Forget Instagram filters, Photoshop, skin tightening and the last thing on your mind should be botox because the technology we’ve been waiting for has arrived. We may not have listened in science class but today’s the day we’d like to thank all of the kids that did. Particularly the ones who ended up at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard Medical School. Their team of chemical engineers and medical researchers has introduced a new technology that will literally allow us to smooth a second layer of skin to hide imperfections. This means good-bye wrinkles, pores, hyperpigmentation and blemishes in any shape or form. Women around the world have used foundations, anti-aging creams and other makeup products to disguise faults in their skin for centuries. Adding a new skin sounds absolutely and totally insane but if this actually works could change the game forever. This takes taking a girl swimming on the first date to a whole new level.
Over time, human skin loses its ability to snap back and as a result we end up with wrinkles and bags under our eyes. The scientist’s breakthrough might just be a solution to this problem. To get a little technical the application is referred to as “cross-linked polymer layer” or if your lazy like us you can refer to it as XPL. “It’s an invisible layer that can provide a barrier, provide cosmetic improvement, and potentially deliver a drug locally to the area that’s being treated. Those three things together could really make it ideal for use in humans” said Daniel Anderson, an associate professor in MIT’s Department of Chemical Engineering.
Anyway we’ll explain how it works for those of you interested which we’re sure most of you are just for curiosities sake. First an invisible cream called polysiloxane is applied to your skin and then cured by a second material called a platinum catalyst. Think of it as a see-through silicone plastic at just 70 micrometers at its thick. So when we say invisible, we really do mean invisible. Basically a skin-like layer is created on top of your actual skin but don’t be fooled by its softness because it’s strong enough to withstand the movement of facial features. Peeling XPL off can be likened to the joy of peeling away sunburnt skin.
The MIT team conducted various experiments on human subjects where they discovered XPL to successfully help dry skin stay moisturised. They used 3D photography four hours after XPL and the silicone second skin had been applied to analyse the results. It was found that with XPL the applicant’s skin was pulled almost twice as smooth.
Imagine living in a world where everyone’s skin was that good you couldn’t guess people’s age. This technology probably won’t be made available to us any time soon but hopefully we don’t get too many wrinkles while we wait. It’s good to know that technology like XPL is in the works. We can know put a hold on kidnapping Pharrell Williams and getting him to reveal his skincare secrets. We’ll only have to kidnap him to sing Happy with us about how good our XPL skin will be!
