Natural Skin Care

How to Find Effective and Safe Skin Care Products

Would you be interested in leaning how to achieve skin care naturally? Have you had enough of buying skincare products that do not achieve what they claim on the label? It is ironic that the most expensive of these products are often the ones that are ineffective in the results promised. This article aims to educate you, a skin care product consumer, on the best way to go about choosing quality skin care products that will provide the results you are looking for and that are both natural and safe.

There are some products available that are good, and do actually help in making your skin appear more youthful, radiant, and smoother. A good quality skin care product will help with several unwanted skin issues such as; reduction of fine lines and bags under the eyes, and even out inconsistencies and coloration caused through unwanted pigment variations and age spots.

Problem

The trouble is that out of the thousands of skin products that are on the market, unless you are well informed, it is difficult to sift your way through them to find the best ones that produce the results you want… to eliminate the appearance of age from your skin on face and on the rest of your body.

It is understandable that people are prepared to spend huge amounts of money on these products in the hope of looking younger, or at least better, and so skin care is a hot topic. However, the more the demand, the more that manufacturers of these products will attempt to capitalize on that demand, the more products there will be to choose from, whether they be good or bad quality.

Producers will often plough all of their money into marketing the products instead of in the research and development that is essential to achieve a high quality product. They make great looking packaging, and natural looking labels for the creams and lotions with the purpose of appealing to your notion that the contents are naturally sourced and good for your skin. You will see plenty of advertisements showing beautiful and young people, models or celebrities, glowing and youthful, to promote these products. However, keep in mind that the people in the advertisements may never have even used the products.

This is partly why these skin care products are expensive, to recoup the investment made by the company to market them, to pay for the advertisements, TV ads, and celebrities royalties or models wages. These big marketing exercises all result in expensive products that may not live up to the reputation that they may appear to have.

You don’t have to believe all the adverts and expensive brand marketing though! Some people do take the time to research into the different products and the companies that sell them, look at the ingredients and determine if they are ingredients that will work, or just a bunch of chemicals that will do more harm that good.

This website aims to help you understand the products you are buying, to educate you to take notice of the ingredients you are putting on your skin, and ultimately to make informed choices now and in the future that will actually benefit your skin care routine and your skin.

Ingredients You Should Avoid

It may seem a bit unbelievable but a lot of skin care products contain ingredients that will cause harm to your skin, particularly with repeated use over time.

Mineral Oil

Mineral oil is used in lots of skincare products. Alternative names for mineral oil on labels may include; petrolatum, paraffin wax, and liquid paraffin. The only real reason mineral oil is used in so many products is that it is very cheap!

The down side of mineral oil is that when it is on your skin it will prevent it from ‘breathing’. It will also clog up your pores, impede the natural ability of the skin to eradicate toxins, and can cause a flare up of acne related conditions. Mineral oil can cause skin irritation, dryness and chapping, and over a period of continued use skin can actually form a dependency for it. Also, it can be a cause of premature aging.

When you think of all that you do wonder why it is put into skin care products in the first place.

Fragrance

Fragrances make things smell nice to some people and that is what perfumes and colognes are for. Skin care products do not need to have fragrances added to them. Fragrances will be absorbed through your skin and are often produced using ingredients that are well know to be carcinogenic or toxic… another bad idea.

Out of all the organs of the body, the skin is the largest. Consider that anything applied to your skin will be absorbed into your body through your pores. So you may be wondering why it is recommended to use perfume but not when it is in a skin care product. The answer is that most people using skin care creams will apply it liberally over their face and body, covering a large surface area, and therefore more risk of absorbing the chemicals in the products.

Although perfumes and colognes also contain many substances that I don’t recommend you apply to your skin, you will generally only apply a small dab to achieve the fragrant smell you want, and therefore less area of your skin to absorb the unwanted ingredients and less risk.
It is therefore much better to choose skin care products that do not contain fragrances… in my opininion.

Alcohol

Alcohol is commonly found in skin products and can cause irritation and drying of the skin. Although there are several alcohols to look out for and not all their properties are the same; ethyl alcohol, ethanol, methanol, isopropyl alcohol, SD alcohol, and benzyl alcohol are examples of what you may see on the labels. Alcohol can be detrimental to the natural acid mantle of the skin, can strip it away, and can make you vulnerable to viruses, moulds, and bacteria.

Dioxane

Dioxane is widely used for producing skincare products; it is synthetic and an imitative of coconut. It can contain 1,4-dioxane in high concentrations which the skin will readily absorb. This may also sound unbelievable but, 1,4-dioxane that is considered, in a region of America, to cause cancer! This is obviously extremely worrying when you consider that people are quite happily applying it to their skin without knowing of the potential dangers.

Parabens

Skincare products, including moisturizers, contain ingredients called parabens. These are preservatives and are included in the ingredients to achieve a long shelf life for these products. On the label you may see; butyl, propyl, methyl, and ethyl listed. Apart from a long shelf life, these ingredients do not achieve anything else, its pure economics for the companies. The downside to these ingredients is that there has been research that suggests they may be a potential cause of cancer, cause allergic reactions or rashes, and can interfere with the endocrine system in the body.

Moving on…

Now that we've looked at some of the bad, let's examine some of the good ingredients and some ingredients that sound good but in fact aren't.

Ingredients to Look Out For

First of all, and before we go any further, it is important that you educate yourself initially about the skin, and how to tell what will make a product high or low quality.

Skin starts to age, sag, and develop lines and wrinkles, whether it’s on your face or your body, when the elastin and collagen in everyone’s skin starts to break down. I know this may seem to be getting a bit technical, but hang on because this is one of them most important things you need to understand when discussing skin care and aging.

The protein called collagen is fibrous and different to other proteins in that it has high tensile strength. Among other things, this means that it provides the skin with firmness.

No scientific knowledge is required to understand therefore, that a break down in collagen that occurs with aging, leads to skin becoming less firm. At which point it will begin to sag and wrinkles will start appearing.

Similarly with elastin which is also a protein that aids skin to remain firm and flexible. If you imagine when skin is stretched, like an elastic band, elastin is what will help it return to the original state it was in before it became stretched. As in old and worn out elastic bands, if the elastin has gone, so will the return to firmness be less effective and the skin will stay saggy.

To conclude the collagen and elastin discussion, it is no good buying skincare products that only temporarily fill in your wrinkles and fine lines, but then the illusion created just disappears as soon as you wash the product off! This is not a long term solution for your skin care.

What you need is a product containing ingredients that will stimulate new elastin and collagen production to be able to turn back time on the skin aging process.

Be Aware

This part is really important. Be aware that some manufacturers selling higher priced products that include known active ingredients in their skin products are sometimes misleading consumers in statements about the quality of the products. They will include these active ingredients so that they can put them on the label and so that you will think they are really good.

However, you will sometimes find that there just aren’t enough of the active ingredients in the product to do what they claim and be of any benefit to your skin. Basically, they spend so much money on marketing the products that they can’t also afford to include the expensive ingredients in the products.

Basically, it’s not just the inclusion of active ingredients that get the results from the product; it is the amount of the ingredients that matters. In that sense you should choose the products that have a higher concentration of the best ingredients over one that has a low amount just so the manufacturers can include it in the labelling.

Collagen

Following my introduction to collagen and how important it is, you may have come to the conclusion that purchasing products that include collagen would be the answer. Manufacturers of products containing collagen realise that you will think this and will use it to their advantage while marketing and selling the products. However, collagen molecules are large and therefore they will not penetrate the skin when it is topically applied as a cream or lotion.

To benefit from any collagen product you must buy something that has ingredients that will lead to the stimulation of your body’s natural collagen production.

Phytessence Wakame

There is an exotic kelp, native to the Japanese Sea, called Phytessence Wakame. Phytessence Wakame blocks the harmful enzyme called hyaluronidase that is in your body. Hyaluronidase will break down the hyaluronic acid that is present in your skin. This is important because if hyaluronic acid is missing, the collagen and elastin fibres will lose their adhesive, leading to the loss of an appearance of youth and an increase in dark circles round the eyes. As a major component of your skin, hyaluronan is occupied in the work of tissue repair. You can read about that on Wikipedia.

Cynergy TK

Cynergy TK is a new substance aimed at stimulating your body’s collagen production. Trials have proven that it stimulates re-growth of collagen and elastin to promote elasticity and firmness in skin resulting in healthier skin, with less wrinkles, and a more youthful appearance. It may also improve the ability of your skin in retention of natural moisture.

Studies into the effects of Cynergy TK have shown improved skin elasticity of up to forty two percent, and moisture retention improvement of fourteen percent, over 18 days.

CoQ10

While looking at the list of ingredients listed on the labels of some higher quality skin care products, you will often notice CoQ10 (or Coenzyme Q10). If you look at the labelled list for some of the better skin care products, you'll often see CoQ10 listed.

This is a vitamin like antioxidant that is found in the cells of our body, and which plays an important part of healthy skin maintenance. Skin aging damage is often caused by free radicals in the cells of our body and this is something that the antioxidant CoQ10 counteracts prior to the damage being done.

Sadly, this is another of our natural defences that depletes with age and again all forms of the substance are not equal. Nano-Lipobelle H-EQ10 in particular, stands out above the others. Nano-Lipobelle H-EQ10 is different due to being a particular nano-emulsion form of CoQ10 and one that will penetrate deeply into the skin, 7 layers deep! It therefore provides much more benefits to skin care and health, is very efficient at eating up the free radicals that cause so much damage, and is powerful an anti-wrinkle ingredient.

On top of that Nano-Lipobelle H-EQ10 is also able to contribute to the promotion of elastin and collagen production!

In Conclusion

These are the three active ingredients that are among the most powerful compounds in the skin care fight against aging. They will have a significant effect on improving the condition and health of your skin.

Where can you find all three of these ingredients in one product line?

The Xtend-Life Natural Products company, that's where you can find products with all three of these ingredients. This company is located in New Zealand but ships products world-wide and no matter where you live the shipping price is the same, and sometimes even free. I use Xtend-Life products daily.

Pure and Natural Skincare

The company is not well known, or a household name. They do not have big celebrities to endorse their products at astronomical costs and do not spend all their money on marketing.

They don't even advertise all over the radio, in magazines, and on TV. But read their History and Background and you will feel like you know them personally.

They're one of the very few companies that focus on using most of their income on producing the absolute very best products available... not the best marketing hype.

Think of them as your very own "secret weapon" that the big companies seriously don't want you to know about...

Women's Skincare

Men's Skincare

So, if you truly want to achieve younger looking more vibrant skin, I suggest you visit their site and read about their skin care philosophy. I think you'll be just as impressed as I am. And at a very minimum, you will learn a lot more about what you should look for and what you should avoid when it comes to taking care of your one and only... precious skin.

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