A system for identifying connections between a cosmetic agent and at least one gene associated with a skin aging condition. The system includes a computer readable medium having stored thereon a plurality of instances and a skin aging gene expression signature. Each instance comprises an ordered list of identifiers representing a plurality of differentially expressed genes generated as a result of contact between the cosmetic agent and a human fibroblast cell or a human keratinocyte cell. The computing device includes computer-readable instructions for accessing the plurality of instances and the skin aging gene expression signature stored on the computer readable medium, comparing each of the instances to the skin aging gene expression signature, and assigning a connectivity score to each of the instances based on the comparison.