Hello everyone. After nearly a year of preparation, I’m excited to finally be able to announce the launch of my first skincare product! It’s an oil serum that I’ve designed to be used as an anti-aging and moisturising skin treatment. It contains ingredients such as vitamin A, cholesterol and frankincense (which I talk about in more detail below) and can be used on its own, on top of or mixed into a moisturiser, which is how I like to use it. Because of the vitamin A component I am recommending that it only be used at night.
If you’re interested in the product, you can view the full ingredients list and purchase on www.visvivaskincare.com - please PM me first as I’m offering a 20% off discount code for forum members. I thought I should explain a little about the ingredients, so I've included my notes below - with links to the studies I’ve used in my research.
Vitamin A
I think the skin benefits of vitamin A are very well known to those on the forum, so I’ll just write something brief here. I think one of the most important things according to Peat about vitamin A and skin is its role in regulating differentiation and the normal production of keratin, an excess of which is implicated in acne, eczema, KP and many other skin conditions.
Peat has also recommended topical vitamin A (with vitamin E) for treatment of sun damaged skin.
About 44% of absorbed retinyl palmitate that is applied topically is hydrolysed to retinol in the skin, according to this study: Characterization of esterase and alcohol dehydrogenase activity in skin. Metabolism of retinyl palmitate to retinol (vitamin A) during percutaneous... - PubMed - NCBI. There are numerous studies which have found a beneficial effect of retinol on various features of skin aging - wrinkles, roughness, pigmentation etc. Here is one example: A stabilized 0.1% retinol facial moisturizer improves the appearance of photodamaged skin in an... - Abstract - Europe PMC.
Squalane
This is squalane rather than squalene, so it doesn’t have all the biological effects of squalene, however it is a 100% saturated emollient that has a pleasant light skin feel. It is found naturally in the skin in small amounts.
Cholesterol
I’d recommend this chapter on cholesterol and its role in skin health - Lipids and Skin Health; I’ll summarise some key points below:
Cholesterol makes up around 25% of the skin’s lipid layer that forms the skin barrier. Levels of cholesterol in the skin (and other lipids) decline with aging (Optimal ratios of topical stratum corneum lipids improve barrier recovery in chronologically aged skin. - PubMed - NCBI) and applying cholesterol topically improves barrier function - (The aged epidermal permeability barrier. Structural, functional, and lipid biochemical abnormalities in humans and a senescent murine model. - PubMed - NCBI).
Cholesterol also has a role in protecting the skin from UV radiation according to this study (Lipid ingredients in moisturizers can modulate skin responses to UV in barrier-disrupted human skin in vivo. - PubMed - NCBI). It compared the effects of topical cholesterol, linoleic acid and a synthetic ceramide on skin that is subsequently exposed to UV radiation and found that damage was lessened by cholesterol application but increased by the linoleic acid and the synthetic ceramide. Also mentioned in that article is another study which looked at statin use and skin cancer risk and found incidence of melanoma and non-melanoma cancer to be 1.5x and 1.6x higher in the statin group than in the control. See: Statins and cancer: A systematic review and meta-analysis. - PubMed - NCBI
Finally, several studies have found that cholesterol has an inhibitory effect on MMPs expression - (which are enzymes that dissolve collagen and damage the skin). See the above study, and (Cholesterol, a Major Component of Caveolae, Down-regulates Matrix Metalloproteinase-1 Expression through ERK/JNK Pathway in Cultured Human Dermal F... - PubMed - NCBI) and (Induction of tissue inhibitor of matrix metalloproteinase-2 by cholesterol depletion leads to the conversion of proMMP-2 into active MMP-2 in human... - PubMed - NCBI)
Frankincense resin (boswellic acid)
This is a standardised extract of boswellic acid. Boswellic acid has been mentioned a few times on the forum as it’s a LOX 5 inhibitor and has anti-inflammatory properties (Anti-inflammatory activities of the triterpene acids from the resin of Boswellia carteri. - PubMed - NCBI). There are numerous studies showing boswellic acid to be helpful in many inflammatory disorders. These compounds also have known antioxidant properties.
The reason I was interested to include it in a skin product is this study (Topical Boswellic acids for treatment of photoaged skin. - PubMed - NCBI), which found it to have beneficial effects on some of the features of skin aging such as roughness and fine wrinkling, which the authors attributed to the anti-inflammatory properties of BAs in addition to their “stimulatory activity on the metabolism of collagen and elastic fibers".
Alkanet root extract - this is an extract that I make myself, by macerating the roots in MCT oil to extract the red pigment (it is therefore not a standardised extract). The red colour is due to a compound called alkannin - a naphthoquinone, like Vitamin K and lapachol. Some info on alkannin here: http://www.cyberlipid.org/vitk/vitk0001.htm
It has been used for many centuries in traditional herbal medicine, particularly in Japan and China. There’s even a reference to alkanet (for treating ulcers) in Hippocrates writings from the 4th century BC, http://classics.mit.edu/Hippocrates/ulcers.10.10.html.
In terms of its known effects on the skin, wound healing seems to be the most well studied (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19075667).
But it has also been found to have antioxidant effects and protective effects against UV radiation and some researchers have theorised that it might be a useful anti aging compound (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25810219) and (http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0047903)
As a final note, a small amount of macadamia oil is included purely as a solvent for the frankincense resin, which does not dissolve in MCT oil or squalane. Macadamia oil is low pufa and the oleic acid component can allegedly act as a penetration enhancer.
If you have any questions about the product, please comment below!
If you’re interested in the product, you can view the full ingredients list and purchase on www.visvivaskincare.com - please PM me first as I’m offering a 20% off discount code for forum members. I thought I should explain a little about the ingredients, so I've included my notes below - with links to the studies I’ve used in my research.
Vitamin A
I think the skin benefits of vitamin A are very well known to those on the forum, so I’ll just write something brief here. I think one of the most important things according to Peat about vitamin A and skin is its role in regulating differentiation and the normal production of keratin, an excess of which is implicated in acne, eczema, KP and many other skin conditions.
Peat has also recommended topical vitamin A (with vitamin E) for treatment of sun damaged skin.
About 44% of absorbed retinyl palmitate that is applied topically is hydrolysed to retinol in the skin, according to this study: Characterization of esterase and alcohol dehydrogenase activity in skin. Metabolism of retinyl palmitate to retinol (vitamin A) during percutaneous... - PubMed - NCBI. There are numerous studies which have found a beneficial effect of retinol on various features of skin aging - wrinkles, roughness, pigmentation etc. Here is one example: A stabilized 0.1% retinol facial moisturizer improves the appearance of photodamaged skin in an... - Abstract - Europe PMC.
Squalane
This is squalane rather than squalene, so it doesn’t have all the biological effects of squalene, however it is a 100% saturated emollient that has a pleasant light skin feel. It is found naturally in the skin in small amounts.
Cholesterol
I’d recommend this chapter on cholesterol and its role in skin health - Lipids and Skin Health; I’ll summarise some key points below:
Cholesterol makes up around 25% of the skin’s lipid layer that forms the skin barrier. Levels of cholesterol in the skin (and other lipids) decline with aging (Optimal ratios of topical stratum corneum lipids improve barrier recovery in chronologically aged skin. - PubMed - NCBI) and applying cholesterol topically improves barrier function - (The aged epidermal permeability barrier. Structural, functional, and lipid biochemical abnormalities in humans and a senescent murine model. - PubMed - NCBI).
Cholesterol also has a role in protecting the skin from UV radiation according to this study (Lipid ingredients in moisturizers can modulate skin responses to UV in barrier-disrupted human skin in vivo. - PubMed - NCBI). It compared the effects of topical cholesterol, linoleic acid and a synthetic ceramide on skin that is subsequently exposed to UV radiation and found that damage was lessened by cholesterol application but increased by the linoleic acid and the synthetic ceramide. Also mentioned in that article is another study which looked at statin use and skin cancer risk and found incidence of melanoma and non-melanoma cancer to be 1.5x and 1.6x higher in the statin group than in the control. See: Statins and cancer: A systematic review and meta-analysis. - PubMed - NCBI
Finally, several studies have found that cholesterol has an inhibitory effect on MMPs expression - (which are enzymes that dissolve collagen and damage the skin). See the above study, and (Cholesterol, a Major Component of Caveolae, Down-regulates Matrix Metalloproteinase-1 Expression through ERK/JNK Pathway in Cultured Human Dermal F... - PubMed - NCBI) and (Induction of tissue inhibitor of matrix metalloproteinase-2 by cholesterol depletion leads to the conversion of proMMP-2 into active MMP-2 in human... - PubMed - NCBI)
Frankincense resin (boswellic acid)
This is a standardised extract of boswellic acid. Boswellic acid has been mentioned a few times on the forum as it’s a LOX 5 inhibitor and has anti-inflammatory properties (Anti-inflammatory activities of the triterpene acids from the resin of Boswellia carteri. - PubMed - NCBI). There are numerous studies showing boswellic acid to be helpful in many inflammatory disorders. These compounds also have known antioxidant properties.
The reason I was interested to include it in a skin product is this study (Topical Boswellic acids for treatment of photoaged skin. - PubMed - NCBI), which found it to have beneficial effects on some of the features of skin aging such as roughness and fine wrinkling, which the authors attributed to the anti-inflammatory properties of BAs in addition to their “stimulatory activity on the metabolism of collagen and elastic fibers".
Alkanet root extract - this is an extract that I make myself, by macerating the roots in MCT oil to extract the red pigment (it is therefore not a standardised extract). The red colour is due to a compound called alkannin - a naphthoquinone, like Vitamin K and lapachol. Some info on alkannin here: http://www.cyberlipid.org/vitk/vitk0001.htm
It has been used for many centuries in traditional herbal medicine, particularly in Japan and China. There’s even a reference to alkanet (for treating ulcers) in Hippocrates writings from the 4th century BC, http://classics.mit.edu/Hippocrates/ulcers.10.10.html.
In terms of its known effects on the skin, wound healing seems to be the most well studied (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19075667).
But it has also been found to have antioxidant effects and protective effects against UV radiation and some researchers have theorised that it might be a useful anti aging compound (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25810219) and (http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0047903)
As a final note, a small amount of macadamia oil is included purely as a solvent for the frankincense resin, which does not dissolve in MCT oil or squalane. Macadamia oil is low pufa and the oleic acid component can allegedly act as a penetration enhancer.
If you have any questions about the product, please comment below!