Shiseido has become the world’s first company to elucidate skin structure that maintains facial skin morphology, naming it ‘dermal anchoring structures’, and is developing a skin care line designed to alleviate the problem.

Joint research with Kyoichi Matsuzaki, Associate Professor, Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, St. Marianna University School of Medicine (currently Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Keio University School of Medicine), and Takahiro Ochiya, Chief, Division of Molecular and Cellular Medicine, National Cancer Center Research Institute clarified that facial skin sagging is caused by age-related loss of dermal anchoring structures, rendering the skin unable to support its own morphology.

Based on this knowledge, the company discovered that specially developed exercises to contract and relax muscles of facial expressions can prevent loss of dermal anchoring structures and has identified that licorice extract can produce similar effects.