I suppose there are no "best" ingredients, but there are some new, some old and some more or less documented ingredients. One problem is that most research focus on one single ingredient and on the other hand there is evidence that it is the complex creams and serums with lots if ingredients that can do something for the skin. The different ingredients does different things for the skin, and support various processes. It's when they come together they can really do something in a cream.
The Unwrinkle line from Peter Thomas Roth is based on nourishing skin with different peptides, vitamins with glycolic acid added for exfoliation. Peptides are broken down proteins that the skin can utilize as a topical application. It looks like he has put in lots of promising ingredients, whether they are in a high enough concentration to work is hard to tell. I doubt it's worth the money they ask for it.
Vitamin A acids and retinols are probably the best documented ingredients. Then there are Vitamin C, lipoic acid, CoQ10, idebenon, hyaluronic acid, reversatrol and different anti-oxidants that has shown promising results. These are just the ones I have taken an interest in, but there are lots more and I certainly don't know half of them.
The peptides are also very promising. They come in different forms and under very different names. Matrixyl is one of the widely used ones, but fermented soy, kelp (seaweed) are in much the same category.
