SKIN BRIGHTENING
Juniper berry extract for improved skin brightness
Kotaro Sakamoto – Ichimaru Pharcos ABSTRACT
Beautiful and bright skin consists of high transparency and less dullness. Lipofuscin (aggregates of denatured proteins and oxidized lipids), which accumulates in cells with age, reduces skin transparency by blocking light transmission and causes skin dullness. We focused on proteasome and autophagy, the intracellular purification systems, and discovered a juniper berry extract that increased their activities and suppressed accumulation of lipofuscin in human epidermal keratinocytes. Additionally, we found anthricin and yatein to be major active compounds responsible for the proteasome- and autophagy-activating effects of the extract. In a human clinical study, an emulsion containing 1% juniper berry extract was applied to half of the face twice daily for four weeks, resulting in increased internal reflected light, brightness improvement, and reduction in yellowness and surface spot in the cheek area.
The global beauty trend is shifting from ‘skin whitening’, which depends on one's natural skin colour, to ‘skin brightening’, which is a borderless concept. Whiteness is defined as skin colour based on the amount of melanin, the black pigment produced by melanocytes. Although acquired factors also play a
role, genetics have a strong influence on the whiteness. On the other hand, ‘bright skin’, which is often interpreted in terms such as ‘clarity’, depends on various acquired factors instead of melanin. One factor is lipofuscin, an aggregate of denatured proteins and lipid peroxides that accumulates within cells as the body ages. Lipofuscin decreases skin clarity by
blocking light transmission, causing dullness. In response, we sought out juniper berry extract from approximately 400 types of medical herbs as an ingredient of natural origin that activates proteasome, an intracellular cleaning system that reduces lipofuscin accumulation, and developed it under the product name JuniperBright.1 This article introduces the juniper berry
extract's effect to activate proteasome, reduce lipofuscin accumulation, activate autophagy (another intracellular cleaning system) found through the identification of active ingredients as well as its beauty effects on human skin.
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Relationship between skin clarity and light One element that contributes to the clarity of skin is the ‘proper reflection of light’. When light hits the skin, some of it is reflected from the surface due to moisture and oil on the surface, but most of it penetrates the epidermal layer, the outer layer of the skin, as incident light and enters the skin. The incident light is absorbed and scattered inside the skin, then passes back through the epidermal layer again and is emitted as internally reflected light. Then, the combined surface and internally reflected light from the skin appears to the observer as the brightness of the skin. During this stage, the more internally
reflected light, the brighter the skin appears to the observer.2
However, skin brightness has
been reported to decrease with age.3 We focused on lipofuscin, an aggregate of
denatured proteins and lipid peroxides that accumulate in cells as the body ages, as a factor that reduces light transmission in cells (Figure 1).
Lipofuscin, a substance that interferes with the transmission of light Lipofuscin, composed of ‘lipo’, meaning lipid and ‘fuscus’, meaning dark, is also known as the cause of yellow-brown spots that appear
on aged skin.4 light at a wide range of wavelengths,5
Lipofuscin does not only absorb but
also reduce light transmission because of its aggregation (Figure 1). Reduction of lipofuscin accumulation in
the cells of the epidermal layer is expected to increase the internal reflected light from the skin as well as decrease age spots, leading to a younger, and more beautiful skin.
Systems reducing lipofuscin accumulation: Proteasome and autophagy To reduce lipofuscin accumulation, (1) the prevention of lipofuscin formation as well as (2) the removal of formed lipofuscin can be considered. First, proteasomes take on the role of (1). Proteasomes are complex proteases that
selectively degrade proteins which have reached the end of their intracellular life cycle or have become dysfunctional due to oxidation or other structural changes.6
Rapid removal of
denatured proteins generated within the cell prevents the formation of lipofuscin (Figure 1). Then, autophagy takes on the role of (2).
Autophagy is a major intracellular cleaning system, along with proteasome, that degrades cellular organelles such as aggregates and mitochondria, which are difficult for proteasome to break down, by internalizing them into the
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