The greenest “hack” for the cosmetic formulator: Skin Actives specialty proteins
How many pounds of Royal Jelly do you need for that hint of defensin-1? Too many, too expensive, let’s forget about it.
How many grams of cow hypothalamus do you need to get one milligram of pure keratinocyte growth factor do you need? Don’t ask, because not only it was hard and expensive, but the FDA wouldn’t allow such a chemical to be used by humans, that would be too dangerous.
How about superoxide dismutase?
Gone are the days when the formulator had to squeeze her/his nose and buy superoxide dismutase (SOD) from bovine erythrocytes (in plain English, cow’s blood). Yes, your precious antioxidant serum contained protein extracted from kilograms of what would otherwise be used to make black sausage. To make 200 mg of SOD, scientists started with seven liters of blood.
Don’t look at me, I don’t particularly like black sausage and at Skin Actives practically everything we use is vegan, either plant or microbial origin, including fungi.
It isn’t that formulators had a taste for icky ingredients. It’s that superoxide dismutase was considered (and still is) such an important active for skin care that you had to accept that unsavory choices. Not any more.
Why is SOD so important?
From our glossary Superoxide Dismutase
Superoxide dismutase is an antioxidant enzyme that catalyzes the reaction:
2 HO2 → O2 + H2O2
In this reaction, the O2− radical is converted into two molecules of a hydrogen peroxide, a less damaging species that another enzyme, catalase, can break down further into water.
Superoxide radicals are formed in a number of metabolic reactions, including lipid peroxidation initiated by light or metal ions. This process is the cause of rancidity of oils, but it also happens in live tissues and may be a cause of cancer, inflammatory diseases, atherosclerosis, aging, etc. One of the reasons why the superoxide radicals are so dangerous is because they start chain reactions where more and more free radicals are formed, reacting with all cell constituents and breaking havoc wherever they go. In the human body, the main chain breaking antioxidants are the water-soluble superoxide dismutase (SOD) and the lipid soluble alpha-D-tocopherol (vitamin E). SOD is a particularly stable enzyme that converts the destructive superoxide radical into a less dangerous form, hydrogen peroxide (which will, in turn, be converted into water and normal oxygen by the enzyme catalase). In our cells, we have our own SODs, but we can protect our skin by supplementing them with topically applied SOD. The size of the SOD used in skin care varies between 10,000 and 30,000 molecular weight, relatively small for an enzyme but large enough to be excluded from live cells. The fact that SOD is unlikely to enter live cells is not a problem. Lipid peroxidation occurs everywhere in the skin, not just in the live cells. The role of SOD is to eliminate the free radicals resulting from lipid peroxidation and to prevent the chain reactions that would eventually reach deeply into the skin, and topical application of SOD will certainly help to achieve this aim.
Other proteins
You can get the benefits of royal jelly in an easy-to-use concentrate, using the knowledge of modern science as applied to ancient medical practice. Skin Actives brings the benefits of very advanced biotechnology to your skincare products, including other ingredients that can be used to advantage in acneic skin, like granulysin and antioxidant proteins.
Epidermal Growth Factor (INCI sh-Oligopeptide-1)
Keratinocyte Growth Factor (INCI sh-polypeptide-3)
Methionine Sulfoxide Reductase (MSR) for hair and UV damage repair products (INCI sh-polypeptide 107)
Granulysin (sh-polypeptide-108)
ROS Bio-Net, a complex of three proteins: glutaredoxin, thioredoxin and superoxide dismutase (sh-Polypeptide- 77 (and) sh-Polypeptide-2 (and) Superoxide Dismutase )
We can make other proteins, just ask! The protein must be safe to use and effective.
Why do I think that Skin Actives is very cool?
Because we use advanced basic science to improve the lives (and skin) of our customers. After decades of hard work at the bench, we are now proficient at producing useful proteins in the lab, with minimal disruption of the environment and at such a low cost that would have been unimaginable a few years ago.
References
Gilchrest, B. A., Marshall, W. L., Karassik, R. L., Weinstein, R., & Maciag, T. (1984). Characterization and partial purification of keratinocyte growth factor from the hypothalamus. Journal of Cellular Physiology, 120(3), 377–383. doi:10.1002/jcp.1041200316
Read more in this blog post: https://hannahsivak.com/blog/why-is-skin-actives-serum-the-most-advanced-antioxidant-serum-in-the-world.
And https://hannahsivak.com/blog/about-skin-actives-ros-bionet/