Unless you have plenty of free time, choosing a suitable skin tightening cream (or product) is not something easy. You simply have too many choices, and even if you manage to narrow down to a few skin firming products, it is still not practical to try all of them. A better way is to look for effective ingredients that tighten skin.

Now, before discussing about ingredients, let's be clear what we want the skin firming product to do for us. Obviously, you want to tighten sagging skin. However, the product should also hydrate and soften your skin too. Will it be a bonus if it can reduce wrinkles concurrently? Well, these 4 ingredients attempt to do all the above.

Hyaluronic Acid - While it does not sound pleasant to have acid in our skin care product, this ingredient is actually beneficial. In fact, our body produces this acid to increase the moisture level in our skin.

As one of the ingredients in skin tightening cream, it moisturizes the skin and also accelerates skin renewal.

Matrixyl 3000 - This is one of my personal favorite for reducing wrinkles and firming skin. Matrixyl 3000 is a patented polypeptide formula that makes up of compounds like Polysorbate 20 and Palmitoyl Pentapeptide-4. It is an expensive ingredient but has found its way into many skin care products including skin tightening cream. Matrixyl 3000 firms skin, promotes collagen production and also skin regeneration. According to clinical studies, Matrixyl increases collagen and hyaluronic acid production by nearly 120% and 270% respectively.

Argireline - In recent years, Argireline has gained a lot of popularity. This ingredient relaxes muscles to eliminate wrinkles. It works almost the same way as Botox without the pains and price tag. It is believed that Argireline can reduce wrinkles by 30% after 1 month of usage.

Resveratrol - This ingredient is an excellent antioxidant found in the skin of red grapes. Resveratrol has been used for treating aging, cancer and cardiovascular diseases. Progressively, manufacturers are adding this compound into advanced skin tightening cream and anti aging night cream for its potent age reversing effect.

Other than these 4 ingredients, 1 ingredient that may be worthy of your attention is Emu Oil. Touted as the miracle oil, Emu Oil is an essential ingredient in skin care products in Australia and New Zealand. Slowly, it is gaining popularity in America now. Scientific research is still ongoing to establish the full benefits of Emu Oil even though clinical studies have proven it to have good hydrating and anti-inflammatory properties.

Some of the firming creams may also contain aloe vera and shea butter for boosting the skin tightening effect. However, these additional ingredients will certainly bring up the cost of the products.

So what should we look for when shopping for skin tightening cream? In my opinion, the best is to have firming cream with all 4 ingredients. At least consider buying the skin tightening cream only if it has one or more of the 4 key ingredients. Else look for alternative. After all, there are plenty of choices out there.