Everyone wants to have beautiful, natural-looking skin, and there are many products out there to help achieve that. The question though is which skin care product is the best and offers the most value for your hard-earned money?
If you’re looking for healthy skin, take the time to inform yourself with what you should look for and what to avoid in finding a quality skin care product.
Skin Care Ingredients to Avoid
There are actually many skin care products containing ingredients that are harmful to your skin when used over a period of time. Learn what these are so you can avoid damaging your skin.
Mineral Oil
Also known as liquid paraffin, paraffin wax and petrolatum, mineral oil is a very common ingredient in many skin products because it’s cheap. While it seems like something with the word “mineral” in it would be more beneficial than harmful, this oil actually clogs pores and irritates skin.
Skin can actually become dependent on mineral oil for its moisture, leading to chapping and dryness. Ultimately it can cause premature aging of skin. Surely no one wants that!
Dioxane
Dioxane is a synthetic derivative of coconut and is another common ingredient in skin care products. This ingredient often has heavy concentrations of 1,4-dioxane, which is easily absorbed by skin. However, 1,4-dioxane is “known to the State of California to cause cancer”.
Fragrances
Everyone prefers to smell nice, but would they do so by risking their health? You should avoid using skin care products that contain fragrances, as they are often made from toxic or carcinogenic ingredients.
If you were to use a product that contained these harmful ingredients, you would most likely be applying it all over your face, neck and body. These ingredients would then be easily absorbed into your pores and since they would be over a large surface area, a higher level of absorption occurs.
With cologne or perfume, you would only need a small dab in one or two places to achieve having a pleasant scent…much better than having to use a scented skin care product all over your body for the same effect.
Parabens
Skin care products and moisturizers will most likely use parabens as a preservative for a longer shelf life. Research has suggested that parabens, such as methyl, propyl, butyl and ethyl parabens, may interfere with the endocrine system. It can even cause allergic reactions, skin rashes, and even worse, cancer.
Alcohols
You may have seen some skin care products saying “alcohol-free” on their labels or packaging. Alcohols—such as ethanol, ethyl alcohol, methanol, benzyl alcohol, isopropyl alcohol and SD alcohol—dry out and irritate skin. They cause the skin’s natural acid mantle to disintegrate, causing you to be more susceptible to bacteria, molds, and viruses.
Beneficial Skin Care Ingredients
Now that we’ve gone through the ingredients to avoid, it’s time to see what ingredients are actually very helpful to your skin. To understand why an ingredient is beneficial, you should understand that the collagen and elastin are the two proteins keeping your skin firm and flexible. Once these proteins break down because of age, wrinkles form and skin begins to sag.
When looking for a quality skin care product, you should look for one that has ingredients to stimulate the production of new collagen and elastin to keep or improve the firmness of your skin. Furthermore, you should look for a high concentration of these ingredients; some products may list these ingredients as their “active ingredients” to look good to consumers but in reality the products only have small amounts of them. In this case, it pays to compare the concentrations of active ingredients in products before purchasing them.
Phytessence Wakame
This ingredient is an exotic kelp from the Japanese Sea. It’s effective in blocking hyaluronidase, a harmful enzyme that breaks down the hyaluronic acid in your skin. Without hyaluronic acid, elastin and collagen lose their ability to bind together, leading to dark eye circles and skin aging.
Xtend-TK
Xtend-TK is a new substance that contains natural keratin, and rejuvenates skin by stimulating the regrowth of collagen and elastin. Clinical trials showed a sustained 14% improvement in the retention of skin moisture over a period of 18 days. Over that same period of time, studies showed a sustained improvement in skin elasticity of 42%.
CoQ10
CoQ10, or Coenzyme Q10, is much like a vitamin and is necessary for healthy skin. It is a powerful antioxidant that fights free radicals, preventing damage and aging to the skin. Although CoQ10 is present in all of our cells, it gets depleted as we age.
There are different forms of CoQ10; the best is Nano-Lipobelle H-EQ10. It is a specialized nano-emulsion form of CoQ10 that penetrates deeply into the skin, much more so than other forms that aren’t easily absorbed when topically applied to skin.
Because of how deep the Nano-Lipobelle penetrates, the more effective it is at destroying free radicals, creating a powerful anti-wrinkle effect. Another plus is that it promotes the production of collagen and elastin.
If a skin care product were to have Phytessence Wakame, Xtend-TK, and Nano-Lipobelle H-EQ10, it would be highly effective in improving your skin’s look!
I have been using skin care products from the Xtend-Life Natural Products company. Their products have all 3 of these ingredients, and since Xtend-Life doesn’t spend all their money on marketing and celebrity endorsements, they’re able to use that money to make high quality products.