Ingredients
May 18th, 2022 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
I am worried about all that talk about “plant-based” you see in skincare advertising. Why? Because it seems that in pursuit of anything and everything “plant”, we are going in the wrong direction. Example: alkanes. I love alkanes: linear carbon and hydrogen chains, make up waxes that will protect leaves and fruits from losing water. They also work great at preventing water loss from our skin, and the most expensive skincare products use inexpensive petrolatum and mineral oil to make a cream that will prevent water loss and accelerate healing. Most of the petrolatum and mineral oil we use comes from ancient organic matter, the same source of the gas/petrol…
May 13th, 2022 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
When we were living in caves and fighting wild lions, we didn’t make it to menopause. Now, we do. Estrogen does a lot for our bodies, including our skin and scalp. Estrogen deficiency, like the one that comes with menopause, leads to aging and delayed skin repair. In addition to “normal” menopause (around 50), many women go through early menopause, have to contend with the effects of removal of the ovaries or deal with estrogen suppressants (to control the growth of a tumor that responds to estrogen). How does menopause affect skin and hair? The answer is complicated, so I hope you will bear with me. But first, why is…
May 11th, 2022 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Copper is, for humans (and for plants, and for many animals and microorganisms) a trace element, a micronutrient. We need it but in minute quantities. There is plenty of copper all around us, including in tap water and all foods. In short: we don’t need extra copper to cover that minute amount we need to keep our body and skin working as it should. Unfortunately, a long-term publicity campaign has incorporated copper into the skin-care folklore. Similarly, there is a whole industry dedicated to using the placebo effect to sell copper bracelets to people who have arthritis. Copper can be useful in public facilities, where copper rails and doorknobs will…
May 10th, 2022 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Why do plants have so many antioxidants? Because, however different from us, plants use oxygen, and their metabolism produces ROS* (reactive oxygen species) just like us. They also live in an environment where ROS* are present. Just like we do. Let’s use their antioxidants, so varied and effective, they will delay skin aging and help reverse the effect of ROS* and UV reaching our skin. We hear a lot about astaxanthin and Skin Actives offers it in many of our products and also for DIY enthusiasts. Our astaxanthin can increase the active value of your “potions”. Why? Figure: chemical structure of astaxanthin From my glossary Astaxanthin Plant pigment, antioxidant Astaxanthin,…
April 22nd, 2022 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Decrease in testosterone levels in males?Increase in breast cancer in women?Bad hair or loss of hair? Stop and think. Where is the information coming from? From a company trying to sell you something without ‘X’ or “Z”? From a “non-profit” that sells “certificates of safety”? From a television personality who wants to increase his visibility? Follow the money. If a problem exists, we need to find out what’s causing it, not start blaming everything invented since 1950. And what about remedies? Will red light increase testosterone? We are not plants (they have receptors for red light). Where on earth did they get the evidence that proves that red light increases…
April 22nd, 2022 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
What are silicones? Figure: the structure of silicones Silicones are synthetic chemicals, long polymers made of many subunits of siloxane. Another name for them is polysiloxanes. They are colorless oils or rubber-like substances. Silicones are used in sealants, adhesives, lubricants, medicine, cooking utensils, thermal insulation, and electrical insulation. They are also used as solvents in skincare products. Why? From my book You should use a cream that helps your skin keep water in and pollutants out. Silicones (the ingredient that gives a silky feel to creams and lotions) are perfect for this job, but will do nothing else for your skin and may even slow down the absorption of valuable nutrients.…
April 16th, 2022 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Those “miracle” natural substances that people have been using for centuries or even millennia are useful because of the chemicals they contain. Sometimes, the stories are not true and there is nothing beneficial in those false miracle products. But when they effectively treat a human (or animal) condition, biochemists and phytochemists will work hard to identify the chemicals that confer the natural substance its power. The process is hard and time-consuming, but eventually, we find the key chemical. Sometimes, there is more than just one active chemical, like it’s the case of tea leaves (EGCG, caffeine). It gets even more interesting when the biochemist finds the mechanism of action. Finding…
April 7th, 2022 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
What is a moisturizer? When applied to your skin, a moisturizer will prevent excess water loss preventing dry skin (xerosis). If you want to treat effectively a skin problem, you need to forget about “stories” and look at the molecular biology of the skin. Nothing more, nothing less. Applying topically what your skin makes internally will not necessarily help. Why not? Because it will not be in the right place at the right time. What is dry skin? When human skin is subjected to conditions that it was not made to withstand: air conditioning, long bubble baths, repeat exfoliation, etc., you get dry skin: xerosis, dry skin in Greek (ksero,…
April 3rd, 2022 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Kinetin (6-furfurylaminopurine) is a derivative of adenine, one of the nucleic acid bases that form DNA and RNA. Kinetin would be more effective if you were a plant looking to grow some shoots, but it has some benefits for human skin. Figure. Kinetin (6-furfurylaminopurine) Kinetin on human skin Kinetin (a chemical with plant hormone activity) and zeatin (a natural plant hormone) have been shown to have some growth-modulating, antioxidative and antisenescence effects in human skin cells. Kinetin application also stimulated the formation of elastin and fibrillin-1 deposition in the upper dermis and stimulated their perpendicular organization to the dermo-epidermal junction. Kinetin may affect keratinocyte differentiation to improve skin moisture content,…
March 16th, 2022 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
What’s in it? Amino acids. That’s it. Glutamine, Arginine HCl, Leucine, Serine, Cysteine HCl, Valine, Proline, Lysine HCl, Glycine, Asparagine, Glutamic Acid, Threonine, Alanine, Phenylalanine, Methionine, Aspartic Acid, Tyrosine, Tryptophan, Histidine HCl, Isoleucine. Why topical amino acids? Because it is very likely that your skin cells don’t have enough of one or more of them to make up the proteins your skin needs. Do you worry about collagen elastin etc.? Then worry about your skin having enough amino acids to build these very complex proteins. If you are not that young, I promise you that your skin doesn’t get enough amino acids to synthesize proteins. Just one amino acid missing…
February 21st, 2022 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Biofermentation: wishful thinking and advertising What is “biofermentation”? You will not find the word in a dictionary or in Wikipedia. It’s not used in biochemistry. The term was created by the advertising department of a company making ingredients for the skincare industry (apparently, “bio” sounds great and adds label value to any word). Biofermentation is sold in advertising as a procedure that increases the yield and bioavailability of valuable chemicals present in the extract. Once you know that this is an advertising term and not a scientific one, it makes things easier to understand. Biofermentation is also one of those terms that the industry uses to hide preservatives and other…
February 16th, 2022 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Why this particular tree and not another? What’s so special about Ginkgo? It’s an old, old tree, from the evolutionary point of view, a relic of the times when plants didn’t yet have flowers. Even its leaves are “old”, primitive, resembling those of the very primitive ferns, like Adiantum. The leaves of Ginkgo, unique among seed plants, are fan-shaped with veins radiating out into the leaf blade, sometimes splitting, but never fusing to form a network. No flowers, no fruit, those things that look like fruits are actually seeds covered by a fleshy layer of tissue. A very primitive tree indeed and it’s remarkable that it has survived almost unchanged…
January 16th, 2022 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
You can buy ceramide powder from Skin Actives here 1.2 grams may not look like much but it will go a long way. This is because the role of ceramides is to form layers that will prevent water loss from your skin. That’s all they do, just like the ceramides that your skin makes (starting with fatty acids). Ceramides in your skincare products are more important if your skin barrier is damaged, but don’t expect miracles (you can expect those from epidermal growth factor). What matters is not the type of ceramide but its capacity to form layers. Natural ceramides don’t have an advantage over synthetic pseudoceramides (like ours is).…
October 28th, 2021 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Citrus Reticulata (Tangerine) Extract (and) Acetyl Tyrosine (and) Pentyleneglycol (and) D-Glucono-1,5-Lactone (and) Sodium benzoate (and) Water. In this list, the “actives” are tangerine extract and acetyl tyrosine. The rest are solvents and preservatives. It’s not clear what is the extraction medium of the tangerine, but it could be simply juice. Please remember that some citric fruits, including Tangerine, may contain some phototoxic chemicals, like furocoumarins, in their essential oils. See my post on the subject here. Figure: Tangerine How would this work? The enzyme tyrosinase uses the amino acid tyrosine to make a precursor to melanin. Tyrosine will only help with grey hair if the problem is that your body…
October 28th, 2021 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Anything can become fashionable in skincare, even rubbish. In fact, you could say that exosomes are rubbish. Why? They are vesicles of varied sizes produced by cells. In the past they were thought to be just one way for cells to get rid of whatever they didn’t want. They are still know to be that, although in some cases they may also function as a communication method, like a telegram sent from one cell to another. Just like a telegram (or email, for that matter) the contents of the vesicle/message can be anything, so the message can be anything (grow, die, get sick, etc.) These vesicles are also classified by…
September 23rd, 2021 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) is crucial to life. It works as an electron/hydrogen carrier that facilitates the transfer of energy between nutrients and the cell’s energy currency, ATP. In these oxidation-reduction reactions, the active part of the coenzyme (the one that gets reduced and oxidized again and again) is the nicotinamide. Note: the name used in chemistry is nicotinamide, but the skincare industry uses “niacinamide”. The rose by any other name… Although NAD+ is crucial to life, some live forms can make it and other can’t. Humans can’t, and we have to ingest it as food (or vitamin supplements). It is a vitamin, a form of vitamin B12, also plays…
September 12th, 2021 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
What is a beta-glucan? β-Glucans are large molecules made out of small sugars like glucose bound to each other in a particular way called a beta glycosidic bond. These basic characteristics leave a lot of variation in size, branching, and sugar composition, leading to great variation in physical properties like solubility, capacity to form gels and films, viscosity, and the physiological effects on animals, including humans. Figure: beta 1,4 glycosidic linkage in cellulose (by NEUROtiker, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons). The orientation of a linkage (as alpha or beta) changes the properties of the resulting oligo o polysaccharide. Starch, for example, has glucose monomers linked to each other in alpha…
September 11th, 2021 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
…and that oral antibiotics work on too slowly (for an inpatient grandmother)? …and that adapalene doesn’t seem to alleviate? Try Skin Actives Zit Ender! It makes me happy that my grandson now thinks that I am a genius. Eventually he will realize that I’m not, but in the meantime it feels great. What’s in SAS Zit Ender? Sea Kelp (Lactobacillus/Kelp Ferment Filtrate) Bioferment, Salix Alba (White Willow) Bark Extract, Water, Camellia Sinensis (Green Tea) Epigallocatechin Gallate, Kaempferia Galanga (Galangal) Root Extract, Oleanolic Acid, Zinc PCA, Dipotassium Glycyrrhizate (Licorice Extract), Aloe Barbadensis (Aloe Vera) Leaf Extract, Galactoarabinan, Fucoidan, Beta Glucan (Yeast), Beta Glucan (Oat), Opuntia Ficus Indica (Prickly Pear) Extract, Pyrus…
September 3rd, 2021 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Oxidation is good (most of the time) We are not plants, so we can’t make “food out of air” like in photosynthesis, by which plants make carbohydrates out of carbon dioxide and water using light’s energy. No, we humans (and all other animals) need to eat carbohydrates and other stuff made by the plants and oxidize them using respiration. This is the way we get ATP and reducing power to live on and make exactly what we need to grow and reproduce and keep making more humans. If oxidation is good, why do we need anti-oxidants? Once we make our beautiful proteins and nucleic acids, and our skin, etc. we…
August 25th, 2021 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Tremella is a great example of symbiosis. It is also a great example of how important fungal components have become in skincare. Figure: the snow fungus is more than “just” a fungus. Let me first remind you of what symbiosis is. The word comes from Greek συμβίωσις, symbíōsis, “living together”, from σύν, sýn, “together”, and βίωσις, bíōsis, “living”. It refers to any close, long-term biological interaction between two different biological organisms. The organisms, each termed a symbiont, must be of different species. How does it apply to the pretty “snow fungus”? Tremella fuciformis is a parasitic yeast that grows as a slimy film until it encounters its preferred hosts, also…