A trusted brand gets young and hip

Having a dermatologist for a mother is a great advantage skin-wise, but it usually means your vanity table looks more clinical than glamorous. As a beauty junkie I was always reluctant to use the products my mom recommended because, although they were hypoallergenic and effective, they all suffered from image problems. With their stodgy containers and no-nonsense formulas, they weren’t much fun to use.

But one company is going beyond its science-driven heritage and crossing over from being the No.1 derm-recommended skincare brand to holding that all-important allure for a product queen like myself.

Neutrogena, which Johnson & Johnson (J&J) bought in 1994, is getting younger and hipper, with celebrity endorsers like Vanessa Hudgens, Hayden Panettiere, Jennifer Garner and, for the slightly more mature set, Diane Lane.

Recently, the brand reintroduced its popular Fine Fairness line with new and improved products and a decidedly more glamorous image — clinical-sounding claims like “dermatologist-tested,” “oil-free” and “non-comedogenic” are now presented in sleek silver packaging.

Neutrogena also invited beauty writers to test its skincare products in the most stylish way possible — via a wellness getaway at Edsa Shangri-La Hotel, sampling the latest face and body treatments at the gorgeous, state-of-the-art Chi Spa. Chi’s version of therapeutic Philippine hilot was done using Neutrogena’s Light Sesame Body Oil, while the Botanical Chi Facial with Vitamin C was performed with four Fine Fairness products (three more are due to be launched in August).

Over lunch at the hotel’s Japanese restaurant Senju, where the delicious yet healthy fare we ate was heavy on the soy that is so essential to Fine Fairness, Johnson & Johnson group brand manager Taffy Ledesma reacquainted me with the brand. “Neutrogena is skin-friendly, and it’s based on real science,” he said. “Globally, Johnson & Johnson is No. 5 in skincare and Asia-Pacific is the fastest-growing segment. At 15 percent, it’s at the forefront of growth.”

Even the new packaging is designed especially for Asia, where Neutrogena’s cleansers are now the top sellers (Deep Clean grew 66 percent from a year ago), followed by Fine Fairness at 50 percent. “Sun protection is also doing very well,” Ledesma adds. “Helioplex is a great UVA/UVB innovation that makes the formula more stable so it doesn’t degrade when exposed to light.”

After lunch Yujin Saito, Johnson & Johnson’s associate director for R&D in the Asia-Pacific region, explained the science behind Fine Fairness. “We’ve decoded the secrets to healthy skin whitening,” he said. “The current approach of cosmeceutical companies is to focus on one or a few whitening ingredients, but there’s a limit to what each whitening ingredient can do, so consumers frequently experience a limited effect.”

According to Saito, once you’ve been exposed to the sun, your skin starts producing melanin, which results in the skin darkening otherwise known as a tan (and age spots if you infrequently wear sunscreen). Likening this process of melanin production to a factory that produces black umbrellas, Saito says that, after studying and identifying the whole process, Neutrogena formulated a HealthyWhite Complex that targets each stage of production and shuts down the “factory” permanently.

Key whitening ingredients include Essential Soy, which blocks melanin transfer and is also a strong antioxidant, enhancing elasticity, reducing brown spots and delaying hair growth; vitamin B3 to renew cells and make skin appear more radiant and translucent; stabilized vitamin C to block free radicals, ensure a healthy glow, lighten and protect skin from sun-induced redness; and Portulaca extract, an anti-inflammatory that calms skin and prevents pigmentation.

The products in the range are cleverly designed to accomplish Neutrogena’s eight-fold approach to finer, fairer skin: they work in concert to protect, shield, lighten, renew, block, calm, prevent and restore.

“The cleanser and toner reduce dullness and roughness after one week, and show strong whitening efficacy after continuous use,” Saito says. “The SPF 30 lotion with broad-spectrum UVA/UVB filters has strong melanin inhibition.”

After a mere one-time exposure to UV light, Saito warns that the damage to skin is there for at least three days. “Your skin continues producing melanin, so it’s very important to protect it from UV.”

The line also includes natural minerals that reflect light to give you instant radiance and translucence, which according to Saito is the ultimate goal: “You will not look white like a geisha but have a glow coming from the inside.”

From a trusted brand that my mother — and now my sister, who’s also a dermatologist — would both recommend, that promise is good enough for me.

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Neutrogena is available at Watsons and other drugstores nationwide.