CRES Principles – A Summary

As already explained, ageing can be premature and can be experienced even in your 20’s. Keeping the signs of ageing away asks for a proper skin care regime that prevents and removes the signs of ageing. One of such important regime is CRES principles.

Cress principles contain four components; Cleanse, Revitalise, Exfoliate, Stimulate. All these four steps are necessary to ensure a healthy and youthful skin. Your skin care products or cosmetics should be assigned these four tasks. One skin product, ingredient or treatment can affect multiple parameters of the CRES principle. This means you don’t always require 4 different products or treatments to have a complete effect. Your entry point area to focus on in the CRES principle will depend on three factors. These are:

1- Skin type
2- Degree of photo-ageing
3- The extent to which cosmeceuticals have been used in the past.

Most cosmeceuticals adopt aspects of CRES in some way, although perhaps not as clearly as we do. Some companies that initially had products with CRES elements have in most cases abandoned the principle. This has been brought about by the need to dilute the products as a way of increasing their products range and sales. This is why it is necessary to understand if a specific product is needed by your skin or not. It is not the number of products you use that matters but it is the function they perform that should be noticed.Following are a few skin changes that represent ageing.

• Dullness
• Pigmentation
• Texture
• Thinning Skin
• Enlarged Pores
• Breakouts
• Poor tone
• Poor texture

CRES principles work to prevent and repair all these skin changes. You use lots of cosmetics every day. Just replacing them with the right types can do wonders. Marketing campaigns of different cosmetic ranges intrigue the customers and they end up using various useless products. Overzealous use of topical creams and moisturisers expose the skin to many unnecessary chemicals. Sensitive facial skin, or sensitised skin, is usually a result of the use of multiple skin products (moisturisers, day and night creams) as each has different chemicals that include vitamins and preservatives. These chemicals work together to increase the risk of skin irritation and other dermatological issues. This section of CRES principles will allow you to understand what your skin actually needs to stay youthful, glowing, and healthy.

As described earlier, CRES principles actually address four vital skin care steps. There are different kind of products that can be contained within a single cosmetic to perform one or even two or more functions. Cleanse component requires products that contain AHA molecules (lactic, glycolic, mandelic acids) that not only cleanse the skin but also exfoliate, hence performing two tasks of CRES principles. Revatilaising involves use of vitamin A, E, C and glutathione etc. The last step, stimulate, of CRES principles involves use of retinoids and peptides that stimulate collagen production in your skin. Following is the detailed review of each step of CRES.