Skin Lightening and the FDA Crackdown on Hydroquinone

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Wrinkles Can Be Made to Disappear Without Botox Or Surgery

By: Dr Gary Weinberger

One only has to Google "anti-wrinkle creams" to realize that there is a plethora of products promising to eliminate fine and wrinkles. At the last cosmetic show in Paris a few weeks ago two new and innovative products showed a significant effect in reducing the depth of wrinkles and fine lines. These two products are SNAP-8, an anti-aging peptide and a High/Low Molecular Weight Hyaluronic Acid.

One of the most obvious signs of skin aging is increased wrinkling of the face. This occurs naturally overtime and results from certain biochemical, histological, and physiological changes that are enhanced by exposure to environmental contaminants. Secondary factors like the pull of gravity and pressure on the skin of the face during sleep also contribute to the formation of lines, wrinkles, and furrows. The molecular mechanism involved in aging of the face is directly related to changes in the conformation of the collagen triple helix, breakdown of elastin polypeptides and disorder in the packing of the lipidic matrix of the skin.

It has been clearly shown that these changes and the disturbance of the packing of the lipid matrix can be significantly avoided by modulating muscle contractions.

Muscles are contracted when they come in contact with a neurotransmitter released from inside of a vesicle at the level of the synapse (junction) between the nerve fibers and the facial muscle receptors. The SNARE (SNAP RECEPTOR) complex is essential for this neurotransmitter release at the synapse. This complex is formed by proteins VAMP, Syntaxin, and SNAP-25 (SyNaptosomal Associated Protein). This complex is like a cellular fishing hook which captures vesicles and fuses them with the membrane for the release of the neurotransmitter.

SNAP-8 mimics the terminal end of the SNAP-25 protein which then competes with the SNAP-25 protein for a position in the SNARE complex altering its formation. If the SNARE complex becomes destabilized, the vesicle cannot release neurotransmitters efficiently and therefore muscle contraction is reduced, preventing the formation of wrinkles and furrows.

The other innovative product is what I would call the next generation of Hyaluronic acid. Hyaluronic acid comes two forms, a Low Molecular Weight molecule that is linear without cross-links and a High Molecular Weight molecule that has "S" shaped loops like a snake with cross-links between the loops. The low molecular weight HA is easily absorbed through the skin but begins to break down soon after absorption into the tissues due to the presence of a naturally occurring enzyme in the tissue called "hyaluronidase". The high molecular weight HA is not absorbed by the skin and has to be delivered by injection. This form of HA is more resistant to breakdown by "hyaluronidase" and is typical of injectable fillers like Juvederm.

The new HA combines these two molecular types so that when the low molecular HA is absorbed by the skin it pulls some of the high molecular weight HA along with it resulting in a better and longer lasting deep skin hydration and plumping with decreased water loss across the epidermis.

Both of these innovative products are new to the market and are not found in many cosmeceuticals because of their expense. If you can, however, find an anti-wrinkle product that contains these two ingredients it is well worth the cost and is certainly going to be safer, cheaper, and a milder alternative to Botulinum Toxin, topically targeting the same wrinkle-formation mechanism in a very different way.

I Used Hydroquinone and Three Months Later the Spots Came Back Twice as Dark

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Useful Tips to Keep Your Skin Care All Natural

Caring for your skin is a process that never stops, especially if you want to keep your skin looking young for as long as possible. Wrinkles, of course, are a natural part of the aging process, but there are steps that you can take to prolong the look of your young skin. Keeping your skin care all natural is one of the best ways to accomplish having younger looking skin for longer. Your diet and nutrition is the best way to naturally affect your body and keep it healthy. Your diet is what fuels your body and provides the essential nutrients that your body needs to make oils and collagen for your skin. In the following article, we will review several useful tips to keep your skin care all natural and to keep your skin looking great.

Collagen and elastin are the most important proteins found in the body and they are also the two most important proteins for you to learn about if you are serious about keeping your young looking skin for a long time. Of the proteins found in your skin, collagen makes up three-quarters of those. Collagen allows your skin to prevent stretching and punctures and it also keeps your dermal and epidermal tissue in good condition. Collagen will also improve the amount of moisture that is retained in the deeper layers of your skin. Elastin, on the other hand, will ensure that your skin has ample elasticity. With these facts in mind, you may now realize how important it is to keep your collagen and elastin levels as high as possible in your body. To keep collagen and elastin levels in your body high, you will want to make sure you get sufficient Vitamin C and A in your daily diet. These vitamins will provide the nutrients that your body needs for collagen synthesis. Vitamin C will be the most effective at increasing your collagen. If you have begun to notice excessive dryness or more wrinkles on your skin, there is no better time than the present to increase your Vitamin C intake. Frankincense and Neroli are very often found in natural beauty products and are proven to fight wrinkles. In fact, some people have even experienced a reduction in their existing wrinkles with the use of frankincense. Frankincense normally provides a preservative effect on your skin, but in certain cases, it can reduce the signs of wrinkles. Neroli, on the other hand, is used to stimulate the growth of new cells. Neroli can help to keep your skin looking smooth.

As fore mentioned, your diet and nutrition is the most important part of keeping your skin care all natural. Good nutrition is important and you should include a lot of fruits and vegetables in your diet. Make sure that you eat foods that have a good percentage of Vitamins B, C and E. You will also want to avoid smoking, alcohol and coffee, as these things will lower the vitality of your skin. Using an all natural skin crea, will also prove to be your best solution.

You Should be into your Skincare for the Long-Term

Too often, our skin is taken for granted. We know it is there, but we really do not pay it the kind of attention it does deserve and should get. Our skin is the largest organ of our body. It covers 100% of our body yet when one thinks of skin care it generally ends with just the face and consists of a basic washing if even that at times. You are stuck with your skin, good or bad, for life so you should be into your skin care for the long term. You treat your skin right, and it won’t be such a bad skin to be in.

The importance of your skin care should not be under estimated, little lone ignored. It is actually a bit humorous when you hear a person complain about what terrible skin they have. The funny part is, more times than not, they were not born with poor skin, they just failed to treat their skin with the tender loving care it deserves. Skin is resilient, that is true, and can take a lot of abuse. However, from extended abuse it is bound to show wear and tear in the forms of wrinkles, creases, acne, sagging skin, discolorations, dehydration, and various other skin issues.

In order for your skin to perform and look its best, face it, some effort has to come from the owner of the skin. It cannot tend to its needs on its own. A simple skin care regime, cutting out negative lifestyle factors, watching the quality of one's diet, and exercising are all great ways to extend the resilience of your skin. Your skin, often times, is your only protection against the outside world and all its environmental factors.

When exposed to certain dangerous environmental factors the only protection it has is your common sense. Without that, although it acts as a barrier to protect your inner organs from damage from possible dangerous elements, it also is a filter and things like dangerous sunrays it absorbs. Your skin reacts the same way with chemicals. When you expose your body to dangerous chemicals that can often be found in some skincare products it is absorbed leaving your skin defenseless to the damage that can occur.

Your skin plays a huge role in your immune system as well; if you do not maintain healthy skin, you may find yourself getting sick more often than others and wonder why. There are many other major roles your skin plays in the health of your total well-being. Your total over all well-being should be reason enough to be into your skin care for the long term.

Proper skin care goes much deeper than just the surface layer of your skin. If you want to be into your skin for the long term, you need to appeal to all layers of your skin and body. Simply bathing daily and apply a lotion to the skin is not all there is to proper skin care. However, proper skin care is not that hard if you do really care about your skin and your total well-being.

The basics to proper skin care are good nutrition, adequate rest, exercise, ample water intake, and fresh air and sunshine in moderation. So, you may wonder what about a proper skin care routine, as in cleaning and moisturizing. Those practices also play a role in proper skin care, but you first have to have a healthy foundation to apply proper skin care products if you want to get the full benefits from them. When you have a healthy foundation, a proper skin care regime will keep you in a fresh and healthy aura with your body. A proper skin care regime consists of cleansing, conditioning, hydrating, toning, moisturizing, and reviving. Make sure the skin care products you use are 100% natural and organic, and are free from harmful chemicals that can damage your skin rather then pamper it. Remember, it is the only skin you have, and you should be into your skincare for the long term.

Be Sure the Ingredients in Your Skin Care are Really Doing Something for Your Skin

When you go shopping for skin care products, you should always check the ingredient labels to see what that product contains. Different products, of course, will contain different concentrations of ingredients and may be different ingredients altogether. The best skin care products will contain the most varied active botanical ingredients and the highest percentage of those active ingredients, working for you. If you do not check the label to see what ingredients a particular skin care product contains or what percentage of those ingredients it has, you will not have a good idea of whether that cream will work for you or not. However, you will have to do some research to find out which products have the active ingredients – such as Lycopene, vitamins C & E, and Acmella Oleracea, you need and which ones have the highest percentage of those ingredients.

It is unfortunate, but you just cannot believe all the things that a product claims to do until you research it for yourself. There is a lot of false advertising that goes on in the world of skin care. Therefore, you must be wary of the products you invest in, and be sure you get money back guarantees. Reading the product's label is the first step in the right direction, but you will find that not all products have an ingredient label on their package, although this is a requirement of the FDA. This is where you will have to do some further research and visit the product's web site for further information, especially if you are serious about trying the product. One product may have more of a percentage of an active ingredient, but be sure to check all the other ingredients – are they natural and derived from organic botanicals?. When you have an easy comparison, you should go with your common sense. If one product has a much higher amount of active botanicals than the other, that product is probably worth the investment of your money. Not all skin care products are equal. In fact, there is a large percentage of skin care products that no one should be using, as they are hardly effective at all. It is worth taking the time to research products you are serious about buying instead of wasting your hard-earned money on products that fall short of your expectations, or may even harm your skin.

Next time you are interested in a new skin care product that comes onto the market or any other skin care product, remember to do your research on its active ingredients. If you want to learn more about what active ingredients you should be looking for in a product, the internet is a great place to learn about these active ingredients. For whatever skin condition, you are trying to heal, there are certain active ingredients that will be better for healing that condition. There will also be certain active ingredients that may make your skin condition worse, so make sure you do your research.