You’ve seen skin pH on packs and adverts. Should you be worried about it?
Skincare is a crowded and busy market where you have to shout loud to make yourself heard. So it isn’t surprising that just about anything you can think of has been used to sell products at some point. I don’t think there is an idea so ridiculous that somebody won’t base a skincare range on it.
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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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I have written several times on this blog that I can’t make sense of all the diverse and often contradictory information out there about health. I am a great believer in the scientific method, but it has to be admitted that it isn’t good for everything you would like to know. A good example is ‘healthy’ food and beneficial exercise. What do these terms even mean? Eating a salad is supposed to be healthy, but if you ate nothing but salad it would kill you. Exercise is generally regarded as a good thing. But you can definitely overdo it. If I were to set out to run a marathon this morning I would probably end up in hospital. Okay if I got into shape so I could run a marathon, I would probably be healthier than I am now by most measures. But even that wouldn’t necessarily mean that the actual running of the marathon was a necessary part of the process. The first person who ever ran a marathon, just after the battle of Marathon, famously died shortly afterwards. Continue reading
A question from George
Hello Colin,
I was hoping to hear your opinion on a moisturiser by D.R. Harris & Co, the world’s oldest pharmacy. The majority of ingredients in this cream seems very standard, but it is also formulated with isopropyl myristate and lanolin – two ingredients which I know you are particularly fond of. This company also produce lots of shaving paraphernalia which you may also be interested in. I have facial eczema and don’t like to rely too heavily on steroid creams, which my dermatologist is all too keen to dish out. I’m also curious if lanolin can be beneficial in countering eczema as opinion on the internet seems to be on the no side. Regards, George
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 readingI am, as I often am, indebted to British Beauty Blogger for her review of this remarkable product – Goldfaden MD Doctor’s Scrub – which she described as ‘one heck of a scrub’. Well it certainly should be because the first item on the ingredient list is ruby crystals. BBB is rightly cynical about beauty business claims and brushed the ruby thing off as a sales gimmick. But in this case, there is something about rubies that makes them uniquely suitable as the abrasive agent in a scrub. They are one of the hardest substances known to man. Continue reading
I have a bit of a soft spot for geraniums. My grandfather used to grow them in his front garden and introduced me to their ability to display a range of strong smells. The lemon geranium was my favourite, closely followed by the rose geranium. I was also impressed to come across a scheme that encouraged African farmers to grow geraniums instead of tobacco. The geraniums were used to produce scent ingredients rather than cigarettes which is healthier for the end user. It is also better for the long term health of the soil – tobacco being a crop that requires a lot of chemical and mechanical input. So I was intrigued to see a website advocating geranium oil as an antiseptic and anti-fungal that should be kept handy for cuts and bruises. Continue reading
My long term Twitter chum Musical Houses raised a problem she has with some cosmetic ingredients with me over Twitter, using no less than 8 tweets to do it. Such patience clearly deserves an answer. Continue reading
If acne wasn’t bad enough already it can often leave scars on the face which can, in some cases, last a lifetime. Fortunately severe disfigurement as a result of acne is rare, but unfortunately there isn’t a huge amount that can be done about it. A paper published last month shows that at least some work is being done to overcome this problem. Continue reading
