RoC Skincare is testing its patented clinical retinol on identical female twins, pairing wearable biometric data from Oura Rings with standard clinical skin measurements. The company frames the pilot as a way to prove the study model before expanding it.
Art Pellegrino, chief scientific officer at RoC Skincare, told Personal Care Insights that identical twins function as a close approximation of a natural control. Because a pair shares DNA and much of its early environment, differences in skin aging are more plausibly attributed to lifestyle and environment than to genetics. Pellegrino said that when two people start from the same genetic blueprint, the differences between them are harder to attribute to genetics, which makes it easier to see what the retinol is doing on the skin.
Pilot outcomes
According to Pellegrino, twins in the placebo group showed similar or worse signs of aging by the end of the pilot, while twins in the treatment group improved by 20% or more within four weeks. The pilot, he said, was designed to establish whether identical twins could provide a more precise way to study what drives visible skin aging, and the conclusion was that they could.
Next phase and methods
RoC is recruiting 30 pairs of adult female identical twins aged 40 and older living in the United States for the next phase, which involves a 12-week regimen. Participants wear an Oura Ring, a wearable that tracks sleep, stress, heart rate, heart rate variability and temperature trends, alongside clinical assessments covering expert grading, digital photography, corneometer readings and subject self-assessment.
Pellegrino said wearables are opening an opportunity across the industry to factor in how people live when recommending skin care. He acknowledged that the study cannot guarantee twins share identical external influences such as sun exposure or diet, so RoC is recruiting pairs with similar levels of environmental damage where possible and tracking sleep and stress closely throughout. That design, he said, allows the team to compare how one twin's skin responds to the regimen when she sleeps poorly or reports more stress, relative to her sister. The brand is also interested in the reverse question: whether participants who see visible skin improvements also report feeling less stressed.
Questions left for the expanded study
The pilot did not attempt to quantify how much skin aging stems from genes versus lifestyle. That is the aim of the larger study, which will examine how daily factors such as sleep and stress shift outcomes when genetics are held constant. Pellegrino positioned the work as one stage in a longer research program on skin span, meaning how long skin keeps looking its best, and said the findings will shape how RoC develops skin longevity products and designs future clinical studies. Results from the twin study are expected by mid-2027.