Ingredients
May 12th, 2023 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Don’t let a child play with fire. Or a guitarist with science. A person who doesn’t understand that living beings are complicated will choose molecule A to get effect X, without thinking about side effects Y and Z. That’s OK, unless Y is basal cell carcinoma. And Z is killing melanocytes (think Michael Jackson and vitiligo). A new skin “care” product has this ingredient list: INGREDIENTS: Water, Dimethyl Isosorbide, Glycerin, Olive Oil Glycereth-8 Esters, Niacinamide, Hydroxyethyl Acrylate/Sodium Acryloyldimethyl Taurate Copolymer, Coconut Alkanes, Malassezin, Rhododendron Ferrugineum (Alpine Rose) Extract, Sodium Hyaluronate, Bisabolol, Carnosine, Tocopherol, Tetrasodium Glutamate Diacetate, Silica, Coco-Caprylate/Caprate, Chlorphenesin, Sodium Phytate, Pentylene Glycol, Caprylyl Glycol, Citric Acid, Sodium Hydroxide, Disodium…
April 20th, 2023 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Of course! Our body is very complicated and any publications explaining why something happens will always be a partial explanation. This is particularly true for aging (so many things go wrong) and with stem cells, because they are so flexible. In the past, I posted the news that two enzymes crucial to the synthesis of melanin were affected in the hair follicle making grey hair. The following is from my book Following the discovery that follicles lacking in two crucial antioxidant enzymes make gray-white hair, we added these two enzymes to our Hair Care Serum that should help protect your scalp and prevent the loss of hair color. Gray hair…
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…
April 12th, 2023 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Ceramides are a family of waxy (cera means wax in Latin) lipids that vary in chemical structure but are basically made of N-acetyl sphingosine and a fatty acid. Why does the skin make ceramides? Three main functions: the one we are more familiar with is as part of the “glue” that sticks epidermal dead cells to each other making up the skin barrier, which prevents trans-epidermal water loss. Second, ceramides form part of the cell membranes, in the form of other lipids called sphingomyelin, a major component of the lipid bilayer, crucial to the permeability properties of the membranes. The third? Ceramides, in the skin and other organs, can act…
March 15th, 2023 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Gold will do nothing for your skin except adorn it. Right now I am wearing a gold chain with a pendant. Why do we use gold for adornment? Because it is practically inert in or on our bodies (gold crowns for teeth used to be common if you were rich). Conversely, silver will react with the skin and the environment and oxidize quickly enough. To benefit the skin or the body, you need interactions, which gold can’t give you (silver will interact but without benefit or worse, google argyria). Good interactions that is. For example, metals that our enzymes need to help catalyze chemical reactions to keep us alive. Gold…
March 1st, 2023 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Cysteamine is a chemical present in the human body, a product of degradation of Coenzyme A. Figure. Cysteamine Re. “Does it work for melasma” question, we should first answer this one: do we need another active to treat melasma? Answer: Yes. Melasma is a problem for many people with no great or satisfactory solutions. Second. How to choose a new active? The answer should be: add a new active if it is safer and better than what’s in the market. Even if it doesn’t help everybody, does it work for some people better than what’s available? Especially since old actives, still used, include hydroquinone, which is irritating, photosensitive and citotoxic.…
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,…
January 28th, 2023 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Yes! Niacinamide is great! And you can make your own niacinamide skin care easily: just add it to Skin Actives base spray and serum. It’s very soluble in water, one of those few actives that it’s easy to use on your own. Niacinamide is a frequent ingredient in skincare, and for good reasons: it’s a vitamin, so it will be useful even at very low concentrations. It has many more benefits for the skin, so read on! Figure. Chemical structure of niacinamide (nicotinamide) Why a vitamin? No niacinamide, no NAD+, no respiration! Niacinamide is one of the components of NADPH (reduced niacinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate) the coenzyme that provides the…
January 15th, 2023 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
“Nona” from Latin, having nine (remember hexagon, heptagon, etc.?). Is a nonapeptide better than an octapeptide? Or than a decapeptide? It doesn’t matter how many amino acids; the sequence is what matters. In this case, the stereospecificity also matters because a couple of amino acids used in this particular peptide are not present in proteins, which are all Levo amino acids. The actual sequence of this nonapeptide, described by Jayawickreme et al. (1994), is Met-Pro-D-Phe-Arg-D-Trp-Phe-Lys-Pro-Val-NH2Why does it matter? Because it has to do with a spatial 3-D structure that will bind to the hormone receptor, blocking access to the normal hormone and preventing it from working. The idea is to…
November 18th, 2022 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Why? In the past, Royal Jelly may have been the only source of complete nutrition for a very sick patient hoping for recovery. It’s good for the skin, good for the hair, and good for so many human needs. These days, we have many other sources of vitamins and nutrition; we don’t need to “steal” from the honey bees feeding the queen bee, which is the colony’s future. The methodology to produce royal jelly these days is surprising in the many ways that it wastes resources, including the waste of honey bees. Colonies in movable frame hives are stimulated to produce queen bees. Royal jelly is collected from each individual…
November 18th, 2022 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Our new ingredient is a bioidentical protein with the power of Royal Jelly defensin-1, a.k.a. Royalisin. It has its own INCI name, Honey Bee Defensin-1 Why love it? 1) Uses the power of technology to make a valuable protein affordable and free of allergenic components 2) simulates re-epithelization 3) antibacterial 4) antifungal 5) accelerates healing 6) accelerates skin renewal 7) It does all of these while preserving the environment, allowing honey bees to do what they do best: pollinate so many beautiful flowers, preserve nature and make honey! Find it in our new serum, Regenerating Defensin Serum. Read more about bee defensin 1: What’s new in Skin Actives? Defensin…
October 21st, 2022 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Here you see, once again, the usual chain of events/people: herbalists and shamans (using the herbs), phytochemists (identifying the active chemicals), and biochemists (purifying the active chemicals and, eventually, clarifying the mechanism of action). Centella asiatica (Gotu kola, a.k.a. Hydrocotyle asiatica). This oriental herb has been used in traditional Chinese and Indian medicine for centuries. The active chemicals in the extract are terpenoids, including asiatic acid, madecassic acid, and asiaticoside. Centella asiatica helps wounds heal, by stimulating the production of type I collagen and decreasing the inflammatory reaction and production of myofibroblasts. Triterpenes from gotu cola may also affect various stages of tissue development including keratinization (the process of replacing…
October 2nd, 2022 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Revela ingredients: Water, Denatured Ethanol, Propylene Glycol, Glycerin, Propanediol, Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice, Caffeine, Serenoa Serrulata (Saw Palmetto) Extract, Apple Extract, Niacin, L-Lysine, ProCelinyl (furanyl methylthio methyl sulfanyl triazole), Biotin, L-Methionine, Inositol, Thiamine HCI (Vitamin B1), Xanthan Gum, Phenoxyethanol, Ethylhexylglycerin, Pantothenic Acid (Vitamin B5). If you are about to buy Revela because you think that $90 is all you can lose, think again. Nobody knows what this novel chemical can do to a human body because humans had never encountered it before it was created and added to these products. The loophole in medicine/cosmetics, as seen by the FDA is a temptation to people wanting to make a fast buck.…
September 26th, 2022 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Magic foods are magical because of the chemicals they contain. What chemicals give honey and royal jelly, products of the western honey bee (Apis mellifera) hard work, their power? honey and royal jelly have been used for millennia to help with wound healing.Historically, honeybee products, such as honey and royal jelly, have been used to treat injuries. Before sulfonamides and other antibiotics, which were discovered in the XX century, that’s all there was: natural products that had antibacterial or antifungal activity. Royal jelly is secreted by worker bees’ hypopharyngeal and mandibular glands, which is then used to nourish the larvae. Royal jelly has antimicrobial and immunomodulatory properties and also has…
September 21st, 2022 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
This case is about a new skincare brand created in Spain by a plastic surgeon who is telling Spaniards that it’s not necessary to go under the (his) knife to have a young face. All they need is his new line of skincare products. What’s this all about? His theory is that skin ages because of the accumulation of a toxic protein, called “progerin” that causes all the symptoms of aging skin, including thin skin, wrinkles, non-uniform pigmentation, enlarged pores, etc. He then asserts that his new skincare products, containing an alga extract, plus two other plant extracts, can destroy this toxic protein and restore skin to its younger appearance…
August 5th, 2022 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
O ATP! I could write poems to ATP, sing to it, or maybe build a sculpture! It’s the most beautiful molecule in the world. Or maybe Rubisco is, or chlorophyll. I have many favorites. But ATP is the energy currency of life. Life “runs” on ATP, the energy that allows cells to make order out of disorder and build molecules using what, ultimately, it’s the sun’s energy. But let’s keep it simple: our cells make ATP out of the food we eat. Our skin uses ATP to do almost everything, to keep everything going, make new cells, and keep going for almost 100 years. Figure: the ultimate energy currency,…
August 5th, 2022 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Castor beans are cultivated for the oil extracted from the seeds; it is produced by cold pressing the seeds followed by clarification of the oil by heat. . The castor bean from which oil is extracted contains toxic and allergenic chemicals, but these are not present in the oil itself, because ricin does not partition into the oil. The toxicity of the seeds makes them harder to cultivate and process. Castor oil has better low-temperature viscosity properties and high-temperature lubrication than most vegetable oils, making it useful as a lubricant for engines. It’s also a great material for use as a raw material in chemical synthesis: the chemical reactivity of…
July 20th, 2022 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Question: “I bought apocynin powder to add to my creams but cannot find any information on HOW to add it or liquefy it. Please help! You should include a recipe with the Order.Thanks.” A solid is a solid at room temperature, you can melt by increasing the temperature a lot; it’s called the melting point. For apocynin, that’s 115°C. But you are not looking at melting apocynin not what you are looking for. You need to dissolve a solid, apocynin, in a liquid or lotion at room temperature or as near as possible to it so that you can apply it to your skin and get its benefits. DIY skincare…
July 4th, 2022 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Polyphenols come in all kinds of shapes and from very different plants. They need antioxidants just as we do. For some tasty polyphenols have a beer Let me tell you about hops, a critical ingredient of beer for many centuries. Before hops, beer didn’t taste “right” and did not last very long before going bad. What is so special about hops? The “common” hops plant is a very uncommon factory of beneficial phytochemicals, some of them unique to hops. This genus Humulus is related to cannabis, they both belong t the Family Cannabaceae and they have many chemicals in common, like the terpenes myrcene. The hop plants are dioecious, i.e.…
July 4th, 2022 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
INCI Name:Saccharide Isomerate (and) Aqua (and) Citric Acid (and) Sodium Citrate The consumer may see nothing strange in this ingredient list, but the chemist or biochemist or biologist will ask “what on earth is saccharide isomerate”. If you are Hannah you will think that you must have forgotten something important because I used to know everything about sugars and polysaccharides. Is it age? No. It’s not my age. Saccharide isomerate is an invention of the ingredients industry, great at pulling names out of the proverbial magic hat. Saccharide isomerate is a soup, a mix of unknown sugars made in the laboratory. And, as its composition is unknown, it can’t be…