Ingredients
April 22nd, 2026 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
May I offer a definition? “A substance that, applied topically, will help reverse the manifestations of skin aging, including the capacity to prevent the entry of noxious chemicals and microbes, loss of elasticity, impaired pigmentation, wrinkles, increased itching or pain, etc.” This definition contradicts the FDA’s “rule” that cosmetics shouldn’t alter skin physiology but can change skin appearance. But of course, anti-aging cosmetics change skin physiology (and appearance), even if we insist on pretending otherwise to keep the FDA happy. In my book and in my pamphlet “Chemicals that Nature Makes,” I mention some anti-aging ingredients. For some of them, there is strong experimental evidence from scientific journal articles. Still,…
April 8th, 2026 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Below, I describe the properties of some natural chemicals that are used in skin care. If you would like to know about a chemical that is not in this list, let me know, and I will add it in subsequent “editions”. Natural chemicals are those present in nature, in plants and/or animals. The actual ingredient you find in a formulation may be obtained by chemical synthesis, fermentation, or biotechnology; what matters to your body is the chemical structure, not the “origin”. Chemical structure is not just the number of atoms and how they are linked to each other, but also how they are organized in space. I included some references…
January 6th, 2025 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Look at the ingredient list below. Has anything changed in 20 years? $300 will buy one ounce (30ml) of this: Algae Extract, Water, Dimethicone, Isododecane, Glycerin, Hydrogenated Polyisobutene, Trisiloxane, Caprylic/Capric/Myristic/Stearic Triglyceride, Vinyl Dimethicone/Methicone Silsesquioxane Crosspolymer, Caprylic/Capric Triglyceride, Sea Salt, Yeast Extract, Everlasting flower (?) Extract, Sesame Seed Oil, Alfalfa Seed Powder, Sunflower Seedcake, Sweet Almond Seed Meal, Eucalyptus Leaf Oil, Sodium Gluconate, Copper Gluconate, Calcium Gluconate, Magnesium Gluconate, Zinc Gluconate, Tocopheryl Succinate, Niacin, Sesame Seed Powder, Red algae Extract, brown algae Extract, Molasses Extract, Phytosphingosine, brown algae Extract, Corallina Officinalis Extract, Sodium Hyaluronate, St. Paul’s Wort Extract, buckwheat Seed Extract, Rapeseed Seed Oil, Polyglyceryl-3 Diisostearate, Licorice Root Extract, brown algae…
January 2nd, 2025 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
What is “stem cell conditioned media (SCCM)”? It’s the liquid that helps maintain and grow stem cells growing on solid support. To keep the cells growing, it has to be discarded (and fresh medium added). Human stem cells may be used for a number of applications, but the old medium has no other use. After all, it now contains stuff the living cells discarded, it has been depleted of chemicals the cells used for sustenance, and its composition is now unknown. The fresh medium is a solution containing all amino acids, sugars, vitamins, etc. that the cells need to live. For convenience, it also includes a pH indicator, to alert…
September 1st, 2024 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Oils have become an object of advertising hype in skincare, just like other ingredients. This would not matter much except that different oils can have different effects on your skin. How to choose a good oil for your skin? Think about nourishing your skin and NOT the acne bacteria. Are you looking to alleviate a skin condition like eczema? What matters to your skin is the fatty acid composition and NOT how pretty the name of the plant might be. An oil may contain some beneficial impurities, but some impurities may impart a strong odor. I prefer to use purified oils and add extras as needed. You will be using…
June 13th, 2024 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
Do I “believe” in aromatherapy? Yes and no. Essential oils contain a mix of chemicals, and it makes sense that some of the chemicals will have an effect on the body. If I can have an allergic reaction to a lavender essential oil (yes, that’s unlucky), why not expect other, maybe even beneficial, effects? But I have a problem: the language used in aromatherapy, full of wishful and magical thinking, puts me off. This doesn’t exclude the possibility that some essential oils are good for you; I was waiting to see some mechanism of action uncovered by scientific research. One of my favorite things is the smell of orange blossoms,…
April 28th, 2024 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
The answer to “how” is usually “with arrogance and ignorance.” Every day should be Earth Day, and we should be careful about introducing new chemicals into Earth. Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) are a class of artificial compounds made of a perfluoroalkyl main chain and a terminal functional group and have been applied widely. In the mid-20th century, we were more naive about what chemistry and invention could do and not do. On their introduction in the 1940s, PFASs were considered inert. Still, early occupational studies revealed elevated levels of fluorochemicals, including perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA, C8), in the blood of exposed industrial workers. At that time,…
April 15th, 2024 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
ROS can destroy everything they find: proteins, DNA, lipids, and life. The environment provides plenty of ROS* (reactive oxygen species), but so does your body! How? Respiration and mitochondria are the main suppliers of usable energy to fulfill all our needs. They produce energy by extracting it from foodstuffs, and electron transport plays a big part in this. However, the electron transport process, a marvel of life, is far from perfect, and ROS* are formed. Our body has the machinery to deal with ROS*, acquired during millions of years of evolution in an oxygen-containing atmosphere. But this machinery, just like everything else in our bodies, ages as we age. Why…
April 9th, 2024 by Dr. Hannah Sivak
TIU: Top It UpWhat’s this? As our skin ages, there will be two significant changes: a decrease in the production of growth factors and a fall in the supply of nutrients from the rest of the body. This means that cell division will slow down due to a lack of instructions to divide and the wherewithal to allow cells to grow and divide. This is the double whammy that will accelerate skin aging. You will not notice a difference in your teen years, but you may when you reach your twenties and certainly in your thirties. What will you see? Thinning of the skin, wrinkles, laxity. Oral vitamins will not…
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
Always look at the ingredient list to find out what a product can (or cannot) do for you. What’s available? Add Tremella fuciformis, a.k.a. snow mushroom, and Zinc PCA. Follow the links to posts describing their benefits. The secret to controlling acne without damaging your skin is in the ingredients. Fight the bacteria and the skin condition, not your body. Don’t supress your skin’s immune system or the barrier. This, for example, is a good product . Water, Potassium Azeloyl Diglycinate, Seakelp (Lactobacillus/Kelp Ferment Filtrate) Bioferment, Sodium PCA, Camellia Sinensis (Green Tea) Hydrosol Water, Propanediol, Hamamelis Virginiana (Witch Hazel) Water, Nobiletin, Zinc PCA, Tremella fuciformis (Snow Mushroom) Extract, Porphyridium Polysaccharide,…
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
Modern chemistry and technology allow anyone with money to design and produce a peptide. The result will be a sequence of amino acids linked by a peptide bond that may have a physiological effect on the body, or not. It depends on the sequence of the peptide, just like a sequence of letters can make up a word or just spell nonsense. 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…
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…