TEN HOLIDAY SKIN CARE TIPS

Ten Holiday Skin Care Tips

 

Just when you need to show your best during reunions with friends, ex-officemates and relatives, suddenly you get a zit or two, thanks to the holiday stress. Here are some of the best tips to give your complexion a much-needed boost this holiday season.

1.  Sleep well. Getting at least 8 hours a day of sleep lowers stress levels. The skin naturally repairs itself at night so you wake up to fresher, glowing skin in the morning. If you must join that pajama party, roll on DERMAX Hyalift eye repair duo when you wake up with puffy eyes.

2.  Apply sunscreen everyday. Before heading outdoors for a day of gift-hunting, apply sunscreen on your face, neck and other exposed areas. Choose a broad spectrum sunscreen that provides protection against skin-damaging UVA/UVB rays such as DERMAX UV Milk Anti-Aging Sunscreen with SPF 50 PA+++.

3.  Drink plenty of water. The holiday rush can leave your skin dry and tired-looking. Make sure you drink plenty of water to replenish lost moisture in your skin. Take extra sips of water within the day for clearer skin and prevention of fine lines and wrinkles.

4.   Exercise. Beat holiday stress by getting enough exercise to maintain a sound mind and body. Regular exercise also increases blood flow that nourishes skin cells to give your skin that healthy and vibrant boost.

DERMAX Professional skin care products are
available exclusively in all SkinStation branches.

5.   Have a facial. Pamper yourself during the stressful holidays by having a facial. It helps you relax and lets you get your much-needed “me-time”. Check SkinStation’s range of relaxing signature facials that moisturize, smoothen and brighten skin all throughout the holiday season.

6.   Exfoliate. Regular cleansing might not be enough to rid your skin of dead skin cells that cause blackheads and blemishes. Prep up your skin for the holidays by having a Diamond Peel to gently slough off dry skin. No time for one? Use an exfoliant soap like DERMAX AcneX Soap with time-released salicylic acid through advanced double encapsulation technology.

7.  Try a lip plumper. Be kissable under the mistletoe. DERMAX Pink n’ Pout lip plumper helps you achieve smoother, fuller and more youthful lips. It promises long-term benefits through a combination of two multi-awarded and patent-pending innovations that “fatten” lips in just one month. Pucker up this Christmas and on New Year’s Eve too!

8. Have instant wrinkle therapy. Botox. Dermal fillers. These breakthrough clinic procedures can soften fine lines and wrinkles in no time at all. Allow a few days before the reunion events. You can also appear much younger in just two minutes with DERMAX Retinol C instant effect.

9.  Smile. Your best accessory is your smile. So while going through the holiday rush, don’t forget to smile as often as you can. It instantly brightens your appearance and makes everyone you smile at feel good inside.

10. Warts away. Once the hustle and bustle subsides, plan on having warts removal on your face and body. The last few days of the holiday season is the best time to have those contagious warts cauterized.

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This column was published in the Manila Bulletin Lifestyle Section on December 24, 2013. The author is the CEO of SkinStation. He received the 2011 Outstanding Chemist Award from Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) for his achievements in the field of cosmetic chemistry. 
Skin Smart aims to clarify facts and myths on skin care. Send your questions and comments to info@skinstation.ph. 

TOP ANTI-AGING BREAKTHROUGHS (Part 2)

Top Anti-aging Breakthroughs (Part 2)

We continue to present the second of a three part series on the top anti-aging scientific breakthroughs to help in your quest for your best skin ever. In the first part, we mentioned Nano-encapsulation Technology and Fractional Lasers. Here are the next two breakthroughs.

Dermal Fillers

Perhaps nothing is more gratifying for patients than having an immediate correction of wrinkles after a filler injection. Dermal filler injection is one of the most popular procedures at SkinStation. We can use dermal fillers to volumize any part of the face, to sculpt a more natural youthful look without surgery. Nonsurgical rhinoplasty, lip augmentation, volumizing of cheeks, and filling up lines in nasolabial folds are among the most popular procedures. These fillers have effects lasting for one year, with new variants claiming to last up to 2 years. But the benefits go beyond these timelines. These fillers can lead to robust increase in collagen production for longer lasting anti-aging results. 

Since 1981, bovine collagen was used as dermal filler, with effects lasting for only 3 months. The breakthrough came in 2003 with the approval by the FDA of hyaluronic acid, marketed under the Restylane brand. Perlane and Juvederm followed shortly, using similar variants of synthetic hyaluronic acid. The wrinkle injection market soared to new heights with these approvals by the FDA. Recently, the FDA approved Artefill and Radiesse, each using a different substance to fill wrinkles. 

Anti-aging Sunscreens 

A new 4-year study in Australia showed that daily use of sunscreen resulted in 24% reduction in signs of aging. We can now look at sunscreen not just as a protection against aging. It can also reverse signs of aging.

DERMAX UV MILK
Anti-Aging Sunscreen

However, not just any sunscreen will do.  Your sunscreen must work against the damaging and aging effects of UVA rays. New breakthrough ingredients are now available to protect against UVA rays. Look for the broad-spectrum label. Check the PA rating, the measure of protection against UVA rays. The maximum rating is PA+++.

DERMAX UV MILK anti-aging sunscreen has the maximum PA+++ rating, plus a milky, non-greasy feel that’s best for daily use. 

What about SPF? This refers only to protection against burning UVB rays. Most sunscreens will effectively protect against UVB rays, even at a “low” SPF30. Save for a few field related work, there is no real risk of getting sunburn in our day-to-day activities. The marketing hypes on high SPF sunscreens are simply just that…hypes.

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This column was published in the Manila Bulletin Lifestyle Section on November 26, 2013. The author is the CEO of SkinStation. He received the 2011 Outstanding Chemist Award from Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) for his achievements in the field of cosmetic chemistry. Skin Smart aims to clarify facts and myths on skin care. Send your questions and comments to info@skinstation.ph. 

TOP ANTI-AGING BREAKTHROUGHS (Part 1)

Top Anti-aging Breakthroughs (Part 1)

Anti-aging beauty products and clinic procedures have been coming out every year, each one claiming to be the new elixir of youth.  While some present scientifically solid and significant advances, many are simply hyped up rehash of old products and procedures with a new name. To guide you in what can really make a difference in your skin, we present to you a three part series on the top anti-aging scientific breakthroughs that can create your best skin ever. 

Nano-encapsulation Technology

Nano refers to size, the size of a virus. Nano is a billionth of a meter; a thousand times smaller than micro. The development of encapsulated nano sized active ingredients marks a major advance in skin care formulations. DERMAX Professional is the first Philippine brand which launched nano-encapsulated skin care products with enhanced effectiveness and stability.  Targeted skin absorption has vastly improved with the smaller particle size of the nano active ingredients.

Ordinarily, skin care actives would only lay on the surface of the skin accomplishing nothing beyond improving feel. For anti-aging products, the active ingredients must work inside the skin to have any effect at all. Nano-encapsulation technology has made it possible for actives to 

• go beyond the barriers much more easily,
• protect ingredients  from losing efficacy, and
• impart time-released benefit.

Anti-aging DERMAX products containing nano-encapsulated ingredients are NanoWhite, Hyal C, HYALIFT, Retinol C and UV MILK.

Fractional Laser Resurfacing

Many dermatologists consider fractional laser resurfacing as one of the most important breakthrough wrinkle treatments in recent years.  Prior to this, the gold standard in wrinkle removal was the traditional CO2 lasers, which completely ablate skin, resulting in horrendous downtime and complications. With fractional laser resurfacing, you still get the best way to remove wrinkles with less downtime and less complications. 

Fractional laser resurfacing uses beamlets of laser light to bore pin point holes in the skin. This prevents damage to the top layer of the skin, reducing downtime to just 4 to 7 days. The body’s natural collagen production is encouraged to work fast-forward, with effects that will last for years. 

What’s new: Aside from the CO2, new fractional lasers are now available that are more skin friendly, meaning there is less possibility of hyperpigmentation with Asian skin types. These are the Erbium:YAG laser, Erbium:Glass laser, and fractional RF (uses radiofrequency energy rather than laser). All these fractional lasers are available in SkinStation.

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This column was published in the Manila Bulletin Lifestyle Section on November 5, 2013. The author is the CEO of SkinStation. He received the 2011 Outstanding Chemist Award from Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) for his achievements in the field of cosmetic chemistry. Skin Smart aims to clarify facts and myths on skin care. Send your questions and comments to info@skinstation.ph.  

DO YOU REALLY NEED A 100+ SPF?

Do You Really Need a 100+ SPF?

Competition for higher SPF claims among sunscreen products is as intense as the summer heat. The advertising messages tend to mislead many into thinking that a 100+ SPF is twice as good as the one with a 50 SPF. But that is farthest from the truth.

Let’s look at the facts. A sunscreen with SPF 15 blocks about 93% of UVB rays; SPF 30 blocks 97% of UVB rays; and SPF 50 blocks about 98% of UVB rays. Beyond SPF 50, any additional sun protection would be insignificant. No sunscreen will block 100 percent of UVB rays.

If you have fair skin, you normally would develop sunburn in 10 minutes, in full sun without sun protection. A 30 SPF sunscreen would provide protection 30 times longer. That means 300 minutes before you start to burn. That’s 5 hours. A 50 SPF would protect you for 500 minutes. That is more than 8 hours!

The USFDA has already proposed prohibiting sunscreen claims beyond SPF 50, which tend to be “misleading to the consumer,” given that there is an “absence of data demonstrating additional clinical benefit” (FDA 2011a), and that “there is no assurance that the specific values themselves are in fact truthful…” (FDA 2007).

Do not get the idea that with a high SPF rating, one application of sunscreen would be enough to protect you all day. You of course need to reapply after swimming, drying off or sweating. You also need to reapply every two hours. Sunscreen ingredients are like sponges that absorb radiation and lose their protective power as they reach saturation point.

Beyond SPF (Sun Protection Factor) 50,
the marketing difference is plain HYPE.

Note that SPF measures only protection against UVB rays, which cause sunburns, but not UVA rays, which can be more damaging to body tissues and cause wrinkles and premature aging. UVA rays penetrate deeper into the skin than UVB rays. Protection against UVA rays could be a more important consideration when choosing your sunscreen, especially for daily use.

How is protection against UVA rays measured? Most brands have adopted the PA system (Protection Grade of UVA) to measure protection against UVA rays. The PA system is based on the persistent pigment darkening (PPD) method, which uses UVA radiation to cause persistent darkening of the skin. A PPD rating of 10 should allow a person 10 times as much UVA exposure as would be without protection. PA+ corresponds to a PPD rating between 2 and 4, PA++ between 4 and 8, and the highest rating at PA+++, more than 8.

Be skin smart in choosing your sunscreen product. And remember that the first line of defense against harmful radiation would be shade, protective clothing and avoiding the midday sun.

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Skin Smart seeks to clarify facts and myths on skin care. This column was published in the Manila Bulletin Lifestyle Section on April 23, 2013. The author  received the 2011 Outstanding Chemist Award from Professional Regulations Commission (PRC) for his achievements in the field of cosmetic chemistry.  The author is the CEO of SkinStation and can be reached at fred.reyes@skinstation.ph.