Thankfully, men are finally discovering that the benefits of skincare doesn’t only apply to women.
Recent Roy Morgan research has found that men’s use of facial skincare products in Australia has risen steadily over the past five years. The strongest growth is among younger men; with an extra 39.1 per cent aged 25 to 34 incorporating some sort of skincare routine to their daily lives.
Despite the growing interest in men’s skincare routines, a lot of people are quite clueless on where to start. That’s where Aixis Labs comes in, an Australian men’s skincare brand that builds bespoke routines based off what your skin needs and what you want to target.
To give you the marketing spiel: the brand’s formulations are developed in South Korea (the best in the business when it comes to skincare), specifically for male skin physiology, which differs from female skin in terms of its thickness, oil production and collagen density. The range focusses on prevention and long-term skin health, and is designed to keep things simple rather than over-complicate it.
I’m a sucker for bespoke skincare, so was pretty keen to see how the range works. However, I faced one small hiccup.
I’m not exactly the target demographic.
So, I tapped in one of PEDESTRIAN’s team members, Tom Coulson, to be my guinea pig and give it a go for two weeks to see if it made any difference.
Aixis Labs SKNScan
Before you go ahead and start adding everything to your cart, you can take Aixis Labs’ SKNScan. It’s an AI tool that analyses a photograph of your face and gives you a perceived age, perceived eye age and skin type. It also gives you scores out of 100 for skin concerns including acne, redness, lines, pores and pigmentation.
“It had me as older than I actually am. So, that was kind of a a brutal start to it,” Tom said.
However, the accuracy of Aixis Lab’s SKNScan is a bit iffy, so take it with a grain of salt. The first time Tom did it, it told him his perceived age was 34, and upon doing it a second time almost immediately after, it said he looked 29.
“I’m not too sure what changed in the five minutes before that, but it kind of showed me what I needed to do to what I needed to target,” he said.
Tom’s reading told him that his main area for improvement was his pores. Since he only ever applies moisturiser in his daily skincare routine, he was pretty keen to get his hands on some new products.
Tom’s Aixis Labs First Impressions: “My Girlfriend Has Noticed [A Difference]”
I tasked Tom with using his bespoke Aixis Labs range for two weeks to see if he’d notice a difference in his complexion. Yes, I know two weeks probably isn’t long enough to see a groundbreaking change, but I’m impatient, okay?
Tom said he received a lot of skincare products he’d never heard of before, so his first point of call was researching the ones he wasn’t sure of, like retinol and Vitamic C serum. He also received a moisturiser, sun protection cream, face cleanser, hyaluronic acid serum, wrinkle cream and eye cream.
Quite a bit for a newbie to work their head around, if you ask me.
“The under eye cream was came at the right time because in the past six months, I felt like I’ve been waking up and kind of seeing the bags under my eyes and the crows feet wrinkles that you get as well,” Tom explained.
“So I was quite excited when I saw what came through.”
And it turns out that eye cream came in clutch, because it’s what Tom found to be the most effective in the two weeks he spent trialling Aixis Labs. He told me that not only did he notice his eyes were “visibly less puffy and a little bit lighter”, his girlfriend noticed, too. And you know if it gets the girlfriend’s tick of approval, it’s doing a great job.
“And that is literally only in two weeks of trying it and I’m not even halfway through the product yet. So that’ll definitely be something that I’ll be looking to repurchase once this product runs out,” he said.
Tom said that he was most curious about the wrinkle cream, too, since he’s noticed crows feet forming at the sides of his eyes. He applied this to his eyes and neck (because skincare doesn’t stop at your face), but noted he hasn’t seen much of a difference just yet.
“We’re only two weeks in and I’ve been letting these wrinkles grow out for the last 31 years,” he pointed out.
A Small Retinol and Vitamin C-Related Hiccup
The two products Tom wasn’t too familiar with were the retinol and Vitamin C serum. He said he felt “a little bit like a rabbit in the headlights” with these two products, but gave applying them every single day a go… at the same time.
If you’re well-versed in skincare, you know retinol is a strong active that when used properly, can be great for regenerating skin cells and anti-ageing. Used too often and too quickly, and your skin dries up like the Sahara desert.
Retinol and vitamin C are also two ingredients that shouldn’t be used one after the other, as your skin can react badly. While retinol is a great nighttime ingredient, vitamin C is best applied in the morning.
While Tom didn’t have a bad reaction to the retinol and vitamin C (thankfully), he did get a “little crack” in his forehead as a result.
“On the packaging it says apply like every morning and night,” he pointed out.
One thing to note: Aixis Labs also has a SKNCoach app that guides you through your custom skincare routine — a feature Tom didn’t use while trialling his products.
So we don’t know whether the app would’ve advised him against the retinol and vitamin C in tandem routine or told him to go for it, but especially for a beginner, I’d advise against it.
Is The Aixis Labs Routine Worth The Effort?
Once Tom got through the “teething period” of getting used to a fully-fledged skincare routine, he said that he noticed his skin looked “shinier and lighter”.
“[My skin] feels hydrated, like not dried out at all,” he said.
Tom said he no longer looks “dreadful” or like he’s woken up from a big night out each morning. The eye cream and wrinkle cream were his favourite products, but he said he enjoyed using all of the range (yes, even the retinol and vitamin C).
As for whether he’ll continue to use Aixis Labs? Tom said absolutely. The only product he’d sub out was the moisturiser — not because it’s bad, but because he already uses one which he prefers because he’s gotten compliments on his “skin smelling nice or whatever”.
I much rather an unscented moisturiser, but go off, king.
He also redid the SKNScan and found it told him his perceived age was two years lower than what it was when he originally did the scan. He also had an improved score for his pores, which is a win!
Want to try the Aixis Labs range for yourself? You can take the SKNScan to find out what products work best for your skin here.
Image credit: Supplied.
The post This Men’s Skincare Brand Uses AI To Tell You What Your Skin Needs, So We Put It To The Test appeared first on PEDESTRIAN.TV .
