What is Nature Identical Collagen?
I have blogged before about collagen, and how it is one of the keys to understanding skin ageing. I’ve also pointed out that this hasn’t so far translated into effective skin care products. Basically collagen, and its cousin elastin, are the proteins that give your skin its lithe springy behaviour. The collagen content is the biggest determinant of how old your skin looks and feels.
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Sweet almond oil is a viscous oil with a yellowy colour. Cosmetic scientists like it because it gives a rich lubricious feel to cream formulations. Marketers like it because it sounds natural. More on that in a minute. It contains a lot of unsaturated fatty chains. This is something that might turn out to have some benefits for the skin, though there is no formal evidence I can cite to justify this at present. The skin contains some chemicals that look a lot like the unsaturated bits of sweet almond oil and which seem to help protect the skin against bacteria. It isn’t impossible that adding sweet almond to the skin boosts this sort of thing and so helps build the skin’s barrier and protective function. Continue reading
I was listening to the perky pair of Randy and Perry over on the Beauty Brains the other day. They were answering a question about whether or not lanolin was a good moisturiser. They replied that it was indeed but that mineral oil was better. I knew straight away why they had said that and what they were was true enough in as far as it went, but nonetheless I think they were wrong to suggest that mineral oil is actually better. But it is going to be involved to explain why, so maybe get a sandwich. Continue reading
I think I can claim to be something of an expert about soap and skincare, but the trouble with getting really immersed in a subject is that you begin to forget that not everybody knows what you know. I spend a lot of time talking to people in the beauty industry who know a great deal about cosmetic products. And when I am not talking to them I am often talking to beauty bloggers who know even more. So when I gave a talk the other day to some people with no particular connection to the business I was struck that the questions they asked were ones that I would have thought everybody already knew the answer to. Here’s one interesting one.
Continue readingOkay, you’ve got really dry skin. What is a good choice of skin cream? One approach is to look for actives that have a good effect and then find a product that has a lot of that ingredient. This sounds good in theory but it isn’t always easy to work out which of the many active ingredients the adverts are shouting about actually work. And it is almost impossible to work out how much of those ingredients are in any given product. But it’s not impossible. Let’s have a look at Eucerin Extra Dry Skin Intensive 10% w/ w Urea Treatment Lotion. Continue reading
Bubbles are fun, but are they good for you?
Cosmetic Design Europe ran a piece plugging a new product launch a few weeks back. It was promoting a product and was paid for by the manufacturer, so I won’t trouble to make a free contribution to their marketing campaign. But one of the points made in the article was highlighting the drawbacks of showering. This seemed interesting. Continue reading
The Beauty Brains highlighted a list of three useless cosmetic product categories on their Twitter feed a couple of days ago that they had found on a blog. The first two were pretty hard to argue with. Split ends are going to stay split whatever product you put on them. And cellulite creams, while they might work in theory they have yet to be shown to work in practice. But the third one suggested that lip balms damaged your lips barrier function. This means that while the lip balm itself protects your lips while it is there, it dries them out in the long run. Continue reading
Elemis have some highly rated products but their Pro-Collagen Marine Cream seems to have a particular appeal to people who want a moisturiser that doesn’t bring them out in spots. The fact that it doesn’t have this downside gets mentioned a lot by reviewers. The other things that come up a lot are that it is very expensive and that a little goes a long way. So what would you do with that information if you were working in the Elemis New Product Development department? You’ve got a winner, but you probably aren’t making as many sales as you might. Continue reading
Facial masks have been around for ages, and are popular enough to get stocked in supermarkets in the UK. But they are still exotic enough that you can’t assume people know what they are. The idea of putting a clothe soaked with a fluid on your face and leaving it there for about 20 minutes still seems to be something of a minority taste. Part of the problem is that people aren’t exactly sure what it is that they are supposed to do. And judging by the way some of the products in the category are marketed, it doesn’t look like the makers have a much better idea. Continue reading
A question from Junie
Hi My doctor whi is also a dermatologist says I have dermatitis. On my face and eye lids, the cream he gave me made it worse, the next cream he suggested I refused as it contained steroid, which I am told it should not be put on eyelids. Please can you help, I am just covering it up at the moment but I really would like to clear it up Thanks Junie
I am afraid I am not qualified to give medical advice, and if I were I wouldn’t do so over the internet. But hopefully I can give a bit of background information that might help a little. Continue reading
