Cosmetic and therapeutic compositions for skin care, containing a transgenic plant extract containing a growth factor, or a growth factor purified from transgenic plants, or a mixture of growth factors derived from transgenic plants as extracts or in purified form, for use in topical therapeutic and/or cosmetic applications. Importantly, this invention makes safer growth factors available for use for cosmetic and topical treatment. These growth factors do not carry the risk of unwanted contaminants and transmissible agents that can result from animals or animal cell based expression systems, and the recombinant growth factors that plant expression systems provide are post-translationally modified proteins.