Bedtime Story

It’s the little brown bottle of a serum that was reportedly the first created to repair skin as one snoozes in bed at night. Several cutting-edge, best-selling reformulations after, its latest update taps onto epigenetics to supposedly make one look even more youthful upon waking. Aileen lalor delves into the science of estee lauder’s advanced night repair and its promise of beauty sleep.

How much is skin’s appearance down to DNA? Not as much as you might think, according to American beauty giant Estee Lauder. In fact the VP of its parent company’s skin biology and bio-actives global research and development department, Dr Nadine Pernodet, claims that genes are responsible for just 25 per cent of the signs of ageing. The other 75 per cent? It’s all down to environment, she says – UV exposure, climate, lifestyle choices such as diet and sleep et cetera or, as scientists like to describe it, epigenetics.

Literally meaning “over genetics”, it’s a term that refers to how what we do and experience affect how genes are expressed. It would explain why conditions such as diabetes could pop up suddenly and then remain in families for generations. Or how identical twins might grow up to be of different heights. Or, yes, how the state of one’s complexion often has a correlation to the amount of shut-eye one gets at night.