advanced skin care
vitamin insights
Plastic surgeon Dr Des Fernandes recently presented a series of inspiring seminars to beauty therapists at the Royal Society ofMedicine.Here we highlight some of his insights into advanced skin care topics.
“Vitamin A is not a fashionable ingredient, it’s not temporarily the best that we have,” says Dr Fernandes.
“It is fundamentally the most important molecule in sun damage and ageing. It was built into our metabolic system millions of years ago and will remain the most dominant molecule controlling growth, differentiation and maturation of cells for as long as we live.
“Themetabolismand adequate supply of vitaminA is vital to the DNA and you will never be able to replace vitaminA in treating photo-ageing.When we combine skin needling with the use of vitaminA we have found the longer someone is on vitaminA the better and themore extensively you needle the better the result.
penetration-boosting technology
“In 1996, researchers reported something special: 4,000%enhancement of penetration fromlow frequency
sonophoresis.This was superior to ultrasound, which was only achieving 200%increase, you can get that with just topical vitaminA and cling film. VitaminA is a great stimulant of hyaluronic acid, so you get great ‘line filling’ effects with this type of soundwave, without needingmesotherapy vitamin injections.
children and vitamin A
“Sun damage is the same nomatter how old you
are.The loss ofmolecules like vitamin A and the free radicals generated will be exactly the
same.Therefore, a four year old or a forty year old’s skin both need the same attention and replenishment.
“Sun damage destroys the ‘gates’ that allow vitaminA into the skin.When we are older, it takes high levels of vitaminA to stimulate us tomake new receptors to tolerate it.
Children, who have not had chronic exposure to light like adults have, can easily use a vitaminA-based cosmetic and tolerate quite high levels without worrying about a retinoid
reaction.They have themechanisms tometabolise it easily.
supporting players
“Somemolecules have seemed to come close to
vitaminA.Vitamin C has been proposed but it has a relatively confined role to play and stimulates only a handful of genes whereas vitaminA stimulates about 1,000 genes. Peptides come close because they can tighten skin andmake it smoother looking. However, they don’t havemost of themetabolic functions of rejuvenation that vitaminA has; that’s the closest that we have found so far. Of course the synergy between vitaminA, C and peptides is enormous.
sun protection v vitamin D
“Only a small percentage of people die from skin cancer; protection fromcancers related to vitamin D deficiency is farmore
important.The University of Geneva found that if you use retinyl palmitate at sufficient concentration, you’ve got an SPF of
20.The advantage is vitaminA doesn’t block the formation of vitamin D in the way conventional sunscreens do.
SPF confusion
“SPF actually only refers to the power of treating UVB rays, not to the power as a total
sunscreen.There is no UVB in daylight in the UK for about sixmonths of the year starting inAutumn through to
Spring.The SPF component of the sunscreen is totally
Dr Des Fernandes is founder of Environ Skin Care. For more information, telephone 0208 450 2020 quoting Guild News or visit
www.iiaa.eu
inactive and the question is whether one needs any SPF at that time.We get irradiated by UVA all year fromfairly early in themorning right through until just before evening. Generally UVA protection is poor even fromdedicated UVA sunscreens. Therefore we need to address the problems created by UVA all year round.
dealing with free radicals
“Generally, UVA expresses its damage by creating free
radicals.That's why your skin needs to be rich in free radical scavengers all the time. University of Illinois researcher, Kerry Hanson, points out that whatever rays are not absorbing by UV filters in sunscreens become free radicals and we need vitamin C and E tominimise their effects.
Dr Fernandes concludes: “We need all types of antioxidants in our skin to deal with the free radicals created by UVA
rays.There will be lipid-based free radicals as well as water-soluble free radicals. Free radicals will occur in different areas and free radical scavengers often work best only in certain
conditions.That is why we need asmany free radical scavengers as
possible.There are some 7,000 chemicals involved in ourmake- up and there aremore than 2,000 antioxidantmolecules!”
GUILD NEWS 113
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157