Scar vanishing gel. What you can do about scars (with the help of Skin Actives)
You may think that drastic interventions like cosmetic surgery, collagen injections and laser are the way to improve your skin, but there are alternatives. With drastic intervention comes a high risk of messing up your skin. Before you take that path, make sure you try the route that involves coaching your skin into making the changes with the help of the actives that we at Skin Actives can provide you.
One example? After a couple of months using our Vitamin A Cream and Collagen Serum, you may not need blepharoplasty (look it up in Wikipedia, but skip the horror movie photographs!). Not only is the cost extremely high ($5,000 or more) but think about the intrusion, cutting, removing tissue, and more.
Remember that your skin is no longer that of a baby, so your aim should not be to acquire the smooth surface of the photo-shopped celebrity, but a better looking and healthier adult skin. Scars can be the result of minor accidents, teenage acne (the kind of imperfections that we see better than anybody else), surgeries, and more. Have a look at your old scars and spots and decide whether you want to do something about them. Don’t look at them with a magnifying mirror, that is not the way others see it and should not be the way you look at yourself.
The complicated process of wound healing
The “quality” of healing will depend on the communication between the cells and enzymes involved in the process of healing a wound. In the case of a visible scar, the process did not go the way we would have hoped.
After a cut in the skin, there are four major stages of healing: clot formation, inflammation, proliferation, and maturation.
Healing of a wound starts with formation of a clot to stop bleeding and to reduce likelihood of infection. Neutrophils (a type of white blood cell) invade the area within a day after the wound occurs, and cell division begins in epithelial cells after a day or so.
During the inflammatory phase macrophages (also white blood cells) kill bacteria, remove damaged tissue, and release chemicals, including growth factors that encourage fibroblasts and other cells to migrate to the area and divide.
In the proliferative phase, immature granulation tissue containing plump, active fibroblasts is formed from the edge of the injury towards the center. The fibroblasts make abundant type III collagen, filling the defect left by the open wound.
As granulation tissue matures, the fibroblasts produce less collagen and become more spindly in appearance. They begin to produce the much stronger type I collagen. Some of the fibroblasts mature into myofibroblasts which contain the protein actin, allowing them to contract and reduce the size of the wound. Scar maturation can last a year or even longer. Unnecessary vessels formed for healing are removed by apoptosis (programmed cell death), and type III collagen is largely replaced by type I. Collagen, which was originally disorganized, is cross-linked and aligned along tension lines. Ultimately, a scar made of collagen, containing a small number of fibroblasts, is left.
Healing of acne lesions
In acne scars, there is no cut just inflammation, which damages the tissue while fighting bacterial infection. After the acne lesion heals, it can leave a red or brown hyperpigmented mark on the skin. The redness, or hyperpigmentation, is seen as the skin goes through its healing and remodeling process, which takes approximately a year. If no more acne lesions develop in that area, the skin may heal normally.
After inflammation is over, bacteria, red blood cells, and damaged tissue are removed by macrophages (a crucial step because if damaged cells or bacteria are left over, more inflammation will be triggered). Blood vessels are repaired, and new cells form in the damaged site similar to the cells that had been damaged and removed.
Fresh vs. old
There are several things you can do when an accidental cut or minor surgery happen. Use SAS Restoration Cream (have it always in the fridge), and the wound will heal much faster and be less likely to end as a visible scar. The epidermal growth factor and other actives make up for the delay in the healing process that comes with age.
For optimum wound care, the key requirements are to provide hydration, control inflammation, reduce tension, and accelerate collagen synthesis. These days, micro-porous tape is used to replace sutures on wounds to reduce tension; this type of tape also allows for the healing gel or cream to be applied on the tape. Talk to your doctor (show him/her the ingredient list) about using SAS Restoration Cream at this stage. Later on (after a month or so), you may benefit from our Scar Gel.
A scar may look to our eyes like a finished event, but it isn’t: the skin is live tissue. We can still intervene by inducing the synthesis of new collagen and destruction of the old proteins. Retinoids (like retinyl acetate in our Vitamin A Cream), our Collagen Serum, and our Scar Vanishing Gel may help reprogram your old scars and improve their structure and appearance.
For faster results (but requiring a relatively long recovery period of a week to a month), producing a new wound in the location of the scar may be the way forward. This is what a trichloroacetic (TCA) peel does. Make sure you get an experienced (and recommended) practitioner, preferably an MD, to do the work. This may be the solution for a back scarred by acne during adolescence. When you get a professional peel make sure you have Restoration Cream on hand because the actives in it are an essential part of good healing.
Remember that skin is alive. The use of drastic procedures like dermabrasion or laser may help, but you should consider the possibility it could cause further scarring and/or hyperpigmentation. Buyer beware!
DISCLAIMER: These claims have not been evaluated by the FDA and are not intended to diagnose, cure, treat or prevent any disease.