This week UK retailer Boots in-house brand No 7 is launching its new "Early Defence Skincare" range, which has been specially designed for women aged 20-35 who don’t need to worry about anti-aging just yet, but wish to keep young skin looking younger for longer.

No 7 Early Defence Night Cream © No 7. All rights reserved.

Consisting of Day, Night and Eye Creams, the series has been designed as a ‘stepping stone’ to help in the transition from everyday skincare to proactively delaying the signs of ageing.

It features the brand’s patent-pending daily protection technology, ‘Double Defence’, which works in combination with UVA technology to protect skin from the sun and environmental stress. The technology contains a combination of ginseng and mulberry to combat superoxides produced as a result of exposure to sunlight or pollution, vitamin C and lipochroman and Vitamin E which are effective against singlet oxygen, an incredibly damaging free radical produced by UVA exposure. The creams also contain rice peptides and alfalfa, which are effective inhibitors of age-accelerating enzymes (MMPs) in the skin.

"Protecting your skin from the sun and environmental stress is really important, particularly if you want to proactively delay the signs of ageing," says Dr Mike Bell, Skincare Scientific Advisor for Boots UK. "With Double Defence technology we have created a powerful and broad-spectrum antioxidant complex which has been designed to neutralize damaging free radicals that cause the skin oxidative stress, helping you to keep your skin looking younger for longer."

Increasingly important target

Women in their twenties and thirties are becoming an increasingly important target for beauty brands when it comes to anti-aging. L’Oreal Paris has proven that it’s never too early to start protecting skin with its Youth Code range of night and day creams, aimed at women aged 25-35 who want youthful-looking skin.

Nuxe’s Nirvanesque Smoothing cream, first wrinkles © Nuxe

Additional launches in recent years aimed at the demographic include Shiseido’s Ibuki range, designed to help skin resist the stresses of daily life, and Nuxe’s Nirvanesque range of "First wrinkle creams" for a pre-emptive approach to anti-aging.