Skin Wrinkles
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Thursday, June 24th, 2010Expensive celebrity-endorsed anti wrinkle creams are being advertised on television and in glossy magazine ads. The question in most people’s minds is whether or not they really work.
The skeptic will assume that they don’t, while the hopeful person will give them a try. No matter who you are, you will be pleased to know that some of the compounds included in these products are effective.
You just won’t find the effective ingredients at the right concentration in all of the heavily advertised products. Those companies are counting on you to buy because you admire the celebrity spokesperson. They have no evidence to support their claims.
What you want to look for is a company that publishes the results of clinical studies on their websites. Those are indisputable facts.
While the compounds used in those studies might not work for every single person, they work for most people. One requirement is that you continue to use them on a regular basis.
People often give up if they don’t see immediate results. What you have to remember is that the best anti wrinkle creams provide few immediate results. They work on the long-term to improve the skin’s health, which as times goes by improves its appearance.
What’s wrong with your skin’s health? Toxins, damage from sunlight, low levels of important compounds like hyaluronic acid, decreased production of elastic fibers, lack of new skin cell growth…those are some of the things that are wrong with your skin’s health.
Some of them are natural parts of the aging process. But, that does not mean they are unavoidable. Judging from the latest research, avoiding them simply requires giving your skin more nourishment.
The skin’s outer layers get a great deal of damage and have very little protection. One of the things that protect the skin is sebum and we wash that away every time that we shower. So, the first thing that anti wrinkle creams should do is perform the same function performed by sebum. They should protect and moisturize.
The second thing that they should do is improve the skin’s antioxidant content. Antioxidants protect against damaging free radicals. The antioxidant coenzyme Q10 has been shown to reverse sun damage and wrinkles.
It took three months of daily use to see a 30% reduction in wrinkles. If you stop using the effective anti wrinkle creams containing coenzyme Q10, you will stop seeing benefits and the damage can be redone.
The third thing that the creams should do is improve the skin’s elasticity. It is lost elasticity that causes sagging and contributes to the depth of wrinkles. The best ingredient for improving the skin’s elasticity is called Functional Keratin. It has been shown to provide a 40% improvement in elasticity after only 18 days of use.
When it comes to fast-working, there is nothing that works faster than Functional Keratin. But, the best anti wrinkle creams combine it with coenzyme Q10 in order to provide even more results. You won’t see celebrities endorsing products containing those ingredients. But, that doesn’t mean they’re not available.
A Natural Wrinkle Cream That Can Reverse Wrinkles
Monday, June 14th, 2010
A natural wrinkle cream was recently shown to reverse wrinkles by 30%. Another has been proven to improve the skin’s elasticity by over 40%. Yet, studies conducted by independent researchers have shown that most creams provide a 10% improvement at best. Why settle for 10% when you can get three or four times that much?
The real question to ask is why cosmetic manufacturers would choose to use compounds that would provide no more than a 10% improvement. Why wouldn’t all companies include the ingredients that provide a 30-40% improvement?
The answer to that question comes down to costs and profits. In order to make more profits, but continue to keep the price low enough to ensure that billions of people will buy it, companies use cheap ingredients.
They often include an effective ingredient in order to cash in on the advertising. When people know about something like coenzyme Q10, all companies will include it. But, they will rarely include the right form or the right concentration.
Coenzyme Q10 is the ingredient that has been shown to reverse wrinkles by 30% after three months of use. Finding a natural wrinkle cream containing coenzyme Q10 should not be a problem. Finding one that contains nano-particles of it can be a problem.
Nano-particles are small enough to penetrate through all of the skin’s outer layers. Normally, coenzyme Q10 particles are too large to penetrate. So, they must be reduced in size. Recent advancements in nanotechnology have allowed that to happen.
If you find a company that includes the nano-particles, you need to find out if they have also included the right concentration. The concentration used in clinical studies was 5% COQ10 combined with a 10% concentration of vitamin E.
There is at least one natural wrinkle cream on the market containing the right form and the right concentration of coenzyme Q10 along with the ingredient that provides the 40% improvement in elasticity. That ingredient is called Functional Keratin.
Functional Keratin is an active form of the protein keratin, which is one of the major components of the skin’s outer layers. Not many companies have access to Functional Keratin, primarily because it is a naturally occurring ingredient. The available quantities are limited. Only the first companies to sign up are able to get the quantities they need.
Will a natural wrinkle cream containing coenzyme Q10 and Functional Keratin provide a 70% improvement in the skin’s appearance? It might. The hope is that the ingredients will work together in a synergistic fashion; providing more faster benefits together than they would when used separately.
Of course a lot depends on how your complexion looks today. Volunteers with the greatest degree of damage were the ones to see the most astonishing results. If you have just a small amount of damage, you might not see a huge difference.
But, if you continue to use the right natural wrinkle cream, you should find that your skin has a more youthful look as the years go by. Ingredients that reverse damage can also prevent it.
What is Functional Keratin?
Wednesday, June 9th, 2010What is Functional Keratin? It’s a relatively new ingredient found in some of the best skincare products. This article covers the question in great detail. Let’s start with what keratins are.
Keratins are structural proteins. They are used by the body to make hair, nails and the cells of the skin’s outer layers.
Keratins can be found in animal skins, wool, bird feathers and beaks, claws, horns, hooves, reptile scales, turtle shells and the quills of porcupines. There are two different types; alpha and beta.
Alpha-keratins are the type found in human skin, fingernails, toenails and hair. They are also found in sheep’s wool, the horns and hooves of cattle and the claws of various species.
Beta-keratins are also present in human nails, but not in the skin. They are found in turtle shells, reptile scales, bird claws and porcupine quills.
The toughness of keratins is similar to that of chitin, the main component of crab, lobster and mollusk shells. The main difference between the two building blocks is that chitin is a structural carbohydrate rather than a protein.
What is Functional Keratin derived from? That’s a good question.
Keratins have been used in skincare products for decades. They were derived from discarded animal parts, primarily the hooves and horns of cattle. Cow hide contains it, but it used primarily for its collagen content.
The horns and hooves must be heated to high temperatures and harsh solvents must be used to break them down into a water-soluble globular protein-form that can be added to lotions, creams or other skincare products.
The new type is derived from sheep’s wool, which is softer to begin with. So, the proteins can be softened gently. This allows them to retain their “function” or bioactivity.
What is Functional Keratin good for? There are many benefits.
Bioactive proteins can be picked up and used by the skin’s cells. One of the functions of the keratins in human skin is to absorb and pull in moisture.
So, when Functional Keratin is applied topically and absorbed by the skin’s cells, the cells become plumper. This improves the skin’s firmness. After 18 days of daily use, researchers have seen a 40% improvement in the skin’s firmness.
The ingredient has also been shown to stimulate the production of new cells. This is important, because the production of new cells for the skin’s outer layers slows down with age. That’s why older people have “duller” looking skin. After only 3 days of use, Functional Keratin has provided as much as a 160% increase in skin cell proliferation.
It has proven anti-inflammatory activity, which means it is beneficial for eczema, psoriasis, dermatitis, acne, rosacea and any condition in which inflammation is involved. It also means that it can be used on irritated or broken skin; something that you cannot do with most anti-aging creams and lotions.
It has proven antioxidant activity and by stimulating the production of new cells, it causes an increase in the potent antioxidants glutathione and superoxide dismutase. Antioxidants fight one of the primary causes of skin aging. That cause is free radical damage.
In most cases, it takes one antioxidant molecule to neutralize one free radical molecule. Superoxide dismutase is an enzymatic antioxidant. One molecule can neutralize thousands of free radicals.
Antioxidants have been shown in clinical studies to reduce wrinkles and reverse sun damage. The extra superoxide dismutase and glutathione will help to light age spots, too.
So, what is Functional Keratin? You might say that it is nothing short of an anti-aging miracle. Click here for info on skin care products with Functional Keratin.