BEAUTY

Acasia Skincare’s new eye cream includes ”nature’s own retinol” and Swiss ice wine

The founder of the award-winning brand, Anna Karin Wahlberg, on what’s so special about the area around our eyes and how to turn grapes into skincare.
By JOHAN MAGNUSSON
October 25, 2021

Wahlberg has a master’s degree in skin therapy and has previously operated skincare clinics, where she’s given over 50,000 skincare treatments, before launching her own brand, award-winning Acasia Skincare, five years ago. Sold at pharmacy chains, the major e-commerce sites, and selected skincare clinics, the brand has also begun processes for internationalising its distribution.

— I developed it aiming to create an easy skincare routine that offers the best quality and effectiveness and where the products work to enhance the skin barrier.

The goal with her latest launch, she tells, was to develop an eye cream that is highly effective yet gentle on the skin and creates visible results.

— The combination of ingredients that provide greater elasticity, a more even skin texture, a tightening effect, and gives immediate and lasting results in our Energizing Eye Cream is unique. It’s vegan, unscented, and hygienically packaged in a generous 30 ml pump bottle and also multifunctional as it also works well as a once-a-week eye mask — or face mask — and to apply on the fine lines around the mouth.

Tell us more about the special ingredients you’ve chosen.

— Firstly, bakuchiol, often called ”nature’s retinol”. It has the same advantages as retinol, but none of the drawbacks, such as redness or scaly, irritated skin. We’ve added peptides that work with bakuchiol to stimulate collagen production in the skin. They also work in synergy with vitamin C and proline, which help to build collagen. Squalane and Q10 are antioxidants that nurture and protect the skin. The eye cream also contains turmeric, which has a keratolytic effect when applied to the skin. This means that it prevents skin cells from clumping together, which helps prevent milia, a common phenomenon around the eyes. The eye cream also contains biophytex, a complex of yeast extract and herbal extracts that work together to enhance the capillaries of the skin and improve microcirculation. This reduces spider veins and soothes the skin. And, it also contains vin-upLift, a softening and firming complex of Swiss ice wine and moisturising polysaccharides. Ice wine is made from grapes that are harvested at first frost and then fermented. All these ingredients make, as mentioned, Energizing Eye Cream a multifunctional eye cream that is effective on many of the problems that frequently occur in the thin skin around the eyes. 

Speaking of that, can you tell us what’s so special about this area around our eyes?

— The skin is thin and has no sebaceous glands, which makes it more susceptible to external forces that lead to wrinkles, fine lines, milia, and eczema. So, it needs extra care. It is important to use a mild cleanser around the eyes and to remoisturise the skin with a moisturising, nutrient-rich eye cream in the morning and evening to delay the arrival of fine lines. In summer, use sunscreen around the eyes as well — but not too close to the eye — and invest in a pair of good sunglasses to protect your skin from harmful UV rays, Wahlberg concludes.

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