Skin Science News-Briefs

Thinking about Micro-needling? Think again. If you are already dealing with any skin condition, why do you want to add another comorbid (unhealthy) therapy, when there are other skin conditions present which are hard to correct? Needles create artificial channels (punctures) in your skin creating more inflammation, more stimulation of hyperpigmentation, spread of infection and acne, and puts you at risk of forming granulomas and auto-immune reactions weeks or months later. If you are prone to scarring, why risk creating more? Making punctures in skin is an unnatural way of attempting to get products deeper into the skin, and is an inflammatory way of stimulating collagen production via wounding live tissue - causing a cytokine reaction. We need to work naturally with the way skin works, not against it. I don't recommend needling. If you have allergies, even more so should you avoid it. Like an allergy patch test, you are having substances placed into your skin that may sensitize you to them, possibly creating new allergic reactions.

Still using Chemical Sunscreens? Don't! Most OTC, and high-end department store brands are chemical sunscreens. Disturbingly, at least nine of the sunscreen ingredients approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are known to disrupt human endocrine function. It doesn't take much (parts per billion!), and they are bioaccumulative. Chemical sunscreens use one or more chemicals including oxybenzone, avobenzone, octisalate, octocrylene, homosalate and octinoxate. A safe mineral sunscreen ONLY contains titanium dioxide, zinc oxide, or a combination of both. By reading the ACTIVE INGREDIENTS section on your sunscreen's label, you will be able to tell if it is chemical or mineral. Some companies use minerals and chemicals... Don't use chemical/mineral blends. Research from the EWG shows that some sunscreen ingredients absorb into the blood and can pass into the organs, and some have toxic effects. Some of these chemicals release skin-damaging free radicals in sunlight, some act like estrogen and disrupt hormones, and several can cause allergic reactions and skin irritation. Do you have hormonal problems? PMS? Menopausal issues? Fibro-cystic breasts? Cystic ovaries? Acne, a history of cancer? Don't use chemical sunscreens or products with paraben preservatives!

PLEASE, PLEASE DO NOT use chemical sunscreens on your children.

Parabens can be hidden in your products! Companies are now obfuscating the truth about parabens (chemical preservatives) in your skincare products - even if the label says "Paraben-Free"!. While some parabens occur naturally in some fruits and veggies, they are very small amounts. Parabens in skincare products are 100's of times stronger. The problem is, these companies are deceiving the consumer by using concentrated forms of parabens extracted from plants. If your product has any of these listed on the ingredient deck: Honeysuckle extract, lonicera caprifolium, lonicera japonica, or other 'loniceras'; they have put large quantities of plant extracted parabens in your product. Shame on them! Like chemical sunscreens, parabens are bioacumulative endocrine disruptors (false hormones that accumulate in your body), and should be avoided at all costs. It doesn't matter if they are from a plant, or created in a lab... they have the same molecular structure, and are bad for you.

These endocrine disruptors can also cause precocious (premature) puberty.

Skinplicity Therapeutic Skincare