Exosomes skincare: the new K-Beauty hero for calm, radiant skin

Such was the stampede for Trinny Woodall’s latest serum, Naked Ambition, that the website crashed on launch day. Its promise – to reduce redness by 46 per cent in six weeks – chimed with thousands of women wanting to wake up with skin they could be proud of, not immediately conceal with makeup

It probably helped that the social media ad campaign features a great comedy turn by Trinny herself, looking gloriously dishevelled and waking up next to a mystery man. She then runs to the bathroom to do that thing that we’ve all done – hastily put on some makeup before he wakes up. But, no need – thanks to Naked Ambition, her vitamin C and azelaic acid exosomes serum, she now has barefaced confidence.

 

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So what is in this magic formula that’s backed by three clinical trials and claims to be the brand’s biggest innovation to date? Vitamin C, we know, is a skincare staple for complexion brightening and protection, and azelaic acid has been around for decades (often in prescription form) as an effective treatment for redness and inflammation. But exosomes? Hang on, what are they?

‘Exosomes’ is a term that’s gaining traction – coming out of Korea, it’s been a trending clinic treatment for the past few years (although exosomes as a clinic treatment are very different from skincare exosomes) and it’s working its way into our bathrooms. Popular brands are joining the exosome skincare train; this year, Medik8 launched a powered-up version of its vitamin C serum, C-Tetra Advanced, £69 with added exosomes, and The Inkey List brought out a barrier-repairing Exosome Hydro Glow Complex, £20, while Tropic Skincare introduced an Eye Lift Exosome Midnight Balm, £49. At the punchy end of the price scale are doctor-led brands such as 111 Skin, Dr Barbara Sturm and Dr Ivy London, whose exosome serums won’t leave you much change from £500.

What are exosomes in skincare?

Exosomes are a way of packaging up small fragments of ingredients and delivering them where they need to go in a targeted fashion – think of them as a GPS system and a courier for actives and things like growth factors, proteins and regenerative molecules. They are able to travel quite deeply into the skin, and they are also programmed to lock on to the correct cells to deliver their load.

The exosomes in your skincare generally come from plant or bacterial sources, or they are made synthetically in a lab and then ‘filled’ with active ingredients.

The latter is the case with Trinny London Naked Ambition, where the brand has encapsulated azelaic acid in exosomes for superior delivery. Trinny explains these bad boys are engineered to travel down the hair shaft to deposit their redness-busting payload deeper into the skin for dramatic and fast results.

Trinny Woodall’s Naked Ambition serum with azeleic exosomes

The Inkey List uses exosomes that come from cica (or centella asiatica), a plant that’s been everywhere in skincare lately for its superior skin-calming effects. Inkey List co-founder and microbiologist Mark Curry favours them, he says, “because they’re packed with potent antioxidants and wound-healing actives to calm inflammation, support repair and protect against oxidative stress.”

Other plant ‘phyto-exosomes’ come from hardy botanicals such as rose damask, Korean radish and pomegranate. The most resilient botanicals are favoured because, being these plants are great at surviving under difficult circumstances in nature and so pack the most protective and reparative molecules that our skin can benefit from.

In clinic treatments, you’ll find exosomes that come from plants, bacteria and animal sources such as bone marrow and colostrum. A handful of high-tech skincare brands, such as the popular Singaporean brand Calecim use animal sources too – you might see them listed as mesenchymal cells.

In some countries, such as Korea, human-derived exosomes are legal, although not in Europe and the UK. The reason we mention this is that the main body of clinical proof for exosomes having an age-proofing effect, comes human-derived exosomes. Only human and animal-derived exosomes have growth factors that can help to directly regenerate collagen and elastin.

They are often teamed with treatments such as microneedling, Morpheus 8 or fractional laser to drive the exosomes deep enough into the skin to set off a collagen-boosting process.

Can skincare exosomes tackle the signs of ageing too?

They can, in a roundabout way, but it’s not their main function in over-the-counter skincare.

“Exosomes in skincare are not designed to travel to the skin layers that rev up collagen production, explains Curry. “They are meant to penetrate the upper skin layers, which they will help smooth and hydrate. They also help restore the skin barrier and calm inflammation – that is their real benefit.”

Because a strong, resilient barrier helps skin do a better job of repairing itself, you could say that it, in the long run, leads to younger-looking skin. But the initial benefits you’ll get from exosome skincare are increased radiance and moisture and a smoother texture – not necessarily fewer wrinkles.

Exosomes amplify your actives

Another way plant exosomes in your serums and creams are beneficial is by boosting the effectiveness of other active ingredients. They do this by creating a less inflammatory environment for your cells, which will amplify the efficacy of any actives in a formula. But they also boost the delivery of other active ingredients in the formulation. Technical director of Tropic Skincare Kavitha Murugeshan, says that they help “push in other ingredients.” The more exosomes you include, the more of this benefit you get, she explains.

Millions? Billions? How many exosomes do you need?

Research suggests that more is more when it comes to exosomes, but nobody has yet established an ideal concentration. Also, it is easy to get carried away with the numbers if you don’t understand the details, warns Murugeshan.

“The number of exosomes you can pack in depends on how large the exosomes are, and this depends on the molecules inside the exosomes,” she explains. “For example, centella exosomes are generally quite large, reflecting the complexity and bulkiness of their active anti-inflammatory cargo.”

On the other hand, things like fruit exosomes tend to be smaller, as they mainly transport tiny-sized antioxidants, vitamins, and polyphenols, which fit into much smaller ‘transport bubbles’, and therefore allow the use of far higher numbers of exosomes.

This explains why Tropic’s Eye Lift Exosome Midnight Balm, with its exosome complex derived from multiple fruits, can boast  2.85 billion exosomes while the Inkey List’s centella formulation has ‘only’ three million. By the same token, when Dr Ivona Igerc says her Dr Ivy Regenerative Exosome Serum’s 17.5 million exosomes per bottle “is a very high concentration that guarantees superior results compared to rival products,” she is not fibbing.

That high concentration comes at a price: £315, to be exact.

In short

Exosomes are for you if you want calmer, smoother-feeling skin, or actives such as vitamin C in a more effective and less reactive form, or a product that works faster and more efficiently than it would without the addition of these tiny turbo-boosters.

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