Skin Discussions

For the Eyes

2005-12-25T19:36:00.000-08:00

The skin in the eye area is very delicate and should be treated carefully. First and foremost, use very little pressure when applying any product. Putting product on your ring finger keeps you from accidentally doing this. If have done this you could have caused a common eye problem.
Persistent dark circles under the eye. This takes a long time to go away. Look for Vitamin K in a product. RestorEyes and Radiance Vitamin C Cream are Dr. Denese\'s products for this. The RestorEyes is also good for another common eye area issue,
bags under the eyes. This stems from a condition known as Edema, a condition characterized by an excess of watery fluid collecting in the cavities or tissues of the body. The most common remedy for this is to shrink the tissue so the fluid is reabsorbed by the body. Cool tea bags, cucumber slices etc. Our users of RestorEyes have experienced good results, although no Dr. Denese product specifically addresses this problem. What is focused on is
wrinkles. There are basically 2 types of wrinkles. Fine lines and deep dynamic smile lines. They each require a different approach. Fine lines are treated by enhancing the condition of the skin. Smile lines are treated at the muscular level. Before I go any further, I want to remind you that none of the products should be put on the upper or lower eyelids. Only apply to the skin above a bone.
The best products for the eye area. Without a doubt the best product to treat fine lines is the Retinol Max Capsules. Hydrating the skin by increasing the moisture content does wonders. Ultra Moisturizing Serum does this better than anything. Use RestorEyes to seal it in for maximum results. The muscle under those deep smile lines is treated with Line-Erase. Naturally, using all 4 of the above products will give you the cumulative benefits and make dramatic results happen around your eye area.

Oil Soluble/Water Soluble

2005-08-15T22:12:00.000-07:00

There isn't much said about the solubility of skin care ingredients/products. However, in my opinion, it is a vital bit of knowledge to understand.

To start with I'd like to define soluble as "able to become or cause to become incorporated into a liquid so as to form a solution".

This has many ramifications in skin care. Most basically the ability for a cleanser to clean. Take for instance a water soluble cleanser. Since we all know that oil and water don't mix, if a product is trying to "clean" oil off the skin it, by definition, would have a hard time "dissolving" oils and thus must "lift" them off the skin, much like dish soap lifts oils off a pan. This would be a very different product from one that dissolves oils.

One of the main differences would be in how harsh the end result feels on your skin. Another would be whether or not it will actually clean out your pores, that is get deep inside the opening to dislodge debris.

An example of this I like to use is this. Pretend that the oil in a clogged pore looked like lard or shortening. Mix it with a water soluble cleaner and with agitation you'll get the fatty substance to rise to the surface, but never mix, however add a thinner oily substance and the whole mixture just suspends together to create a thinner mixture that can then be poured off.

Think how that might relate to an acne clogged pore. Or dry skin.

Ingredients to watch for are the "laureth sulfates" in the water soluble category and the "Beta Hydroxy Acids (BHA)" in the oil soluble category.

My recommendation is to use oil soluble skin cleansers. They feel awesome when rinsed off! Dr. Denese's cleanser is a great example of this.

As a side note, I've found that using a BHA cleanser on dry flaky scalps is highly effective!

Acne facts

2005-07-10T17:47:00.000-07:00

Does your acne make you feel insecure and inferior to others? Or perhaps you only suffer from a lower self esteem and lack confidence in your body image? Is your acne a source of embarrassment so you withdraw socially, get depressed, angry, frustrated or confused? Does your acne limit your lifestyle?

As you well know, the appearance your skin is important. It will impact your ability to get a job, friends, a mate and more. As an adult you will suffer more than a teenager, after all we expect adolescents to have it, however when you reach adulthood, it's different.

You try a variety of over the counter products with minimal, if any results. You've gone to the doctor and gotten some antibiotics or creams and gels. If you do get a result from these, your skin feels bad or you suffer from yeast infections.

Worst of all, you become apathetic about your blemishes, blackheads, whiteheads and pustules. You give up and resign yourself to doing the best you can, but you know nothing works. Your skin keeps producing blemishes. And then on those really bad days, you go to bed thinking tomorrow when you wake up, it could be worse than today.

You would think that if we can go to the moon, we ought to be able to come up with a solution to acne? Wouldn't it be nice to believe that the over 25 million adult acne sufferers could have clear skin every day?

Well, there is hope. I know you don't believe me right now, but give me a chance to explain myself here and perhaps you will develop at least a hope for clearer skin. At the very least you will gain a greater understanding of acne and not be duped by the hype you are being inundated by. Perhaps it's not you that suffers, but you know someone that does. I promise you in this article you will have enough information to be able to help yourself and those that you love.

So, let me explain in simple terms a little about acne. It's an oil gland holding more oil than it was designed to hold that has become irritated and infected with bacteria. That's it in a nutshell. Of course, there are varying types of lesions in various locations of gradient severities during different ages all suggesting different causes.

The challenge then becomes to control the amount of oil in the gland and keep out the bacteria and irritants. Seems simple enough doesn't it? Then why is it we apparently haven't found a universal solution?

The answer, in my opinion is commerce. If there were ONE solution hundreds, maybe thousands of cosmetic manufactures would be producing the same product. With no way to differentiate one product from the rest, marketing of that product would be difficult, so hundreds, if not thousands of companies claim a different magical ingredient that will cure your acne. With all this noise, who can tell fact from fiction? Believe me, the skin care conspiracy is alive and well. Please, bear with me a little bit longer, while I present the facts as I see them.

First off, if the above weren't true we wouldn't need the FDA to tell us which ingredients are safe and which are not. We have very strict laws about the use of ingredients in products, and rightfully so. Left unchecked unscrupulous manufactures would use ingredients that could do greater harm than good. In today's society, we as consumers can't be ingredient literate to the point of making an intelligent decision, nor should we be. The FDA and it's counterparts around the world tries to do this for us.

However, as you probably are well aware of they are not perfect, nor do they endorse any particular ingredient or product. They only evaluate the potential to harm and the efficacy claims. So when it comes to acne fighting ingredients check this out.

If you developed an ingredient that you claim cures acne, initially, all you need to do to get an FDA approval is show that the ingredient can be Generally Regarded As Safe/Effective or GRAS/E, when used in self-treatment. http://www.fda.gov/cder/about/smallbiz/OTC_FAQ.htm

Now, you as a consumer, read that the ingredient is FDA approved and buy the product for it's efficacy claims. Of course, it doesn't work, however, it was safe for you to use.

The next phase in the FDA process (called Code of Federal Regulations - Title 21 - Food and Drugs) actually requires proof that the product does what it says it can do, among other things. This is also known as a "monograph" If I were an ingredient manufacturer, I would prefer have a monograph, but it's not easy, and rightfully so.

Back to acne fighting products. Check this out. This is the entire list of acne effective products!

Subpart D -- Topical Acne Drug Products
Sec. 333.310 Acne active ingredients.
The active ingredient of the product consists of any of the following when labeled according to § 333.350.
(a) Resorcinol 2 percent when combined in accordance with § 333.320(a).
(b) Resorcinol monoacetate 3 percent when combined in accordance with § 333.320(b).
(c) Salicylic acid 0.5 to 2 percent.
(d) Sulfur 3 to 10 percent.
(e) Sulfur 3 to 8 percent when combined in accordance with § 333.320.

And here is a list of drug products that are not effective!

(a) A number of active ingredients have been present in OTC drug products for various uses, as described below. However, based on evidence currently available, there are inadequate data to establish general recognition of the safety and effectiveness of these ingredients for the specified uses:
(1) Topical acne drug products

http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/CFRSearch.cfm?fr=333.310&SearchTerm=acne

I won't bore you with this list since it's long. Check it out if you are interested.

Sometimes, things get slightly more complicated. For instance when a new prescription drug shows good results and a derivative get's GRAS/E as in the case of benzoyl peroxide. You know, Oxy 5, Oxy 10, Pro-active among others. If you looked at the lists above, it's not there in either category. I found this odd, since it's prevalence in the marketplace is huge. A little research led to this: http://www.fda.gov/cder/otcmonographs/acne/benzoyl_peroxide_topical_PR_19950217.pdf

In this document published in the federal register upon the application for Title 21 status it says, and I quote,
" …an amendment of the tentative final monograph for topical acne drug products for OTC human use in which the agency reclassified benzoyl peroxide from its previously proposed monograph status (Category I) to "more-data-needed" (Category III) status. This action was based on new information that raised a saftey concern regarding bonzoyl peroxide as a tumor promoter in mice and a study that reported that benzoyl peroxide has tumor initiation potential."
Holy cow, that was in 1991. That's not all. It went on and described reason why NOT to include that information on the label. As of 2005 it's still not in the Title 21 monograph. I wonder how much money it took to put this ingredient in limbo for all these years?

Now, the conclusion here could be: If we trusted the FDA enough to only put effective drugs in Title 21, then really, only 5 drug ingredients have ever been proven to topically control acne. Of these ingredients, resorcinol is not generally available, and sulpher is used mostly in homeopathy remedies. That leaves Salicylic acid.

As an ingredient this one has a pedigree. Look at these qualities:
It is exfoliates. That means that it keeps the surface of the skin free from the hard accumulations that may clog your oil gland.
It is anti-bacterial. That means it kills the bacteria that infects the oil gland.
It's oil soluble. That means it penetrates the pore and dissolves the hardened plug so the natural skin oils can flow freely.

Simply speaking, it controls the thickness of the oil in your glands so they don't become overfull, get irritated and hurt, and finally keeps infectious bacteria under control.

Dr. Denese has formulated the perfect cosmetic preparation with her Acne Cleansing Pads. Simple technology in and easy to use product that effectively controls your acne lesions, regardless of their source.

Retinol in skin care products

2005-07-01T21:24:00.000-07:00

The other day we had a discussion about the effectiveness of retinol, what it does and adverse reactions.

It seems that for all the different products touting retinol, hardly anyone has any idea on how it affects the skin and surprisingly few know that is Vitamin A. Amazing how the cosmetic industry can advertise and promote this anti-aging ingredient and we the consumers buy it with little more knowledge than it's supposed to be able to get rid of our wrinkles. No proof, no lab tests etc.

From the research I've done, Retinol, the pure form of vitamin A, has been extensively researched for medical and cosmetic purposes. These uses include the treatment of ailments such as acne and wrinkle reduction. Johnson and Johnson apparently did some extensive testing on it some very long time ago and proved some of these claims, although I haven't seen them myself.

We may know that Retin A and Renova work great but aren't available without doctors supervision - and rightfully so. There are plenty of products out there that list retinol as an ingredient and promote the anti-aging benefits. I think that if you're going to use a retinol product it is important to understand how retinol works when applied to skin.

How the skin works - a primer

The skin is the outer tissue that covers and protects the body from external factors and protects the internal organs from the environment.
It is divided into three stratums: the horny cell layer, the epidermis and the dermis. The horny cell layer, which sits on top, is mainly composed of dead cells. At the base of the epidermis, basal cells produce keratinocytes.
Keratinocytes are cells that contain keratin, an impermeable substance that functions as a skin barrier. As part of the natural development of the skin, keratinocytes move upward. In the process, these skin cells flatten out and accumulate one over the other, forming the overlapping skin layers.

The skin has a normal growing process of 4 weeks from the time the initial cells are born until they reach the epidermis and fall off. It is like a life cycle, the 'babies' are the basal cells which will grow old until they die and fall down (to the horny cell layer), where the old cells that have very little vitality are located.

What retinol does in the skin

There are three primary effects of retinol on the skin.

Exfoliation: Retinol detaches the cells that are already dead faster than the normal process. These cells remain adhered, because of skin defects. This causes the skin to have a rough, unsmooth appearance.

Strengthens: This effect occurs at the epidermis stratum; retinol glues the cells to one another, giving cohesion and adherence to the epidermis stratum, thus helping the adult cells arrive at the surface, and improving the smoothness of our skin.

Stimulation: This process stimulates the bottommost basal cells reproduce toward the sides and top, making skin cells richer in collagen and other moisture binding components, which promote the development of an epidermis with healthier characteristics.

Application methods and concerns

In the medical field, retinol and retinoic acid have been employed for the treatment of acne and wrinkle reduction, in the following forms: oral, topical or by injection. The topical use of retinol or retinoic acid can be in the form of a pomade, solution, gel, or cream.

The main concern with oral application is how vitamin A is metabolized in the body. Small amounts of vitamin A will be disposed of by a healthy liver with no problems. Large amounts are. Your doctor should test your liver if you are considering this route.

In some rare instances, applying retinol to the skin could also be dangerous if the liver (of the consumer) is damaged by hepatitis or if used during pregnancy or while nursing a baby.

I would caution against to using retinol products if any of the above circumstances are true even with cosmetic products. However, most of the time, Retinol and retinol by-product concentrations in cosmetic products are quite low. In some cases, such as SkinScience and Dr. Denese skin care products, you will find concentrations high enough to get a result. This on the other hand also means you will possibly notice some adverse reactions. You can't have it both ways. While Dr. Denese has made every effort to minimize reaction, here are few things that might occur:

Adverse reactions

Reddening of the skin caused by sunlight exposure. USE SUNSCREEN! - at least SPF 30.

Other effects include small red pimples, itching, and burning. This appears to be more likely on younger skin than on mature skin. However, if skin irritation should occurs, reduce the number of times per week you are applying it or dilute with another non retinol skin moisturizer. Sometimes all that is needed is some extra hydration. Additional exfoliation with a scrub or hydroxyl acid (such as glycolic acid) may be your ticket. If you want the benefit of retinol and have a reaction, you may need to experiment with the above. Try not to confuse the effects the retinol is having on you with an allergic reaction. Of course, no matter what I said, if you are unwilling to experience the reaction, discontinue use and find something else like oligopeptides.

In conclusion, high concentrations of retinol (as much as is allowed by law before it becomes medical) is very effective and consistently gives results. Find products that contain ceramides and/or encapsulate the retinol to minimize the harsh effects. Also, be aware of your sun exposure.

Expecting results

2005-06-21T22:58:00.000-07:00

So what exactly do you think of when you hear "expect results" in relation to your skin care? Perhaps, it's that your skin will improve in texture and appearance on a gradient scale from where it is to where you desire it to be... then you wake up. Truth is, at no point on any subject do you get improvement without creating a little or a lot of chaos. Skin care is no different, however, it's a lot harder to tell myth from truth. I'm not going to address every myth here, but understand what your product is trying to do and be skeptical of an undesirable result.

For instance, if you were using a simple daily moisturizer and broke out. Should you reasonably expect this? I doubt so. While many a skin care company would like you to believe this, I'm not convinced it's true. Assuming that a blemish is caused hormonally or from a clogged pore, I would bet on the clogged pore as a direct result of the cream. I would discontinue using it ASAP.

On the other hand, if you are using an anti-aging cream that touts it's ability to stimulate collagen production and all of a sudden your skin gets flaky. While on the surface this might appear bad, IF I was getting more collagen production, could I expect my skin to grow quicker and not slough off fast enough ie. flake? Perhaps... after all, collagen stimulating products that contain ingredients like retinol and vitamin C can be drying, esp. if used in higher concentrations. Nevertheless, whichever way you believe on this, it could reasonably be expected that in the process of improvement, you might experience some flaking skin after a few weeks of use. This effect would have to be weighed against any improvements seen so far. Perhaps, all that is needed is extra exfoliation, like a scrub or glycolic acid pad to aid the skin in its sloughing off process. Dryness might be compensated for by using a hydrating serum. I know that we all want the one miracle product that does it all in one step, but I'm sorry, noone has been able to accomplish this so far. For now, different products do different things.

Ok, what about irritation, reactions and such things? Well, again, what is the product supposed to do? If you put a cleanser on your skin and it is irritating - not good. On the other hand if you are doing a chemical peel and it stings and leaves your skin red... that's a good thing. If it blisters your skin - not good and so forth. Common sense and following manufacturers instructions will be your guide.

Fact is, play it safe and use a product that doesn't get any reaction and your sure to think it's alright but not very effective. Use a product that gets results, and you'll have some reactions, but your skin will see changes for the better and you'll love the product.

That's my opinion anyway.

Perry

How much do you (want to) know about skin care?

2005-06-08T22:46:00.000-07:00

It seems to me that the average person (perhaps you) knows just enough to be able to justify the use of the product they are using. In other words, a products literature somehow resonated with them (you) to give you the impression that it could solve the problem they (you) were experiencing at the time. If the product then lived up to its claims they (you) stop researching and become loyal to that product. Should the claim be faulty, they (you) may continue to research things a bit more until they (you) discover another claim that solves their (your) particular "problem". After years of this they (you) may come to the conclusion that nothing works or they (you) may settle for adequate results that don't do things vs. results that do things, like "It doesn't break me out" vs. "My skin feels great all day".

Perhaps, you are different from the average person and one of the few that actually try to get the straight scoop. You want the truth and a straight forward answer instead of all the hype, only now you discover that the more you read the more confusing the claims get. It's hard to discern the truth from hype. Fact is, you have to be very dedicated to the pursuit of this truth to get very far, and for what? All you want is something to put on your skin that does what it says it will do and not have any adverse reactions. If you're anything like most of us, you'll find a trusted source, get a recommendation and try what they say to see if it works for you.

Now if you've read this so far and relate to it in some way, let me be you're trusted source, order the products off this website, (http://4everyouthful.net) use them and don't think too much more about it. After all, trust me, I've done my research so you don't have to. Don't believe me? I don't blame you, so stay tuned and come back here every now and then and read these blog entries. OR email me and I'll send you a few samples to try and let the product speak for itself.