Ingredients
March 9th, 2024 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Its chemistry: azeloyl glycine is an example of good organic chemistry modifying a natural ingredient to advantage, i.e. for a good reason and with a good result. Azelaic acid is a saturated dicarboxylic acid found in wheat, rye, and barley. Like most (but not all) chemicals, azelaic acid can also be made in a lab by a good organic chemist. Azelaic acid is used to treat mild to moderate acne; it works by killing acne bacteria that multiply within blocked pores. It also decreases inflammation in rosacea. The mechanism of action is thought to be through the inhibition of a protease that converts cathelicidin into the antimicrobial skin peptide LL-37.…
March 5th, 2024 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Why do we use so many plant extracts in our products? Because plants, to survive in difficult environments and fight bacteria, fungi and viruses, evolved sophisticated chemical reactions capable of making complicated chemicals with very special abilities. And we don’t. Humans are complicated enough, but we can’t make stuff like apocynin, beta-glucans, or azelaic acid. For example: if you plant sunflowers in your garden they will do a good job suppressing weeds. How? They produce a chemical called sesquiterpene lactones. These chemicals are a rich source of drugs (some have cytotoxic, anti-tumorgenic, anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties). They can be toxic to grazing livestock, causing severe neurological problems in horses. Some…
February 17th, 2024 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
What are retinoids? Retinoids is a vitamin, Vitamin A, and that’s why retinoids are an important part of nutrition, for our whole body including our skin. Vitamin A has been recognized as such since 1920, and it is required for vision, skin health, immune function, bone metabolism and embryonic development (that’s why excess vitamin A can affect embryonic development). The alpha, beta, and gamma carotenes can be transformed into vitamin A within our body. What can they do for your skin? Will help control acne because it accelerates skin renewal and normalizes keratinization Will help reverse the effects of sun damage on the skin, improving skin texture, smoothing wrinkles, and…
February 7th, 2024 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
….if any! “Adaptogen” may sound scientific, but it’s not a term used in science or medicine. According to Wikipedia, “As of 2020, the term was not accepted in pharmacological, physiological, or mainstream clinical practices in the European Union”. Also, according to Wikipedia, “adaptogens or adaptogenic substances are used in herbal medicine for the purported stabilization of physiological processes and promotion of homeostasis”(purported as in “there is no there, there.”) Incidentally, what do you know about science in the former Soviet Union? Dictatorships are not good for science, as scientists are human and will try to “find” results that comply with the dictator’s opinion. For example, the Soviet Union invented Lysenkoism,…
February 4th, 2024 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
I will limit this post to damage to the skin. Please remember that the lungs also suffer from pollution, but we have less control over what reaches our lungs. What control do you have? Don’t smoke and try to choose a place to live (if you have that luxury, most people don’t) with low particulates. Reactive oxygen species (ROS*) What are ROS*? They are chemically reactive molecules containing oxygen and they are bad news for the chemicals that form our body. While “organized oxidation”, i.e. respiration, is essential to making energy we need for life, “disorganized oxidation” by ROS* is a whole different thing. ROS* steal electrons and break chemical…
February 4th, 2024 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
I am happy to report that much of the buzz about cannabidiol (CBD) is fact, at least the part that concerns its skin benefits. Let’s look into the science of CBD and the science of skin and their interaction. The most important thing? There are receptors in the skin that recognize CBD. The skin is one of the many organs equipped with the endocannabinoid system. You may have heard about anandamine. Discovered by Raphael Mechoulam in 1992, this is one excellent detective story. He said: if humans have receptors for cannabinoids CB1, and CB2, there has to be a natural chemical in the body that binds to those receptors. Mechoulam…
February 2nd, 2024 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
What can these do for your skin? New T-zone serum and clarifying cream: fight acne the Skin Actives way! Always look at the ingredient list to find out what a product can (or cannot) do for you. What are the new ingredient lists telling us? In the T-zone serum, not much change. We added Tremella fuciformis, a.k.a. snow mushroom, and Zinc PCA. Follow the links to posts describing their benefits. New T-zone to control sebum production by oily, acne-prone skin. It’s a typical Skin Actives product: complex and different from everything else in the market. The secret is in the ingredients, the way it should be. Water, Potassium Azeloyl Diglycinate,…
January 31st, 2024 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
What do you need to get your skin to glow? You could get some fireflies to do the work using luciferin and luciferase. Fireflies make light; it’s called bioluminescence. Humans don’t make light. Figure. This gorgeous photo of Greta Garbo makes it look like she is glowing. Actually, her face is only reflecting light perfectly positioned by the photographer. If trying to catch fireflies is too much work, you may be content with skin that doesn’t glow but reflects a bit more light. And how do you get that? Removing the upper layers of cells from the epidermis should do the trick; smoother skin (or makeup) will reflect more light.…
January 27th, 2024 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Pleiotropic: producing more than one effect. Does it matter that an ingredient you use on your skin displays pleiotropism? Yes, of course. It means that you can expect more than one desired (advertised!) effect; you have to be observant and make sure that the ingredient doesn’t have a side effect that you don’t want. The mechanisms of pleiotropism vary. Pleiotropy describes the genetic effect of a single gene on multiple phenotypic traits. The underlying mechanism is genes that code for a product that is either used by various cells or has a cascade-like signaling function that affects various targets. Retinoic acid exerts its pleiotropic effects primarily by controlling the expression…
January 24th, 2024 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Proteins are like long words made of just 20 letters that can be repeated many times in different orders. Just like words, some amino acid sequences can form meaningful words or, in the case of proteins, working molecules. The amino acids are the letters, and the polypeptides or proteins are the words. If you give a monkey a typewriter (or, nowadays, a computer), it is unlikely that the monkey will produce a meaningful story or a lovely poem. Oligopeptide: a few amino acids joined by peptide bonds Polypeptide: many amino acids joined by peptide bonds Proteins: large molecules comprising one or more long chains of amino acids The proteins in…
January 23rd, 2024 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
What do I , Hannah, consider safe for use in skincare products? My criteria differ from those of the FDA, a great agency but underfunded. What does the FDA consider to be safe? As long as the claims on the product are carefully worded and the ingredient is NOT used as medication (by prescription or over the counter), the FDA will not get involved unless reports of undesirable side effects start to appear. This is the loophole that the skin care industry uses as protection when selling new and untested ingredients. The industry counts on the ingredients not penetrating the skin and the low concentrations used (parts per million, not…
November 27th, 2023 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Why can’t they (the skincare industry) do what they promise? Because, by law, and for safety reasons, you can’t sell a product to apply to the human body that contains live bacteria. Then, why promise? Promises are cheap, and ingredient lists help muddy the waters. Here are two examples. Heiq Synbio care Athlete foot spray Ingredients: Water; Bacillus ferment; Phenoxyethanol; Inulin; Ethylhexylglycerin; fragrance; Dimethicone. Heiq Synbio Hygienic hand gel Ingredients: Denatured alcohol; water; Bacillus ferment; inulin; Xanthan gum; Triethanolamine; [4-(4-diethylaminophenyl)-5-hydroxy-2,4-disulfophenylmethylidene] diethylammonium hydroxide; fragrance. Advertising departments add to the confusion with the misleading pseudo-word “Synbiotics.” Plus another: “postbiotic.” Any “biotic” will do? Maybe inventing silly words is easier than creating a…
November 22nd, 2023 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
It seems that entire companies are started in the name of very old chemicals renamed and branded as “first-of-its-kind anti-aging ingredient.” It bothers me as much (or a bit more) than when we first started Skin Actives. Skin Actives is a company proudly based on scientific evidence. So, when silly (greedy?) people extract a name from the proverbial magician hat and proclaim it ” first of its kind anti-aging ingredient,” it irritates me. Decades ago, it was said of me that I don’t suffer fools gladly, and aging has not added to my patience. This “newly” discovered ingredient was discovered in 1885 by the German physician Ludwig Brieger. I don’t…
November 22nd, 2023 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Butane-1,4-diamine dihydrochloride is the chemical name describing the structure of a chemical discovered as putrescine. Putrescine and cadaverine were first described in 1885 by the German physician Ludwig Brieger. It’s used in skincare listed as the structural name or the Polyamine-DAB®, thus avoiding the ugly name. Although it can be isolated from plants it’s usually synthetic. Putrescine is a colorless solid that melts near room temperature. It is classified as a diamine. Together with cadaverine it’s largely responsible for the odor of putrefying flesh, but also contributes to other unpleasant odors. Putrescine is produced by the breakdown of fatty acids in the decaying tissue of dead bodies. Humans can process…
November 17th, 2023 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
The original name for this serum, 20 years ago, was “let’s make collagen.” It was soon shortened to “collagen serum” for convenience, but this serum never contained collagen, an insoluble protein that would settle at the bottom of the bottle and do nothing for your skin. From the get-go, the serum’s purpose was to push your skin to make its own collagen. You can read all about skin collagen in my book, but in my blog post on collagen, you will find more than enough to understand why collagen has to be made inside your skin. Skin Actives Scientific Collagen serum, our #1 bestseller, started as a list of actives…
November 17th, 2023 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
SOD is a very special enzyme, starting with its name. What is “dismutase”? An enzyme that catalyzes (accelerates) a reaction where two equal but opposite reactions occur on two separate molecules. Superoxide dismutase “dismutes” peroxide; it takes two molecules of superoxide, strips the extra electron off one, and places it on the other. So, one molecule ends up with one less electron, forming normal oxygen, and the other ends up with an extra electron. The one with the extra electron rapidly picks up two hydrogen ions to form hydrogen peroxide. In this way, O−2 is converted into two less damaging species. 2H++ 2O−2 → O2 + H2O2 Why is Superoxide…
September 27th, 2023 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
The promises? Essential lipids, antioxidants, and vitamins. The ingredients: Water, Dimethicone, Hydrogenated Polyisobutene, Glycerin, Cholesterol, C12-15 Alkyl Benzoate, Ceramide 3, Sunflower Seed Oil Unsaponifiables, Bis-Peg-18 Methyl Ether Dimethyl Silane, Sodium Polyacrylate, Peg-10 Dimethicone, Nylon-12, Lauryl Peg-9 Polydimethylsiloxyethyl Dimethicone, Dimethicone/Peg-10/15 Crosspolymer, Phenoxyethanol, Disteardimonium Hectorite, Hydroxyethylpiperazine Ethane Sulfonic Acid, Ammonium Polyacryloyldimethyl Taurate, Chlorphenesin, Caprylyl Glycol, Peg/Ppg-18/18 Dimethicone, Propylene Carbonate, Disodium Edta, Acrylonitrile/Methyl Methacrylate/Vinylidene Chloride Copolymer, Adenosine, Dipropylene Glycol, Lavender Oil, Rosemary Leaf Oil, T-Butyl Alcohol, Peppermint Oil, Sodium Citrate, Linalool, Isobutane, Ceramide Eop, Bht, Tocopherol, Limonene. What it gives you: There are several silicones and lots of formula improvers. Irritating essential oils. Fragrances galore. Not much stuff that your skin can use…
September 16th, 2023 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
The “how” in this post means: is there a biochemical mechanism known to support using X or Y on your skin? I am not against using an ingredient shown to be useful just because we don’t know how it works. But removing the “magic” and replacing it with understanding is so much nicer. So here we go for some of the mechanisms of action in your favorite ingredients. Don’t be discouraged by the complexity; nobody will test you! Alpha lipoic acid is a naturally occurring dithiol complex, is the prosthetic (i.e. non-proteic) group of several enzymes, including the transacetylase part of the enzyme complex that catalyzes the decarboxylation of pyruvate…
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…
September 2nd, 2023 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
You may be familiar with the superoxide radical; your body certainly is. And you may also know about antioxidants and pollution. Superoxide radicals are part of life, and it has been this way since oxygen appeared in the atmosphere thanks to photosynthesis. We, humans, and most living organisms on Earth, depend on oxygen to live. We use oxygen to oxidize food, extracting the energy we need to keep us going and thinking and writing from that food. This fundamental job of extracting energy from food by oxidizing it to carbon dioxide and water is done in good part by our mitochondria. Why do we need SODs? Why does life need…