Scientists Create 'Second Skin' To Reduce Wrinkles

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Scientists believe they have created a miracle wrinkle cream which is the real deal.

CBS2's Alice Gainer reported scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology created an invisible film – called a "second skin" -- that can be painted on a person's skin to temporarily reduce wrinkles.

"What we've been able to do is create a cream, basically, that you can put on the skin, and then once it's on the skin it can actually form an elastic second skin and it's transparent, essentially invisible," MIT Professor Robert Langer said.

The cream is called XPL and they said people can put it on in two stages, beginning with a silicone-based clear cream.

"And that has the polymer in it and then in the second step you put on what we call a catalyst and that causes a cross-linking reaction," Langer said.

It mimics the elastic properties of healthy, youthful skin.

"It's very, very exciting and advanced to hopefully get away from surgeries and injecting toxic compounds into the skin," Dr. David Agus, CBS News' medical contributor, said. "It works for 24 hours or so and it's resistant to sweat and moisture. It can rain and not come off."

A new company formed by two of the scientists to focus on developing XPL will first try to develop it for delivering medications for skin conditions.

"There's nothing wrong with wrinkles, let's get that out there, but also this is exciting to deliver medicine you could put in UV protection so you can have protection from the sun all day," Agus said. "You ever put medicine on your face and it ends up on your pillow? This can coat it and change how we administer medicines on the skin."

However, the cream won't be on store shelves anytime soon.

Researchers said none of the participants involved in the XPL trials reported experiencing any irritation.

The new research was published online Monday in Nature Materials.