ECM Atlas
A technical reference on the materials used in medical aesthetics.
What this covers
Materials placed in or on the skin in aesthetic practice. Most of them end with extracellular matrix in the dermis, and they divide on how: some supply matrix directly, others supply nothing and provoke the host to build its own. That division is the main axis of this reference. A few materials sit outside it entirely — a neuromodulator changes muscle activity and never touches the matrix — and each page says which case it is, because the questions worth asking follow from that.
Terms
What is the difference between a skin booster and a collagen booster?
Both are commercial category terms, not regulatory classifications. Neither appears in the device classification notices cited on this site. In common usage, "skin booster" describes injectables aimed at skin quality rather than volume, frequently hyaluronic-acid based, while "collagen booster" or "biostimulator" describes materials that provoke the host to deposit collagen. The distinction this reference is organised around — whether a material supplies matrix or provokes the host to make it — cuts across both terms, which is why a product can be marketed under either label without that telling you how it works or how it is regulated.
Sections
- Materials 15 pages
One material per page: identity, properties, mechanism, cited evidence, regulatory identity across six markets.
- Comparisons 11 pages
Verifiable specifications placed side by side. No ranking, no scoring.
- Mechanisms 4 pages
Pathways that cut across materials, each with the evidence that reads the other way.
- Delivery & context 2 pages
The conditions under which a material reaches the dermis.
- Regulatory identity by market 6 pages
The same table cut by market rather than by material.
New to this?
The pages above are written for clinicians and industry. There is a separate set written in plain language for everyone else. It does not answer which treatment to have and recommends nothing — what it gives you is what to check before believing a claim.
- If the material is the same, why do products differ?
- What does an approval or clearance actually mean?
- What does it mean when something is said to be proven by studies?
- What does it mean when something is said to build collagen?
- What is the difference between skin boosters, fillers, botulinum toxin and threads?
How this is written
Facts only, with sources cited. Where a regulatory classification could not be established from public records it is marked as not established rather than inferred, and a classification asserted without a citable basis will not build. No rankings, no recommendations, and no preferential treatment of any brand, including brands operated by the company that runs this site.