Molecular Moisturizing

Researchers improved on a technique called stimulated Raman spectroscopy to capture real-time images in the skin of living mice. To observe the absorption of trans-retinol, a common skin-care product, into a mouse’s skin, the team tuned two lasers to the frequency of a lipid in the drug and trained the lasers on the application site, yielding images in real time of the drug traveling down a hair shaft into the sebaceous gland.