Last year, I wrote a feature on “toxic” ingredients used in beauty products. One was Botox – the most toxic substance known to man, yet was approved for cosmetics use by the US Food and Drug Administration in 2002.

The other one I highlighted was snake venom. Through the years, it has been used to treat all sorts of disorders, from high blood pressure to cardiovascular-related ones. In fact, a study done in the US also discovered that a compound found in viper venom helped inhibit the growth of cancer cells in mice.

On the beauty front – scientists realised that snake venom’s paralysing effects could be used in products due to its ability to block the nerve receptors that stimulate muscle movement. One of the first to jump on the bandwagon was Pentapharm, a Swiss health company that developed Sny-Ake, a synthetic tripeptide that was based on the venom of the Asian Temple viper. Studies done on Syn-ake showed anti-aging, skin-smoothing and wrinkle-reducing benefits, and it even won the innovation prize at the 2006 Swiss Technology Awards.

There are a few products that now contain Syn-ake. Planet Skincare launched a “snake cream” last year, and it did phenomenally well – in the first couple of months, around 50 jars were selling at London’s Selfridges. Other brands that use Syn-ake include Z. Bigatti, Skinfluence and Sonya Dakar. As far as I know, none of them are available here in Malaysia.

But PeterThomasRoth is.

The brand’s Un-Wrinkle range contains Syn-ake, and the good people at PTR here were generous enough to pass over a bottle of the Un-Wrinkle Serum for me to try out.

The star product in the Un-Wrinkle line-up, it comes in a pump dispenser unit, which I like because it meant controlled usage. Couple that with a pretty liquid, lightweight texture (think jelly water), and two to three squirts is normally enough to cover face and neck area. The serum also smells faintly of roses, thanks to rose flower water, and is absorbed very quickly – great for day use!

Okay, on to the serious stuff. It has a high concentration of peptides (23 percent), but this is a combination of three neuropeptides – Syn-ake (four percent) SNAP-8 (10 percent), Argireline (three percent) – and three peptides – Syn-Coll (three percent) and the dual peptide Matrixyl 3000 (three percent).

A quick science lesson for those unfamiliar with peptides: One of the greatest discoveries of the 20^th century, peptides is chains made up of amino acids – when the chain has over 50 acids, it’s called a protein, while chains with less than 50 amino acids is a peptide. Linked together, they are called polypeptides, and they have the important job as messengers in the skin – telling it to make more collagen, for example – and we all know how important collagen is for supple, bouncy, baby-soft skin!

Back to the serum, the recommended usage for best results is twice a day over 28 days or more. Mine lasted past 28 days, but I can’t help but wish that the serum would give me more than the 60 odd days or so of usage that it did. Then again, my version was only 15ml, so the 30ml (the size it’s sold in) should give you double that.

So, what has it done to my skin?

I can tell you this – it’s kept me youngish-looking the last couple of months. I won’t go all out and say that my (normal to combination) skin behaved completely because of the serum, but I think it played a pretty major part. (Example: interviewed a 27 year-old radio announcer yesterday who didn’t believe that I was almost eight years older than he was – yay!) My nasolabial fold isn’t as obvious, so it does firm up sagging skin to an extent. My skin tone is more even – red bits are pretty much gone, and fine lines are finer. As for my deep wrinkles? Sadly, they are still there. No matter what anyone tells you, no topical beauty product will get rid of those!

I am happy with the product, but there are other users out there that didn’t get anything out of the Un-Wrinkle serum – it either works, or not. The fact that it costs a pretty penny too might deter some from trying it out, but if you’d like to give this a go, consider it an end-of-year splurge. Who knows, it could give you a youthful start to 2010! 

Available at the Skinology counter in Robinsons The Gardens for RM628 (30ml)