Personal Care Products

Botox®  Alternatives

The current rage in facial cosmetics is with a class of products generally known as "Botox® Alternatives".  All of these alternative products utilize an exciting new approach to reduce the visibility of wrinkles.

Botox® is an injection of a botulism toxin that essentially paralyzes facial muscles to prevent them from contracting to reveal wrinkled skin over weakly structured skin, damaged by aging and external factors such as UV radiation.  The Botox® alternatives rely upon topically-applied non-toxic peptides (and there are many variants of such peptides) to relax, rather than paralyze, the facial muscles, resulting in a Botox®-like effect, but without the use of toxins and some well known Botox side effects, such as frozen facial features, eye droop, and headaches.  

Our ratings panel of consumers was asked to use some of the more popular products in the Botox® Alternative category.  The various products differed in the type of peptide used, in the percentage of active peptides within the formulation, and the delivery mechanism for that topical application.  The delivery mechanism is especially important, as it turns out, since the ratings reported by our testers were highly correlated with the type of delivery mechanism.  If peptides are unable to penetrate the skin to reach the facial muscle, the percentage concentration and type of peptide turns out to be of minor significance.

All three of our top-rated products received in excess of 80 percent effectiveness ratings.  However, Bioque® Serum XL, a very popular product among Hollywood stars, produced the highest and received the most consistently high ratings from consumers.  Serum XL, as it turns out, not only has the highest peptide concentration (20% by weight) but utilizes an advanced liposome delivery system to carry those peptides deep into the facial muscle layers. 

The next highest rated product is Strivectin SD , produced and marketed by Klein-Becker.  It is more widely available than our top-rated product, Bioque's Serum XL, which is currently available online, but will soon be available in better specialty shops and department stores.  Strivectin SD had the least consistent ratings results among consumers but, due to a large volume of inexpensive ingredients, and a low percentage of peptides, it was clearly the least expensive alternative per ounce.  It also took the longest to show results. Strivectin SD earns its second-rated position largely on its low price that should appeal to the more budget-minded consumer.

Rounding out the top three is DDF Skincare's Wrinkle Relax, formerly called FauxTox.  More effective overall in the reduction of the visibility of wrinkles than Strivectin SD, it is a more expensive alternative and not felt to be worth the price difference.  The combined impact of effectiveness and pricing resulted in a Consumer Rating of 81%.