May 2015 - Poll Results + New Formulations: Vitamin A Cream and Vitamin C Serum
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Results from our Poll in the April Newsletter


We want to thank everyone who participated in our poll last month. We are always looking for ways to improve your experience with Skin Actives. If you missed out on our poll and would like to give your feedback please drop a note via email (jonatan@skinactives.com). 

Would you recommend Skin Actives to a friend or relative?

Yes:  98.3%
No:     1.7%

What Rating (1-10) would you give the new website?
Avg rating: 8.56

On a 1-10 scale, how much would you like to see each of the following in our catalog?

The Vitamin A Cream with Kakadu and Vitamin E Oil from February
Avg rating: 8.47

More 'fancy' packaging/fragrance options like our Firming Collagen Serum
Avg rating: 3.72

More 'make your own' kits like our Formulation Kit for Beginners
Avg rating: 5.74

A larger size shampoo
Avg rating: 6.0

A new 'Marine Conditioner'
Avg rating: 6.87


The update to the Vitamin A Cream had the most popular support. We decided to do it as soon as possible. See below for information on the changes we have made to one of our most essential products.

Nail Care Duo

Nails are "dead" (made up of "just" protein, no live cells), but the underlying tissue should be kept healthy. Don't assume that whatever you put on or do to the nail is "allowed." Product applied to the nail will penetrate and reach the matrix.

The nail plate (corpus unguis) is the hard part of the nail, made of translucent keratin protein. The nail is often considered an impermeable barrier, but this is not true. In fact, it is much more permeable than the skin, and the composition of the nail includes 7–12% water.

Despite this water content, cracked nails happen, as do torn and ragged cuticles from dry weather and other activities that are hard on our hands. This month’s bonus is a nail duo focused on keeping the "dead" part of the nail, as well as the nail bed, in the best condition possible. The Nail Care Serum helps accomplish this by feeding it with actives meant to promote keratin growth and health. The Nail Care Oil in the duo supplies your nails with lipids as well as anti-fungal properties (common organisms causing nail infections include yeasts and moulds, particularly dermatophytes) with the addition of clove and palmarosa essential oils. Use both products in conjunction for the best results, and don’t forget to apply the nail care oil after salon visits to help prevent any fungal infections. 

Orders over $150 will receive a 10mL tube w/ applicator for both Nail Care Serum and Nail Care Oil

Orders over $50 will receive a 5mL sample tube of both Nail Care Serum and Nail Care Oil




INSTRUCTIONS: 
Nail Care Serum – Apply daily to clean nail, cuticle, and surrounding skin. Follow with Nail Care Oil for best results.
Nail Care Oil – Massage oil onto clean nail, cuticle, and surrounding skin daily.

 
Nail Care Serum
Water, Hamamelis virginiana (Witch Hazel) extract, Propanediol, Acacia Gum, Panthenol, Glutamine (L-), Arginine (L-), Leucine (L-), Serine (L-), Cysteine (L-), Valine (L-), Proline (L-), Lysine (L-), Glycine, Asparagine (L-), Glutamic Acid (L-), Threonine (L-), Alanine (L-), Phenylalanine (L-), Methionine (L-), Aspartic Acid (L-), Tyrosine (L-), Tryptophan (L-), Histidine (L-), Isoleucine (L-), Glucose, Caffeine, Xanthan Gum, Carnitine (L), Niacinamide, Proanthocyanidins, Fucoidan, Apigenin, Keratinocyte Growth Factor (KGF, sh-Polypeptide-3), Superoxide Dismutase (SOD), Catalase, Propylene Glycol, Diazolidinyl Urea, Methylparaben, Propylparaben.


Nail Care Oil – EMUlator oil with additions of anti-fungal essential oils
Sweet Almond Seed (Prunus amygdalus dulcis) Oil, Palm Oil, Shea Butter (Butyrospermum parkii), Flax Seed (Linum usitatissimum Oil, RosehipSeed (Rosa affinis rubiginosa) Oil, Pomegranate Seed (Punica granatum) Oil, Sea Buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides) Oil, Borage (Boragoofficinalis) Oil, Foraha (Calophyllum inophyllum) Oil, Kukui Nut (Aleurite moluccans) Oil, Babassu (Orbignya oleifera) Oil, Mango (Mangiferaindica) Butter, Pumpkin Seed (Cucurbita pepo) Butter, Kokum (Garcinia Indica) Butter, 
Tucuma (Astrocaryum tucuma) Butter, Tocotrienols(Vitamin E), Alpha-D-Tocopherol (Vitamin E), Astaxanthin, Lycopene, Lutein, Alpha Lipoic Acid, Beta Carotene Eugenia caryophyllata (Clove Bud) essential oil, Cymbopogon martini (Palmarosa) essential oil.


Please note: Bonus products are added automatically. No code is required, and they will not show in the shopping cart.

Ready To Use Products

 
New Collagen Serum Firming Collagen Serum
Vitamin A Cream Vitamin C Serum 15%
Anti-Aging Cream Antioxidant Serum with ROS*
Brow and Lash Serum with KGF DMAE (4%) Serum
ELS Serum with Argan Oil UV Repair Cream with Booster
Bright-I Cream Hair Care Serum


Formulation Components

 
Hyaluronic Acid Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C)
Epidermal Growth Factor Dermagen with Hyaluronic Acid
Canvas Base Cream Retinyl Acetate (Vitamin A)
Sea Kelp Coral Niacinamide (Vitamin B3)

A complete list of our ready to use products can be found here.
All our 'make your own' ingredients can be found here.

Looking for a great gift? Fabulous gift Ideas can be found here and you can also purchase Skin Actives Gift Certificates

Hair Care Serum w/ KGF
Testimonial from Christine:


I have suffered with hair issues on and off for most of my life. So, needless to say I had lost a lot of density, volume, not to mention my self esteem. My Dr. had guided me to Minoxidil, which I have been using for a VERY long time with somewhat good results... Lowered shed rate, recovery of some density, but it also left me with a dry scalp and frizzy hair.
 
I was already a faithful user of many Skin Actives products and decided that in my quest of getting my hair back, I would try the Hair Care Serum w/ KGF as there was no adverse effect in using it with Minoxidil.
 
The first thing I noticed about a month in was that my shed rate in the shower was EVEN LOWER... AMAZING!! Needless to say, this spurred me on to continue optimistically...
 
It's been a year now, and I can honestly say I have DOUBLED my density! On top of more scalp coverage, I also noticed the thickness of each hair and my scalp health have much improved! 
 
I will NEVER give up this product and I know the longer I use it the better my hair will be.
 
I am very grateful for finding such a wonderful company that uses clean, pure ingredients that yield such honest results.

THANK YOU,
Christine

Do you have a product story you'd like to share with our community? 
Send them to Jess@skinactives.com


 



 

Vitamin A Cream with Kakadu Plum and Vitamin E Oil

Our customers have spoken! As you can see from the poll results, the sample of Vitamin A Cream with Kakadu Plum and Vitamin E Oil was very popular. We have listened to that feedback and decided to replace our plain Vitamin A Cream with this upgraded version. You will still get the same great vitamin A product you all love, but now you have the added benefit of antioxidant power from vitamin E and the vitamin C content of Kakadu Plum. The extra moisture and skin benefits these changes provide is surely what made the Vitamin A Cream with Kakadu Plum and Vitamin E Oil such a hit!


Vitamin C Serum without Essential Oils

As you will see in Hannah’s article "Your Questions Answered" below, these oils are not essential to our skin and can sometimes be phototoxic. Because safety is our main concern, we would like to err on the side of caution and will be removing the citrus essential oil that was in our premixed and ‘mix your own’ Vitamin C Serums. Although this will remove some of the lovely citrus smell, it will not remove any of the activity of the serum. The Ascorbic Acid in the serum remains unchanged, so please continue to use the Vitamin C Serum as instructed.

DMAE

 

From time to time I re-visit old subjects and “old” ingredients. DMAE (dimethylaminoethanol) is one of our oldest ingredients and one that was the subject of much discussion a while ago. How does it look today?


 

http://www.skinactives.com/DMAE-Bitartrate.html

DMAE improves the firmness of the skin and helps reduce the visual appearance of sagging skin, although the mechanism of action is unknown. It is an amine-based alcohol, a precursor to the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, present in nerve tissue in small amounts and more abundant in fish. DMAE acts as a free radical scavenger due to the high electron content of its nitrogen atom. Once phosphorylated, DMAE is incorporated into the membrane of cells. In addition, DMAE is an immediate precursor to choline, which is involved in cell membrane biosynthesis. 

At SAS we sell DMAE as DMAE bitartrate, a salt of DMAE (DMAE is strongly alkaline and hazardous to ship and manipulate), so take into account that the actual percentage of DMAE by weight in the salt is about 37%, i.e., 100 grams of DMAE bitartrate contain 37 grams of DMAE. To make 4oz (120 mL) of serum containing 3% DMAE, you will need about 10 gm DMAE bitartrate (the rest will be the tartaric acid).

In the last few years, many people have been using DMAE. An article was published in a scientific journal that should not have passed the reviewers, but it did. Like all scary information about chemicals present in our daily life, the information was amplified by the social media using the internet and it became a big event. It should not have, because dramatic results that contradict decades of results should be vetted carefully. After all the foam dissipated, everybody went back to using DMAE. I always had mixed feeling about DMAE because its mechanism of action is not understood, i.e. we do not know how it increases skin firmness. But, until somebody comes up with better information, we have to assume that DMAE used by our clients (up to 4% in a compatible serum) is perfectly fine.


A Bill to "ensure the safety of cosmetics"

The Personal Care Products Safety Act is a a new bipartisan bill, co-sponsored by Senators Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, and Susan Collins, Republican of Maine. It proposes to give the F.D.A. broader oversight, including the authority to force recalls of dangerous products. This is a law supported by skin care companies like Procter and Gamble, Revlon, etc. It isn't that these companies want more regulation by the FDA, but they already have strict quality controls and are keen on safety.

We are in favor of the bill, in that it could possibly remove some unsafe products from the market. It also directs the FDA to certify the safety of certain ingredients such as parabens. It is our hope that the topic can finally be laid to rest.

The act also requires registration of all new products with the FDA. It is very likely that this provision will delay introduction of new products until the new systems are in place to accept the data.

We will keep an eye on this legislation and provide updates as we learn more.

Read the full N.Y. Times article about this bill HERE









Are Essential Oils Essential to my skin? 


At Skin Actives we use a few essential oils in our products. We choose them carefully based on the activity we need, most often antibacterial and/or antiviral. There is a rare exception to the rule in our now “old” Vitamin C Serum, where we use essential oils "just because." We all love the smell of citrus, and it is the essential oils of citrus that give the fruit (and peel) that amazing, revitalizing smell. However, some components that are sometimes present in citrus essential oils may be phototoxic. Why do I say "sometimes?" Because the composition of essential oils depends on many factors: the variety, the conditions of growth and, very importantly, how the essential oil was obtained and processed (pressed vs. distilled, deterpenation, etc.). Pressed bergamot and bitter orange contain bergapten and other furanocoumarins, and there are F.D.A. regulations for them at concentrations higher than 0.4%.

At SAS we prefer to be on the safe side and have only used sweet orange and lemon oil, but are discontinuing even these. You are welcome to customize your SAS products with a few drops of essential oils or fragrances if it will make you happier when you apply them. However, be careful, as bergamot and other essential oils known to be phototoxic are commonly used in perfumes and personal care products. They are OK to use, but don't go in the sun after applying them to your skin. Bergamot essential oil is used in the exquisite tea Earl Grey, and there is no reason to stop drinking it! 

Let's take this opportunity to discuss further the subject of essential oils. Essential oils are mixes of volatile components produced by plants and obtained by a number of processes, like distillation, that take advantage of the volatility of the chemicals. A few essential oils are obtained by pressing organs of the plant, like leaves in the case of eucalyptus oil or peels for oranges.

What is so special about essential oils? Many of them smell very nice and can even influence our mood. From the point of view of Skin Actives, we look for benefits to the skin. Indeed, for some essential oils, it has been proven that they have other benefits for human health. The most common activities are the antibacterial, antiviral, and/or antifungal properties. This makes sense because the chemical components of these essential oils are produced by the plant via complicated biochemical pathways (secondary metabolism) at great energetic cost. These biochemical pathways evolved to defend the plant from infection. 

Are these essential oils essential for humans? Not at all, and in this case “essential” means that they contain the aroma, the perfume of the plant, not that we need them in order to be healthy, like essential amino acids and essential fatty acids. For these essentials that we need, we do not have the ability to synthesize them so we must obtain them from food.

The chemical composition of essential oils is quite varied, and this is the clue chemists use to check for authenticity. Many essential oils are so expensive to obtain that crooks will go to great lengths to imitate them using cheaper essential oils or synthetic components. There are two reasons to avoid imitations: 1) it feels bad to be cheated and 2) the activity of the essential oils is completely dependent on its chemical composition, so a fake will not only lack the benefits but it may also be harmful to your health.

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