got 15 minutes to spare? Keep your eye area looking fresh with Shiseido's Benefiance Smoothing Eye Mask, made with mukurossi, chlorella and gambir extracts, hyaluronic acid and pure retinol. The serum-infused fiber sheets keep wrinkles at bay, erase dark circles and brighten the eye area while you sit back and relax.
This serum, blended with La Mer's famous "Miracle Broth" and perennial brown algae, might give plastic surgeons a run for their money. Its luxurious skin sculpting and lifting formula targets the jawline to increase collagen production and ensure zero turkey-wattle.
Scientific name: The spice is derived from a plant called Crocus sativus
Native to: Greece and Southwest Asia
Skin benefit: “Saffron pistils from crocus flowers grown in the Atlas Mountains of Morocco contain a high concentration of unique glycan known as crocin. Glycans play a leading role in skin's cell communication and metabolism, plus contribute to tissue structure and architecture," says WWD.
Debuting in the U.S. in mid-March, YSL’s Or Rouge collection combines saffron (known as "red gold") pistils with glycans to help "stimulate skin's renewal capacity," according to WWD. The line targets a variety of aging signs like fine lines and wrinkles, elasticity and a lackluster complexion.
Native to: Amazonian rainforest in Peru and Brazil
Skin benefits: The extremely high amount of vitamin C in the camu camu berry promotes collagen production, improves uneven skin tone, and brightens and smoothes out the complexion.
The high amount of vitamin C in this overnight mask absorbs into the skin and gets to work in a flash. Camu camu berry is blended with arbutin, avocado oil and hyaluronic acid to smooth out uneven skin tone and fine lines, and moisturize dehydrated skin. Prepare for a glowing morning complexion that lasts all day.
Skin benefit: "Found in the high mountain regions of mainland China, the powerful extract of this flowering fruit helps fight loss of elasticity by stimulating collagen and elastin production."
Find it in: Clé de Peau Beauté Illuminating Concentrate, $150 (out in March)
This three-step facial treatment is your one-stop shop for radiant skin. Start with the Illuminating Complex-infused Lotion (step one) followed by the silky Essence (step two), both made with chestnut rose fruit extract, to exfoliate and prep your skin for the gel-infused mask (step three). Just one treatment leaves your face smooth and glowing.
Native to: the high Arctic, northern Britain, the Alps and the Rocky Mountains
Skin benefit: This edible plant is known to survive and thrive in even the harshest of elements, making it a powerful ingredient that helps the skin "outwit" physical, chemical and environmental stress.
La Prairie's latest breakthrough collection features a Cellular Swiss Ice Crystal Cream and Dry Oil made with a patent-pending Swiss Ice Crystal Complex. The advanced formula is made up of the purple saxifrage, soldanella alpina and Swiss snow algae, all known to live in crazy harsh environments.
The Cream helps maintain your skin's resilience and allows it to acclimate to even the most extreme temperatures, all while hydrating with hyaluronic acid and shea butter. Aside from the Swiss Ice Crystal Complex, the Dry Oil is also made with sweet almond, sunflower seed, sea buckthorn berry and jojoba seed oils to replenish and condition the skin for a supple complexion. It can be used alone or mixed with your favorite moisturizer. Both the cream and dry oil are great for morning and nighttime use.
