Beginners skin science
September 9th, 2023 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Some online resources present preservatives as “bad actors” in skin care products. This is a complete lie. It’s the duty of manufacturers of skin care products to sell only safe products; preservatives are essential if we are to do our duty. Preservatives are ingredients that can kill and/or stop the growth of bacteria and mold present in the formulation or introduced during use (like by the user’s dirty fingers). Preservatives are usually a mix of chemicals because what is needed is to stop different types of metabolisms, and bacteria and mold have very different metabolisms. Preservatives extend the shelf life of the skin care product. Without preservatives, you would have…
August 27th, 2023 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Scars and sports injuries can be sensitive when the rain comes or the weather changes in other ways. For many people, pain can flare up in the cold of winter. So, how does cold weather affect pain, and what can be done about it? The causes There are several theories behind this familiar problem, including: Lower temperatures cause tissues to contract, putting pressure on nerves. Different tissues contract at different rates, for example, scar tissue. This is why the site of a previous injury could experience pain in cold temperatures. Pressure changes – air pressure in winter drops. With this drop, the gases and fluids in joints expand, putting pressure…
August 15th, 2023 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
The first part of the formula is a moisturizer fragranced and preserved. I do not like sodium metabisulfite, an irritant that is also used as an antioxidant (by lazy formulators) that will help preserve the color of the many colored ingredients. Water, Hydrogenated Polydecene, Glycerin, Mineral Oil, Petrolatum, Butylene Glycol, Paraffin, Polyglyceryl-2 Diisostearate, Squalane, Glyceryl Oleate, Sodium PCA, Glutamic Acid, Dipropylene Glycol, Carnosine, Beeswax, Microcrystalline Wax, Sodium Hydroxide, Alcohol, Polyethylene, Methylparaben, Tocopheryl Acetate, Ethylparaben, Phytosteryl/Octyldodecyl Lauroyl Glutamate, Fragrance, Trisodium EDTA, Tocopherol, Sodium Metabisulfite, and the second part of the formula: Caffeine may help with puffy eyes, depending on its concentration. The rest? Label value (i.e. to impress impressionable customers) and…
July 25th, 2023 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Butyl Acetate, Ethyl Acetate, Cellulose Acetate Butyrate, Isopropyl Alcohol, Dipropylene-glycol Dibenzoate, Stearalkonium Hectorite, Propyl Acetate, SDA 40B, Octocrylene, Stearalkonium Bentonite, Isobutanol, Urea Modified Polyamide, Sunflower Oil/Maleic Anhydride Copolymer, Propylene Carbonate, Water, Cyclohexasiloxane, Cyclopentasiloxane, Tosylamide/Epoxy Resin, Bis-PEG/PPG 20/20 Dimethicone, Phenoxyethanol, Fragrance, Maleic Acid, Polyisobutyl Methacrylate. May contain: Red 6 Lake, Red 7 Lake. From all of the above, the only chemical present in plants is water. What about “truth in advertising”? My suggestion: ignore terms like plant-based, sustainable, green, etc. Unless they are quantified, they are there just to make you hand over your hard-earned money.
July 14th, 2023 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
“Clean beauty” reminds me of the film “Pretty Woman”, when handsome Richard Gere asks what’s her name. She answers: “whatever you want it to be”. Clean beauty is whatever you want it to be. But, in short, it’s an advertising ploy. Convince people that everybody is selling toxic products and you are the only one they an trust. Right, it’s the same tool used by politicians who lie. Here is an example of a products advertised as “clean beauty”: Water, Glycerin, Green Tea Leaf Extract, Acetyl Hexapeptide-8, Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride, Hydroxypropyl Cyclodextrin, Palmitoyl Tripeptide-38, Panthenol (Provitamin B5), Pinus Pinaster Bark Extract, Acacia Seyal Gum Extract, Tocopheryl Acetate, Ascorbyl Palmitate, Ethylhexyl…
July 14th, 2023 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Yes! That’s right. It’s your (and my) tax dollars that pay for the scientific research that builds all that biotech that goes into your skin care products. There is a huge amount of scientific research, more than ten thousand scientific papers, that make it possible for you to apply on your skin a collagen serum that will make your skin healthier and younger. What is biotech? From Wikipedia, “Biotechnology is a multidisciplinary field that integrates natural sciences and engineering sciences to achieve the application of organisms, cells, parts thereof and molecular analogs for products and services.” My definition: it’s biochemistry applied to everyday life in vaccines, medicines, and new fibers.…
July 6th, 2023 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Epidermal growth factor (EGF) starts its very important work by binding with a specific receptor, the EGFR, on the cell membrane. Figure: Mechanisms of EGFR activation in keratinocytes. From Pastore et al. (2008) The usual analogy for a protein binding to a receptor (or a substrate) is that of a lock and key. Its’ a good analogy because they both require a 3-dimensional fit. Just try to open a lock using a photocopy of a key, or break a real key in small pieces and try again with that tip piece. No point, right? Yet, some companies are trying to sell tripeptides on the false premise that they can substitute…
June 25th, 2023 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
How many pounds of Royal Jelly do you need for that hint of defensin-1? Too many, too expensive, let’s forget about it. How many grams of cow hypothalamus do you need to get one milligram of pure keratinocyte growth factor do you need? Don’t ask, because not only it was hard and expensive, but the FDA wouldn’t allow such a chemical to be used by humans, that would be too dangerous. How about superoxide dismutase? Gone are the days when the formulator had to squeeze her/his nose and buy superoxide dismutase (SOD) from bovine erythrocytes (in plain English, cow’s blood). Yes, your precious antioxidant serum contained protein extracted from kilograms…
June 7th, 2023 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Remember: broken or badly modified proteins can’t do their job. Fibroblasts are the main cells in the dermis, and they specialize in producing two types of proteins, collagen and elastin, which are a major part of the extra-cellular matrix. When you are choosing ingredients for skin care it’s important to think not just of increasing the synthesis of skin proteins (what everybody talks about) but also of preserving their structure intact. Changes in protein structure are definitely going to change how the skin functions and how it looks, and it’s never for the better! One thing we want to do is to prevent glycation, the chemical attachment of sugars, without…
April 19th, 2023 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Conundrum: A logical postulation that evades resolution, an intricate and difficult problem Improving your mood is what this skin care ingredient promises: Zanthoxylum Alatum Fruit Extract (and) Glycerin (and) Pentylene Glycol (and) Aqua / Water. This ingredient illustrates the constraints that the cosmetic industry faces: the FDA does not allow the use of chemicals classified as medicines by the FDA, be it prescription or over-the-counter (OTC). Improving your mood would be one activity cosmetics are not allowed to do. But the industry found a loophole: it can “cheat” by using medicinal plant extracts. The FDA does not allow using an alkaloid in a skin care product Why? There is a…
February 15th, 2023 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Why do some people end up unrecognizably weird after plastic surgery? Because our body is alive. If you think that filler materials stay where they are injected, think again. If you think that filler materials are “inert,” think again. Even when you hear is “hyaluronic acid,” hyaluronic acid is degraded too quickly by the body to be useful. What will be injected in you is a very different chemical: a hyaluronic acid modified by other chemicals, preventing your skin enzymes from breaking it down. Hence, it’s not hyaluronic acid anymore! Linking agents include 1,4-butanediol diglycidyl ether, divinyl sulfone (DVS), and 2,7,8-diepoxyoctane. Not that natural, right? Other common fillers: Calcium Hydroxylapatite…
February 8th, 2023 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Two answers, depending on where the ceramides are. 1) In the skin, ceramides are very important. 2) On the skin, ceramides are not that important. Please, explain! 1) The ceramides your skin makes are very important; they fulfill an important role (see below) 2) When applied in skin care products, ceramides are not important and are replaceable. What do ceramides do inside the skin? How good is the skin at protecting our bodies? It’s excellent when it’s healthy. The horny layer is a compact wall of corneocytes and unique fat molecules. In the analogy with a wall, the corneocytes are the bricks, and the intercellular lipids, including ceramides and proteins,…
February 1st, 2023 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
1. What is pH? It’s a measure of the acidity of water-based solutions (you can’t measure pH in an oil!). There are strong acids like sulfuric acid (pH will be very low even at low concentrations) and weak acids, like ascorbic acid, that will keep pH below 7 but not too low. 2. What is that pH number? pH is a scale that specifies the acidity or basicity of an aqueous solution. Acidic solutions (solutions with higher concentrations of H+ ions) are measured to have lower pH values than basic (a.k.a. alkaline) solutions. The pH scale is logarithmic and inversely indicates the concentration of hydrogen ions in the solution. High…
January 23rd, 2023 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
What is thin skin? Fragile or thin skin that tears easily is a common problem in older adults. When thin skin gets really bad, it will look almost like tissue paper, the so-called “crepey” skin. This very thin skin of the old can’t protect you. Worse, it will itch, hurt, and get damaged easily. Thin skin is most noticeable on the face, arms, and hands. A person with thin skin may find that she is able to see the veins, tendons, bones, and capillaries under the skin of their hands and arms. Your skin comprises many layers, and the middle layer is called the dermis. The thick, fibrous tissue of…
January 16th, 2023 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
What is it? skin biome is a new trend in skincare. Once upon a time, we were only aware of one bacterial species in our skin: the acne bacteria. So much so that most acne treatments were intent on killing anything and everything! The result of this practice was a lot of people with “sensitive skin”. What happened since that, more innocent time? Once probiotics became ubiquitous in people with (or without) GI problems, the skin care industry saw the potential for new sales. The big obstacle was that the skin care industry could not sell products containing bacteria, so they went into “prebiotics“. Myths and facts about the skin…
January 10th, 2023 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Some people may think hands and feet are less important than the face, and that hands and feet don’t deserve to be taken care of with the very best serums and creams. But they do! They are if you can think of a future when you are not 20 anymore and you can’t wear super-high heels (ouch!) and your feet hurt. As we age, hands and feet age more visibly than other parts of the body (our bones and heart also age, but we can’t see those changes), perhaps even faster than our face. Let’s take advantage of the fact that we can see our hands and feet, and that…
January 3rd, 2023 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
The cartoon (The New Yorker) is great, but even a few days of this “new year resolution” will leave you with sensitive skin! Hannah
December 7th, 2022 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Your nails are “just protein.” So how come you can improve your nail’s health and appearance? Just like you can improve your hair appearance and health, even though the hair is “just protein.” The same for eyelashes and eyebrows. Because although they are mostly inert protein, we can influence the process that makes them. You can do two things: improve the health and appearance as the nails are formed and prevent damage once they are formed. What are nails? Figure. Nail anatomy. From Edwards (1948) The horny plates that grow on the back of each finger and toe are the equivalent of the claws in our cats. In higher primates,…
November 26th, 2022 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
These are essentials for skin care (at different stages in life) Epidermal growth factor for those over 25’s because younger people have lots of EGF in their skin Petrolatum (babies with diaper rash and adults with extremely dry skin) Essential fatty acids Essential amino acids Sunscreen (everybody) Retinoids (acne skin, aged and wrinkled skin, large pores) Antioxidant proteins, especially in cities with high pollution and very sunny environments. Yes, topical skin care matters: make your skin healthy for the many, many years you will live. The New Year is coming, so start thinking about New year resolutions and how to achieve your objectives without wasting money on ineffective products. …
November 13th, 2022 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Hyaluronic acid Here the question is, “where”? In your skin, hyaluronic acid is crucial. On your skin? It will dry as a film as most polysaccharides, stretching your skin until you rinse it away. Stem cells Yours or somebody (some plant) else? Yours give your skin the power to renew, and it’s important to keep your stem cells happy and protected from the sun, strong oxidants, and stress in general. Once the sun or strong oxidant mutates the stem cell’s DNA, that cell and all the cells it will make are changed forever. This is how sunspots and skin cancer happen. “Natural” preservatives Don’t exist. Or, rather, natural chemicals at…