Skin Actives Discussions

Solubility Chart

DCNGA — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 21:40:49 GMT

Okay, I've discovered that "solubility" is not so black and white. Oil and water are not perfect for every active and its solubility. The best method is to buy Canvas and be sure your active will dissolve.

I emailed the attached chart to Jonatan and Hannah before posting, so this is with Hannah's permission.

When you see an asterisk in this chart, note that the solubility (in water, esp.) is DIFFICULT. I searched the most authoritative sources I could find and this may not be 100%, but it's the best I could come up with.

I have it in a spreadsheet, too, but am posting it in a Word document as more people likely have Word than Excel.

I think there is a "universal" solvent, maybe one of the "cones", but I can't remember off hand.

HTH

D

Forum: Newbie Guides

New Website Heading

DCNGA — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 21:01:54 GMT

It may have been up for a while, but I just noticed! It looks great!

D

Forum: Community Stuff

One More Reason to Like Reservatrol

DCNGA — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 20:53:57 GMT

LINK

Forum: Resveratrol

Next DIY Cream

beeks — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 16:26:32 GMT

I'm going to be making a cream with CoQ10, Lemon Peel Bioferment, Gamma Oryzanol, Retinyl Acetate, SOD, Coconut Endosperm and Liquid Crystal in a Canvas base.

I will let you all in on the results!

Forum: Lifting and Firming

New item, please..........

just_soo_silly — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 13:12:51 GMT

Dear Hannah and Jonatan,
I was wondering if you could make a coffe fruit creme and/or Anti Aging Creme in a European Base Cream ??? I think that would be awesome for all the dry skin sufferers !!!
Thank you!!!
Corinna

Forum: Questions & Answers

not really "new" but a different "la mer" kit?

maiea — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 09:45:24 GMT

I was just wondering if there were any plans to offer a "creme de la mer" kit with the European cream instead of the Canvas normally included?

Forum: Suggest new actives here

Skin Brightening Cream

Vesper — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 01:33:53 GMT

I noticed that there were specks of glittery type substance in the Skin Brightening Cream. What is this?

Forum: Questions & Answers

December, 2008 - Newsletter #41 - Lip Balm, Parabens

jonatan — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 22:33:40 GMT

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Your Skin Actives e-newsletter

Newsletter December 2008
Skin health and science.
Issue #41
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With the year coming to an end we would once again like to take an opportunity to thank all our 'skinactivist' friends who have made the year so much fun. We wish everyone a healthy, happy, and peaceful month and a great New Year.

Hannah has introduced another new product to our line, our mint Lip Balm. I was doubtful about our ability to prepare a balm that would be worth adding to our line so I stated that we would only sell it if our testers stated that it was the best that they had tried. The testers came back with their opinion and the balm is now in our lineup.

Briefs:

I have added a new kit to our line. The 'Santa Claus in a box' kit is designed to make gift giving a little easier this Christmas, give your friends a 'Creme de la Mer' cream for under $3!. See below for details.
Our website is proving very stable. We had a few issues with older web browsers and some visa cards. If you have any problems on checkout please try again a few minutes later. If it still does not work please send me a note at jonatan@skinactives.com we can carry out the transaction via PayPal, email, fax, or even by phone.
Our EMUlator oil has been well received, reviews coming in suggest that it makes a great addition to creams but that it can also be used on its own to quickly soothe dry skin.
We have purchased a video camera and will soon be filming some instructional films. I will make a brief announcement via email when we launch the little movies.

Links:
Lip Balm
Santa Claus in a box kit
EMUlator Oil
Mitochondrial Booster Cream
'Quick Buy page'
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Models are SkinActivists too!

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I live in Europe and I work as a model. Ever since I was little my skin has been both dry and sensitive. Treating my skin has been my top priority ever since I was 16, and now I am 21.Since being a model requires having flawless and healthy skin I have tried almost all products out there from honey/essential oil home masks, to professional treatments, to more expensive treatments with gold (AU) to products with caviar like La Praire and the La Mer products...I have tried it all.

About a year ago I found Skin Actives on Ebay. After the first application I was surprised and impressed. The products have not only improved my overall skin, but my capillary veins are MUCH less visible, and the overall redness gone. Effect upon my skin until now: My skin has NO imperfections, NO dryness, and I never break out. My skin is GLOWING, it is flawless. It is PERFECT. My skin looks amazing on photo, and other models just beg me to tell what I use for my skin. So I say I am this little chemist at home making my super booster with all the actives.
I know it is difficult to find products that work, because we all have different needs. I have several bottles of very expensive beauty products just collecting dust now. They might be okay but they are nothing NOTHING compared to the effect you receive from these actives.

I am not a stupid girl, I refuse to pay extra for some fancy brand or decorative jars just because "you are worth it". It is important to me to be able to read scientific reviews and facts about the different products without having to scroll through a lot of text telling me how I will look and why I must buy and how I will feel like.and how my live will change blahblah. Here I LEARN about the products in a way no one in any store could teach me. I bet I know more about skincare than any person working in a drugstore or beauty shop. I take off my hat to all of the workers behind skinactives.com. This is by far the best products I have tried, and the best store on the net selling skin products.

Mona

October Most Popular

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Canvas Base Cream
Collagen Serum
Epidermal Growth Factor
KGF for Brows
DMAE Serum Plus
Mitochondrial Booster Cream
CHAS with Glutaredoxin
Coenzyme Q10
Copper Peptide (GHK)
Dermagen (Natural Matrixyl)
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December Bonus - Free with orders of $150 and above:
Our new mint flavored Lip Balm perfect for winter. Use on its own or in combination with our lip serum and liquid rainbow.

Kit: Santa Claus in a box

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This kit contains everything you need to make over half a gallon of great cream (our version of 'Creme de la Mer in a European cream base) to give to your friends and family this Christmas. Easy to mix, in five minutes you can have over 60 one ounce scoops of great cream (the total price of the cream comes out at a little less than $3 per fluid ounce). Click here for details.
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New Product: Mint Lip Balm
3 for $15

http://www.skinactives.com/product/detail.aspx?prodID=170

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The story of a new SAS offering: our Mint Lip Balm:

I wanted to tell you the story of how our lip balm (new this month) happened to appear. One of our many male clients complained that liquid rainbow may be great to protect lips from bad weather, heating and air conditioning but it is too feminine. Obviously, I felt guilty and asked Jonatan whether we could introduce a lip balm and he said (more or less) "no problem but it has to be the greatest lip balm ever".

So, here it is: ours is the greatest lip balm ever, according to our testers. They liked the minty taste (the finest peppermint essential oil) and, most importantly, the texture, feel and protection. The lip balm still contains the two ingredients that make liquid rainbow so special and protective: liquid crystal and antiOx booster, but these are integrated in a lip balm that is solid enough to be sold in a small jar rather than in a lip gloss container. This is more convenient for our male clients. The cream's color comes from the anti-oxidants we add to it.

I hope you will like it as much as our testers, but don't forget that long term care of the lips requires also the actives in the "let's make collagen serum" for lips.

For the significant proportion of people who suffer from herpes labialis, all three products contain actives that are antiviral and improve lip health, making them less vulnerable to virus that may be lying in wait.

Clients write to us asking for help with muscle pain (thanks, Beth, for the pain control concentrate), or something that will make them look great at the class reunion (DMAE serum) or wounds that don't close properly (Restoration cream). Sometimes is an old story (an uncle whose life was made miserable by psoriasis and the anti-inflammatory cream).

We at SAS listen to our clients and do our best to help.

Ingredients:Petrolatum, safflower seed oil, candelilla wax, beeswax, cholesteryl oleyl carbonate (and) cholesteryl nonanoate (and) cholesteryl chloride, honey, pomegranate seed oil (and) astaxanthin (and) lycopene (and) alpha-D-tocopherol (and) tocotrienols (and) lutein (and) thioctic Acid, wax tree (/Rhus succedanea/) fruit wax, shea butter, peppermint essential oil.

We are still in the process of refining the balm so the ingredients are liable to change in the near future.
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Save the Emus! Try our EMUlator oil.
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Parabens the Complete Story

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(note: our Canvas cream contains parabens, our European cream does not. We think both creams are great)

I was not very keen in writing (for the 20th time?) about parabens, but the advertising campaigns by pressure groups are powerful enough to keep clients asking about them. At the risk of propagating the false information (apparently, when you answer a false claim, the original message is reinforced!) I am revisiting the subject yet again.
Parabens are a group of the alkyl esters of p-hydroxybenzoic acid and include methylparaben, ethylparaben, propylparaben, butylparaben, isobutylparaben and isopropylparaben. Some parabens are present in nature, e.g. methylparaben is found in blueberry.
Parabens, or their salts, are widely used as preservatives in cosmetics, toiletries, and pharmaceuticals due to their relatively low toxicity and a long history of safe use.

When it comes to the accusations made on parabens, they vary but mostly they are accused of disrupting our physiology (because they resemble estrogen) and causing cancer.

1) They are estrogenic

The "problem" boils down to receptors and signals. Estrogens are endogenous hormones which we need for our bodies to function nicely.

The theory pushed by pressure groups is that synthetic chemicals like parabens mimic estrogens in structure and function, fooling our body into thinking they are actually estrogens and disrupting our physiology.

To say that everything resembles everything else is a trivial and useless statement. What matters is how close the resemblance is, and in cases involving cellular receptors, this resemblance can be measured using affinity assays.

Estrogens exert their influence through receptors located on the surface of the cells programmed to respond to them. The system works because the receptor and hormone "fit" each other, because of the shape and local electrical charges (or lack of them) of the areas of the proteins that will come into contact. When the receptor and hormone come into contact, a series of biochemical events starts which depend on what the receptor-hormone pair is.

Even if a molecule does not fit the receptor, you can "push" the events by adding huge amounts of the chemical being tested. The lower the resemblance is, the lower the affinity and the higher the concentration that will be required to fool the receptor. Even if the chemical is very different from the hormone that fits it naturally, increasing the concentration enough can change the environment of the cell membrane in such a way that stuff will happen.

Our normal diet contains natural chemicals with estrogenic activity that is orders of magnitude higher than that of synthetic estrogenic chemicals. Also, lifestyle choices can markedly change the concentrations of endogenous hormones. For example, fat tissue produces estrogen, and weight gain increases the risk of breast cancer.

Some natural chemicals with estrogenic activity are anethole, apigenin, coumarin, estradiol (in hops, American ginseng), kaempferol (in onion, garlic, cabbage), naringenin (cashews, grapefruit).

2) They cause cancer
I think the idea is that parabens would cause cancer or promote the growth of tumors that respond to estrogen because of their estrogenic activity.
A huge number of chemicals, natural and synthetic, can cause cancer when "piled" on the test animals in huge quantities. The question is whether those quantities have anything to do with normal life, because otherwise the concept of what is carcinogenic loses any meaning. In the words of Paracelsus (1493-1541, a.k.a. the father of toxicology), the poison is in the dose. Or "All things are poison and nothing is without poison, only the dose permits something not to be poisonous." Even water can be deadly if overconsumed.

The danger of listening to pressure groups
The pressure on the industry is pushing many companies to eliminate parabens, so that they can advertise a product as "parabens free".

You may ask "what's the problem in that, better safe than sorry". But the need to use preservatives to prevent danger of infection by dangerous bacteria and molds remains unchanged. The result of is the very rapid introduction of new preservatives that do not have the safety record exhibited by parabens.

The sunscreen scare led many people to stop using them, and who knows how many skin cancers have resulted from that. What can you expect from a "parabens-free" industry? Unknown side effects caused by preservatives introduced into the market in the rush to get rid of parabens, plus infections caused by products formulated with insufficient preservatives.

Also of interest

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parabens

http://scienceblog.cancerresearchuk.org/2007/09/03/how-to-write-a-good-scare-story/

Bruce Ames and Lois Swirsky Gold. Paracelsus to Parascience: the environmental cancer distraction. Mutation Research/Fundamental and Molecular Mechanisms of Mutagenesis 447: 3-13.
Find it here: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/ppps/pdf/ma_reding_annex2.pdf

Gilbert Ross (2006) A perspective on the safety of cosmetic products: a position paper of the American Council on Science and Health. International Journal of Toxicology, 25: 269-277.

Jeffrey B Harborne (2001) 25 years of chemical ecology. Nat. Prod. Rep. 18: 361-379.
Find it here: http://www.rsc.org/ej/NP/2001/b005311m.PDF

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Forum: Skin Active Newsletters

Emulsifiers

Samantha — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 17:18:19 GMT

Has anyone used an emulsifier that is easier to use than lecithin?

Forum: Questions & Answers

x-tra hydrating mask???

sarahj3 — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 22:30:42 GMT

Winter is brutally dry & I cant stand the thought of what it must be doing to my skin- as I am typing I am sitting here with a hair mask & bag on my head & olive oil all over my face! lol. Is there a heavenly moisturizing mask avail from skinactives I dont yet know about? Please & thank you.
-Sarah

Forum: Questions & Answers

skin brightening serum

Samantha — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 16:03:03 GMT

I've just made a skin brightening serum that has come out to a very nice consistency but I wanted to know if it would be effective. Here are the ingredients I used:

aloe vera juice base
25% sea kelp bioferment
10% lemon peel bioferment
5% MAP
2% alpha arbutin
2% niacinamide
2% glucosamine
2% tetrahydrocurcuminoids
1% hyaluronic acid
1% sodium pca
1% germaben II

Will this be an effective skin brightener? And also, it is okay to use a higher percentage of tetrahydrocurcuminoids?

I would appreciate any feedback. Thanks!

Forum: Questions & Answers

dark under eyes

henrik — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 10:21:09 GMT

1. hannah, do you think milexin HD works?
link: http://www.nodarkcircles.com/trials.htm
2. I have use a cream like prep H under eyes
just 3 days, I have heard bad things about it, but also that is the only thing that works.. have somebody here some experience?
(it works better than anything, but my skin under my eyes get thin, just after 3days.. so i don`t gonna take it anymore)
3. will a "skin lightener" work under my eyes?
4. the best product for thick skin under eyes?

Forum: For the eyes

can I put sea kelp bioferment into an eye serum

kimgranger — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 09:58:27 GMT

I want to create an eye serum of my own. I want to use aloe vera gel liquid along with sea kelp bioferment and some hyaluronic acid, chrysin, depuff, and green tea extract with cafeine. Does this sound like a good combination of ingredients and will they all work well together? as far as ingredients that go into water? And I would like to add some water loving collagen boosting ingredients if you would be so kind as to help me out with these, not sure what to use for those. This will be a non oily formula. Tell me Hannah what your thoughts are. Thank you. :)

Forum: Questions & Answers

bright i cream

kimgranger — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 09:23:27 GMT

Wow! I am actually seeing results after only a couple weeks of use with the bright I cream! I am impressed for sure. I have really bad dark circles and I wish I had taken a before picture. I was going to and put it off and I wasn't expecting this cream to work so darn fast. This is cool. I love it so much. I still have circles however they much improved since I started using this cream. I can only imagine what another 2 weeks will bring. I looked like a vampire or something and I have always hated this problem and now I have the power to change this. Thank you everybody at skin actives!

Forum: The Good and the Bad

Restoration cream after CO2 laser

klaralara — Thur, 27 Nov 2008 23:13:43 GMT

Hi
I been using the Restoration cream since i had CO2 laser resurfacing 7 weeks ago. I found it was great on my skin in fact it has been practically the only thing my skin would tolerate and its definately kept it soft and well textured. The only thing i think could improve it would be for it to be even richer- my skin gobbled it up.
I had 2 jars so i mixed ELS into it for night time use as baby skin tends to dry out a lot in the first few weeks i found. Is it possible maybe to make a night version of this cream that is more full on- or for early stages post laser or other agressive treatment?
I think that even when my skin is back to normal i'll be using this cream as a staple!

Lara

Forum: The Good and the Bad