10 NEWS


Shiseido discovers ‘ring collagen’ that maintains facial shape


Japanese beauty giant Shiseido has discovered Ring Collagen, a ring- shaped collagen structure located around vellus hairs and sebaceous glands. By contracting and pulling against


each other, these rings form an internal honeycomb network that generates tension to maintain facial shape and prevent age-related sagging. Individual Ring Collagen


structures contract inwardly and pull against adjacent rings to wrap the skin tightly around facial structures. The structural integrity of


Ring Collagen relies heavily on surrounding proteoglycans, which cushion the rings. With age, proteoglycan levels


decline, causing the Ring Collagen network to disrupt and lose its


from the International University of Health and Welfare, Jichi Medical University and the National Institute for Physiological Sciences To map this phenomenon,


tension-generating abilities. Moderate physical stimulation


and facial massage were found to boost proteoglycan production, improving the structure of Ring Collagen.


The use of rosehip extract and


safflower (benibana) extract was shown to increase proteoglycan- related gene expression, aiding in the preservation of skin firmness. The discovery was made in collaboration with researchers


Shiseido developed Digital- Skin Reality, an AI-powered 3D visualization technology that renders the intangible mechanical forces at work within the skin. In a related development,


Shiseido has discovered that an extract of cilantro fruit, also known as coriander (Coriandrum sativum), delivers a dual anti-ageing skin care effect. A study drawing on findings


from hair regenerative medicine research found the extract eliminated senescent cells (stagnant, aged cells) and increased normal (non- senescent) cells in skin.


Furthermore, the research


confirmed that this increase in normal cells promotes collagen production. When cilantro fruit extract


was added to and cultured with dermal fibroblasts induced to age by oxidative stress, cell death (apoptosis) was induced, which successfully eliminated senescent cells.


These effects were not observed


in normal cells that had not undergone ageing, indicating that the extract specifically acts on senescent cells. Furthermore, when the


extract was added to a mixture of approximately equal parts normal and senescent cells, a decrease in senescent cells and an increase in normal cells were observed, along with decreased expression of ageing markers (SA-b-Gal, P21).


Amorepacific AI research assistant ‘slashes tasks to five minutes’


Amorepacific, South Korea’s largest beauty company, has taken the wraps off Lemon, an AI research assistant said to dramatically shorten its internal R&D period for cosmetic products. Developed in conjunction with


KT (Korea Telecom), Lemon (Lab Efficiency Mode ON) harnesses more than 70 years of previously disaggregated beauty data, allowing researchers to find information via a single system.


Testing conducted at


Amorepacific’s R&I Centre showed that research material and regulatory review tasks in the product planning phase, which previously took about 12 days, were reduced to roughly five minutes.


The time to review the research


history of a specific ingredient and its applicability to products was also greatly reduced from about six days to around five minutes. Using Lemon, researchers can


now search and analyse materials needed not only for R&D but also for production, quality, and regulatory response tasks, and receive new exploration, discovery, and suggestions during the research process. Suh Byung-hwi, head of


Amorepacific’s R&I Centre, said: “This project is significant in that Amorepacific is leading the transformation of the research environment for the AI era.


Japanese scientists detect ‘invisible early signs of skin ageing’ ).


Japanese scientists have developed a new way to detect subtle, early-stage changes in human skin collagen before any visible signs of damage appear. Researchers at Hiroshima


University discovered that collagen’s hidden internal structure begins to unravel before the fibres themselves break apart. A study, published in ACS


Nano, reveals that the molecular organization and supramolecular chirality—or structural handedness—of dermal collagen collapses prior to the actual thinning or fragmentation of the


visible fibre network. Traditional imaging methods can


easily identify visible deterioration, such as fibre thinning or loss of connectivity. However, these structural failures


represent late stages of tissue remodeling. “One way to think about our findings is that conventional imaging methods can show the ‘bricks’ of a collagen structure, but they may miss subtle changes in how those bricks are arranged,” said Ali Haider, first author of the study and a graduate research fellow at Hiroshima University’s International Institute


PERSONAL CARE MAGAZINE September 2026


for Sustainability with Knotted Chiral Meta Matter (WPI-SKCM2


To uncover these hidden patterns,


the team integrated advanced optical imaging with chiroptical spectroscopy, including synchrotron radiation vacuum-ultraviolet circular dichroism (SR-VUVCD) and multi- dimensional quantum cascade laser vibrational circular dichroism (MultiD-QCL-VCD). This framework allowed them to


map both the presence of collagen and its chiral structural coherence in the exact same physical tissue section. The results demonstrated a


“Going forward, the AI platform


will handle repetitive searches and analysis, allowing researchers to focus on creative questions and innovation,” he added.


distinct decoupling between collagen mass and structural order: tissue samples retained their bulk collagen content and coverage even after their underlying supramolecular chirality coherence had severely degraded. “The key message of this


paper is that collagen should not be viewed only as a visible fibre network but as a hierarchical material whose function depends on organization across multiple length scales,” said Katsuya Inoue, a WPI-SKCM2


professor who is


one of the study’s corresponding authors.


www.personalcaremagazine.com


Credit: KT


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