Happy Monday to everyone. I hope you had a fantastic weekend. It was beautiful here in Dallas this weekend, and I tried to take advantage of the last of those beautiful Summer days. Before long, it is going to start getting chilly and it will be time to move it indoors!
Anyway, back to today’s blog. I wanted to pick up where we left off last time we discussed key ingredients. If you remember, we discussed exfoliants last time we talked. If you didn’t catch that blog, you can simply search “Key Ingredients and Their Functions – Exfoliants” in the search box to the right and it will pull it up for you. Exfoliation is necessary for stimulating the production of new skin cells and helping to repair past damage and encourage the skin to act and look younger.
But, what do we do to PREVENT the damage that occurs to our skin when we age? In order to prevent the process of damage or more simply, the process of aging, we need to ensure that we are getting ample amounts of antioxidant in our foods or nutritional supplements and plenty of antioxidants and sun protection in our skin care products. I bolded that statement because I want everyone to realize the importance of these protection ingredients and the value of them in your skin care products. All too often, people look for sun protection to be their saving grace against aging. But sun protection is only part of the equation. In fact, I would say that sun protection is only half of what you need to ensure your skin is protected against aging. The other half is antioxidant protection.
I am going to step out on a limb a little when I say this, but if everyone took their PREVENTION products as seriously as they did their REPAIR products, then we would have far less repair that needed to be done! If an 18 year old were to start thinking of skin protection as a key part of his or her daytime and nighttime regimen, they would be far younger looking at 40+ than our generation does. But, that doesn’t mean that once the damage is done there is no need for protection…quite the contrary, as a matter of fact. With the amazing repair products that we offer, and by giving a consumer of any age the ability to reverse the signs of aging such as wrinkles, age spots, loss of firmness, creepy skin, etc…protection products are CRUCIAL to keep the results and prevent the process of continued aging and damage, not to mention the prevention of skin cancer. Did you know that Skin cancer is the most common form of cancer in the United States. More than one million skin cancers are diagnosed annually. One in five Americans will develop skin cancer in the course of a lifetime.
To learn more about skin cancer and the risks associated with this devastating disease, I would urge you to visit the Skin Cancer Foundation at www.skincancer.org to learn how sun protection and antioxidant protection can help guard you against future damage.
Think about it this way…imagine that you get a brand new car and every day you park it on the edge of a busy highway…chances are that it is going to get dinged up and sometimes even wrecked. So, you take the car into the shop. They hammer out the dings, replace the bumper, put in a new windshield and give you a beautiful new paint job. You drive your pristine, newly furbished car home and you park it on the side of the busy highway again. Well, I can assure you that you are going to be making a lot of trips to the body shop until you finally get to the point where the car is totaled. But, what if you took that car home from the body shop and parked it in your garage rather that out on the street? The chances are pretty good that it will stay in good shape.
The same applies to your skin. No matter what your age, protection ingredients – including antioxidant protection and UV protection will help you prevent and delay the process of aging and prevent skin cancer and other skin abnormalities in the process.
Antioxidants:
Ok, so are antioxidants? While nearly everyone has heard of them, few know how they actually work. But it’s relatively simple.
Let’s get into some basic chemistry. Oxygen molecules are stable when they have an even number of electrons. However, when oxygen molecules combine with other molecules, the oxygen can end up with an odd number of electrons. The oxygen molecule is now unstable and highly reactive, and the odd-numbered species is known as a free radical. This free radical really is a crazy, radical species: it starts a vicious chain reaction that attacks cells, proteins, and DNA, all of which contribute to aging.
The body defends against free radicals with antioxidants, which impede or slow the chain reaction. Antioxidants “break the chain,” stopping free radicals from ripping electrons off of other molecules and stabilize the unstable, reactive free radicals, and thereby slow the free radical chain reaction.
I know what you are thinking….”BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, Yadda, yadda, yadda! Thanks for the explanation, but I still don’t get it”. I have two ways of explaining this, a practical explanation and a tabloid explanation:
Practical Explanation - Think of an apple. The peel of the apple is rich in antioxidants, which keeps the delicate fruit inside of the apple crisp, moist and undamaged. Once you cut the apple, you expose the delicate fruit and the apple turns brown. Why? Oxidation. There were no antioxidants to prevent the damage to the inside of the apple. It is the same process that occurs when something rusts. That is the same thing that happens to your skin when you are deficient in antioxidants.
Tabloid Explanation – Ok, I admit, this is a little sick and twisted, but this is how my mind works. Lets think of oxidative damage like this….does everyone remember the scandal between Brad Pitt, Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie? Well, it goes something like this…Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston were married and for the longest time were America’s perfect, stable couple. Then along comes Angelina Jolie….a free radical if I have ever seen one. She was recently single, she was looking for a man and she found one. The problem was that the man she found was attached to another woman. Brad and Jennifer were happy together, but it didn’t take long for Brad to decide that he would attach himself to Angelina instead. So, he leaves Jennifer and settles down with Angelina and they are a happy couple….leaving Jennifer out on the hunt…I guess we can say that now, Jennifer is a free radical and looking to settle down with someone else’s man. Now, if Jennifer had gotten rid of Angelina from the get-go and taken her out of the picture before she stole her man, chances are she and Brad would still be an item. .
In very simple terms…antioxidants destroy the free radical before it can destroy your healthy skin cells.
Unfortunately, the body does not produce or ingest enough antioxidants to neutralize all of the free radicals, which come from processes that are both endogenous (within the body, such as human metabolism) and exogenous (outside the body, from pollution, smoking, alcohol, and UV radiation, amongst other sources). Over time, this means free radicals accumulate a great deal of damage within the body. As a means of defense against future UV-induced free-radical damage, most dermatologists recommend daily use of sunscreen with UVA/UVB protection and a SPF of at least 15. However, it is believed that sunscreens only block 45-55% of free radical production. For this reason, a second line of defense is CRITICAL, by using antioxidant supplements and antioxidant-rich topically applied treatments.
Cell Block C products, are your products that offer both antioxidants and UV protection to delay and prevent damage.
Too many people think that Cell Block C AM is JUST a sunscreen. Cell Block C AM is half sunscreen and half antioxidants to give you a full range of skin protection. One without the other is not giving you what you need to maintain the health of your skin and prevent that aging process.
And since oxidative damage occurs at night as well as the daytime, Cell Block C PM is another highly critical product to use to keep your skin protected around the clock.
You will not find a more comprehensive blend of complete prevention ingredients in any other product out there. Cell Block C products offer the TOTAL PACKAGE for skin protection.
Here is another common misconception...many people believe Vitamin C is the end all and be all in antioxidant ingredients. Yes, Vitamin C is a good antioxidant, but in reality, alone it is not the BEST antioxidant. Vitamin C in combination with other highly active, full spectrum antioxidants will give you the protection that you need. Vitamin C is just part of it. Your vitamin based antioxidants such as Vitamin C, E and A, help to strengthen the marriage of your skin cells (kind of like a really tough pre-nup agreement that makes it really difficult to breakup) that keep them from being robbed, but the other forms of antioxidants are necessary to destroy the crazy free radical before they do damage to someone else’s marriage! Make sense?
Antioxidant Ingredients:
- Vitamin C
- Sodium Ascorbyl Phosphate
- Tetrahexyldecyl Ascorbate
- Ascorbic Acid Polypeptide
- Ascorbic acid
- Vitamin E
- Tocopheryl Acetate
- Vitamin A
- Retinyl Palmitate
- Retinol
- Coenzyme Q-10 – listed as ubiquinone -
- Licorice
- Blueberry
- Citrullus Lanatus(watermelon)fruit extra
- Camellia Sinensis (White Tea) Leaf Extra
UV Protecting Ingredients:
Chemical Sunscreen: A chemical sunscreen, works by chemically absorbing UV rays. Some chemical sunscreens absorb ONLY UVB rays and some absorb only UVA rays. In formulations with chemical sunscreens, multiple forms of sunscreen ingredients are used to offer both UVA and UVB protection.
• UVB Protection - chemical compounds that offer sun protection from UVB (burning rays) exposure – listed as :
Octinoxate, Homosalate, Octisalate, on ingredient listing.
• UVA Protection– A chemical sunscreen that offers UVA (aging rays) protection. Commonly called Parsol - has a lower irritation rate compared to other chemical sunscreens - Listed as Avobenzone or Butyl Methoxydibenzoylmethane on ingredient listing.
Physical Sunscreen: A physical sunscreen works by deflecting UVA and UVB rays. When an ingredient offers
• UVA and UVB Protection - physical compounds that provide a physical block on the skin to prevent UVA and UVB exposure – listed as titanium dioxide or zinc oxide on ingredient listing.
For more information on sun protection, I would highly recommend that you visit my blog titled “Understanding Sun Protection”.
I hope this gives you a little better insight to the need and understanding of antioxidants and sunscreens and how they work together to protect your skin.
If you think of any questions, please be sure to email me at www.product@beauticontrol.com.
Have a great week.
