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If you've ever bought a product to prevent aging, you're not alone.
The anti-aging product market was roughly worth $53 billion in 2024.
There's moisturizers, chemical creams, jade rollers and, of course, something that's gotten popular in the last few years.
Red light therapy masks.
And I have to admit, I'm susceptible to.
Aging is something I think about a lot.
Like, every single day for the last three decades as I applied my moisturizer and sunscreen.
Which is why I was intrigued by the claims that red light literally light at the wavelength of visible red light, and some near-infrared red light, could actually reduce signs of aging.
And as I scoured the scientific literature for this episode, I also became obsessed with any real-time anecdata and validation in the meantime.
Like, was I totally on an island with this reporting obsession?
Or were my colleagues too?
So I pulled a ton of people around the office from producers in their 20s, like Mansi Karana.
I use it once a week.
I think, surprisingly, I do think it works.
Like, I do notice that my skin looks just a little tighter after I use it.
To colleagues closer to my age, like Nina Phil.
I had heard great things about red light therapy for skin.
I have a skin disease and very sensitive skin on my face, so i thought this isn't a bad thing to have an addition.
It can't hurt, right?
I love it.
I'm obsessed with it.
Obviously, next step in my quest, try it myself.
And okay yeah, after using a red light therapy mask as directed, 10 minutes three to five times a week for over a month, I thought I saw a difference for the better.
But I'm a scientist.
I can't fall into these anecdotal data traps.
I needed to get to the bottom of the science.
So I reached out to someone who skillfully breaks down the science of beauty.
What does it do?
Which masks actually work?
Why are they so expensive?
And can you make your own cheaper version?
That's Michelle Wong.
She's a PhD chemist who hosts the YouTube channel Lab Muffin Beauty Science.
So I asked her point blank, is there science behind all these red light claims?
It's meant to be good for skin.
It's meant to be good for a whole list of things.
There's a lot of woo around it, I feel, which is why... it feels so pseudoscience-y to begin with.
But it turns out there is stuff behind it.
Today on the show, the benefits of red light.
What is the science behind this craze?
And what other methods might be just as good for your skin?
I'm Regina Barber, and you're listening to Shortwave, the science podcast from NPR.
Thank you.
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So let's get into the science.
Like how could red light or near infrared light help your skin?
Can you break that down for us?
Yeah, so red and infrared light, they are the longer wavelengths.
So red is the longest wavelength of visible light.
They aren't absorbed by as much stuff near the surface of the skin.
So they can penetrate deeper.
And now the mechanisms of how exactly it works, it's not fully established.
But it seems like the main way that red light works is inside our cells.
We have things called mitochondria, the powerhouse of the cell, that produce energy through respiration.
And that energy powers a lot of the biological processes inside our cells.
And there's part of the respiration process which is done by an enzyme, like a little chemical factory.
It's the one that chops up oxygen in half.
And so there's nitric oxide that's sitting in the space where oxygen should be.
And the red light just kicks out the nitric oxide.
So now the oxygen can come in.
For respiration, you get more chemical energy, which means you get more cell processes.
Oh, okay.
So that's why we have this very general sort of benefits of light.
We get all this stuff where it just seems to increase like cell growth.
It increases hair growth, it increases um, healing of wounds, things like that and is that pretty established that it is the red light is doing that to ourselves?
Yeah, so the mitochondria mechanism, that's the one that seems to be happening the most.
But there is actually a little bit of evidence in cells that don't have mitochondria.
That seems to also have improvement.
Yeah.
So as a physicist, I kind of expect light, which is energy, to be bad for my skin.
So how is sending light into my skin, how can it be good for me?
Yeah, so I think...
Light does stuff to our skin in more ways than we'd expect.
We have a precursor to vitamin D in our skin.
And at one point in the process of vitamin D production, UVB will come in and chop a bond.
And yeah, that takes it closer to vitamin D.
So that's why people are low in vitamin D in winter because they go into the sun less.
There's less sun around to begin with.
There's less UVB, which means that you don't have that natural production of vitamin D in your skin.
And everyone's like, you have to take supplements or whatever.
Light is good at chopping up bonds.
Interesting.
OK, so light can be good sometimes.
Getting back to this specific light, what are the differences between red light that you might find in the dermatologist's office and what you can do at home?
Yeah, so usually when you go into an in-clinic treatment, it's going to be a lot stronger.
It's going to be very bright because they can afford these much bigger panels.
There's a lot more LEDs.
There are panels you can get at home, though, which are still pretty bright.
And then there are masks. masks usually have a lot less LEDs.
And I guess there's a bit of a question mark around how effective home treatments are.
Because there's not that much research and there's not that much incentive for research or publicly available research, because approval of these devices isn't necessary.
Right.
This is generally the case with skincare.
If there's something where they need to convince doctors, then they'll do peer reviewed studies.
But if they don't, then you get very spotty, publicly available evidence.
A lot of it is done within the industry and it's locked up and they just don't share it, which is very annoying as someone who's trying to talk about the science behind beauty products.
So, with that in mind, there's masks, there's these panels, there's also, like these, handheld red light therapy devices.
Do you have any sense of how effective these devices are?
That's a really difficult question, because there's just like a lot of lack of regulation and standardization when it comes to these things.
I mean, a lot of people buy panels and masks off Alibaba, for example.
And one of the big problems is that it doesn't seem like a lot of them have specs that are reliable.
But yeah, I think, generally looking at that, looking at reviews and then just using the specific product, that is probably the safest bet in terms of which ones to go with.
There are things like.
I've been in a lot of forums looking this stuff up just to try to get some sort of grasp of what the real use situation is like.
And you see a lot of people who have just gone too bright for too long and they're reporting side effects.
There's things like broken blood vessels, their dark spots getting much darker.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, when they say like three to five times a week, it doesn't mean daily.
It doesn't mean you need to do like that and more light or something like that.
Yeah, I think a lot of people do think more is better, especially people who are new to skincare.
So it seems like biologically...
Um, it's a bit like when you're eating food.
If you try to eat all your food for three weeks on the first day and then go hiking for three weeks and eat nothing, that doesn't really work.
Your body doesn't process the food the same way.
Our bodies don't work that way.
Yeah.
Got it.
And you're saying that there are some products that aren't necessarily what they say they are.
So how do we as a consumer know?
It's always a good idea to consult with a dermatologist before you add anything to your routine that might be a bit iffy, like a red light mask.
Yeah.
But yeah, I think the safest thing to do is to look for a company that... has a lot of reviews.
Ideally, it's a company that's done some research.
So the one that has done the most research is Omnilux, the most published studies on this.
They've also done a lot of the panel research, so they are probably the safest option.
But I don't think by any means they're the only option.
I think also just a company that has a good return policy.
I think is also really important because it is such uncharted waters.
And looking up reviews for your specific skin tone and for what you actually want to use the product for.
Because I think there's just a lot of people buying products that are hyped up without thinking whether or not it matches what they want out of it.
And I think in general...
The amount of evidence for red light is much less than for other skincare things that are really well established.
Can you kind of go into depth with these other things that may be cheaper and, like you said, more scientifically studied?
Yeah, and also a bit easier to use, I think, and less commitment and less pain.
Okay.
So sunscreen is the best skincare product because a lot of our skin aging is from the sun.
I think for white people it's been estimated that 80% of visible skin aging is from sun exposure.
Okay, and the amount of sun you get, it's not just when you're going to the beach, it's every day.
So there are studies done.
There's one, especially famous one from australia, where they found that people who were wearing sunscreen every day, their skin, during the four to five year time they were wearing the sunscreen, there were no increased visible signs of aging, whereas the people who were wearing it just to the beach did have this.
And this was done in australia, in our skin cancer capital of Australia, which is the skin cancer capital of the world.
And this is also important because there are some anti-aging products that can actually make your skin more sensitive to the sun.
And I've had friends who did this, where they started using the anti-aging product without sunscreen and their skin got worse.
So sunscreen, number one.
Okay, check.
Nice.
The second biggest thing is probably tretinoin.
This is a type of vitamin A. It's a prescription product.
It seems to increase cell turnover, so your cells are produced faster.
And it can increase collagen and elastin.
These are the proteins that are deeper in the skin that help with texture.
So Tretinoin is the prescription version that has the most evidence behind it.
But there's the cosmetic versions, like Rational, which are one step weaker, but they do seem to work.
They were actually investigated first before they started looking into Tretinoin, but they weren't stable enough back then.
Now they are stabilized, so they also work.
Michelle, thank you so much for talking to us today.
I had a great time.
You illuminated me with my thoughts.
You really, really helped me think through this.
So thank you so much.
Thank you for having me.
This episode was produced by Rachel Carlson.
It was edited by Rebecca Ramirez and Burleigh McCoy and fact-checked by Tyler Jones.
Robert Rodriguez was the audio engineer.
Beth Donovan is our senior director and Colin Campbell is our senior vice president of podcasting strategy.
I'm Regina Barber.
Thank you for listening to Shortwave, the science podcast from NPR.
On the TED Radio Hour podcasts.
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