I am here with Cyril.
Hi!!
And you are from what company Cyril?
I am working for Oriflame.
Oriflame.
A Swedish company.
Okay.
We are present in more than 60 markets and we try to understand those markets also.
You have done a lot of studies on understanding how we perceive age and health.
Exactly, yeah.
So what I was presenting yesterday was that we do clinical studies of people so we take
a wide array of measurements over the face, you know, the hydration, the sebum, all the types
of wrinkles, the size of their pores and so on.
We also tried to connect this to the way people perceive this, so we take the face images,
of this person, and we show them to people in the same country.
They somehow have to guess the age of that person, and what’s interesting, I think
the interesting thing is, when someone is perceived older or younger, then their real
age, we try to understand, the things to measure them.
Okay, so we have our first guest here today.
Hi feelin.tired!
It’s good to see you!
I am starting to get used to seeing your handle.
So I am here with Cyril, he works for Oriflame.
And what he does is studies age perception.
How we perceive age and also health based off of our skin.
And so, did you want to walk through what you said one more time, since we have someone
joining us.
I want to make sure they are able to catch up on everything.
Basically, I was just explaining that the work we do is to understand what are the skin
features that influence age perception or health perception.
We take measurements all over the face, hydration, wrinkles, pores, everything you can possibly
imagine.
But we also take images that we show to people that have to guess how old is that person,
and when someone is perceived as older or younger, and try to connect the dots,based
on the skin measurements.
This sort of reminds me of that game they play in carnivals or at the state fair, where
they have the person that guesses the age and the weight of the fair goer.
Does anyone know that game at carnivals?
That’s sort of like you, but you’re coming at it with a lot of science, right?
And you’re guessing particularly based off of skin.
So that even makes it harder because you’re not even using any clothing cues for it for
example or you know, anything about any other cues aside from, you know, the skin you wear.
And although there is no cues.
It is interesting!
Our brains are very good at (2:29:19 ? ) We’ve been looking at many faces, from different
ages, from different backgrounds so being aware of that we are paying attention too
main skin features across the face and then we make a judgement based on that , so any
person you meet for the first time after a couple of seconds you make, without even knowing
it, an assessment of how you think they are, how healthy they are, or even how attractive
they are.
You do that job with your brain.
This sounds like a job that can mess up your social relationships!
In a way, yes, yes.
Because you see one layer more than you really want too.
Okay.. so, Cyril, I want you to look at my skin and tell me what you see age wise and
health wise.
I’m curious.
Okay , so since now you are smiling actually, I can see the expression if you don’t want
to be perceived older, never smile, keep a poker face.
I think they call that a resting bitch face.
That’s exactly right.
Resting bitch face.
That is the key to aging gracefully.
No, just kidding.
Awwh!
So I blew it, I smiled.
Yeah, but that is normal, like the wrinkles and the fine line thy are happening because
… so I am going to bring the camera in.
Since we are doing this, I might as well go all the way right, see that… that is what
he’s talking about. Got some age and wisdom!
What else do you see.
Let’s see what feeling.tired has to say really fast.
What features/cues make someone be perceived older or younger -- you’re going to go over
some of that right now, right?
Yes, yes.
Indeed it’s not just wrinkles-- the other cues as well would be like the localized pigmentation
like brown spots, melanin… did you see any of that on me without a cue or no?
A little bit of pigmentation but I would say that your skin is quite smooth like your color
is very homogenous in a way.
And we use color homogeneity as well, on top of the wrinkles to make an assessment in terms
of age perception but I would say that color cues are more related to the healthiness.
So if you see people with let’s say localized redness or a lot of (00;04;48;03 ?) pigmentation
here and there, you would make more of a health assessment than an age assessment.
Okay.
So are you making a health or an age assessment right now -- which one are we making here.
I’m making both.
So, what else?
Hit me with it!
What I would pay attention and most people are paying attention too is the eye area because
the skin is a lot more delicate that’s where we see the crows feet and so on.
Okay… what do my eyes say about me… and the other studies we’ve done in Caucasians,
for instance in Russia, the wrinkles around the eye, the crows feet here and the under
eye wrinkles, were one of the most powerful cues at guessing someones age.
When we’ve done that in different markets the skin feature could be different.
In India for instance, they were mostly paying attention to how white -- like pure whiteness
of the skin.
Wrinkles came into play of course, but specifically to that country, how white you were making
you feel younger and more healthy.The one thing in India, you know, you have a cast
system, you know, like rich poor, color it’s intertwined and I think it came into play
for the judgement.
It’s a cultural thing.
So this is where cultural norms influence our perception of health and age as well.
That’s why as well because you have differences, all over the world, we have different skin,
like people with strong pigmentation, will age slower, like african people those things,
have a strong melanin content, they are very much protected against the sun.
So are they harder to guess then?
They are not necessarily harder to guess, but that means the assessment will be done
by other things.
Caucasians get wrinkles easily, so it will be a cue, for Africans it will be other things
because they are well protected against sun damage.
Is there anything that you perceive from my skin before I move on?
You can be a little harsh.
I won’t mind.
I won’t cry.
I will wait till afterwards.
Go ahead.
What I would say something that was very important in China.
Specifically, you know the oval of your face is very defined.
What they called like V-Shaped it’s very big in Asia.
Oh, do I have a very V-shaped face?
I have to say you have a well defined jawline.
Wow!
Okay so when Iwas . Oh .. This was really important for the Chinese.
Like they were really paying attention to how round was this bit of the face.
In Caucasians, it was not that much the case.
I was going to say that’s funny because I was in Singapore 2 weeks ago, and I saw
V-shaped cosmetic type of treatments so you could get a v-shaped face and I didn’t know
what it was, and you just answered my questions.
So let’s answer some questions real quick and then we’ll finish up with any last remarks.
And what I’ll do is … I think we have another question.
Does muscular/skeletal structure of ones face affect perception?
Yes, it does, but it’s not as powerful as the skin.
The skin itself conveys a lot more messages than the shape.
The shape has some influence, but the skin is a notch above, to the wrinkles to the color,
and the color (7:57 ?)
Are there any remaining sort of comments you have before we close out on this.
Yeah, one last thing.
We tend to talk about cosmetics as a way of fixing the signs and the cues were using for
age and health perception.
But what we presented yesterday, is people using products in the long term, like serum,
like we compared people who were using serum everyday in China, and people using serum
everyday were perceived 4 years younger than people not using serum on a daily basis.
And even products like exfoliator on a weekly basis, you wouldn’t think of that as a strong
cosmetic, and still, we could see three years difference in terms of perception between
weekly exfoliator and people not using weekly exfoliator.
So it’s good to think if you want to age gracefully, have a good routine, and you know,
be proactive about it.
So all you skincare addicts out there, that have your routines, it sounds like it pays
off my four years!
That’s beautiful!
It does.
You have to think of it as long term investment.
Great.
Well that is it for this session.
I am going to ask you if I can see some photos from your presentation later, and i’ll put
them online, you know I will put them in a post, so that you guys can see them, cause
when you showed the examples of age perception in different countries,it was really interesting
to look at that.
Yes, healthy and unhealthy, etc.
Alright,thank you so much, take care!
Thank you guys!
Bye!