Please click here Winter/Spring 2012 Newsletter to view our newsletter.

Best Wishes for 2012!

2012 is here and so are yearly resolutions. We all have bad skin habits to break, so why not add some skin care resolutions? Below is a list of our top 5 bad habits to break for the New Year.

1. Stop touching your face

Trying to self treat blemishes or other imperfections on your face can mostly lead to making the problem worse. Stay away from facial extractors available in your local drugstore, and leave it to a professional.

2. Appointments

For healthy skin, be sure to keep monthly appointments with your aesthetician, dermatologist, or doctor. And don’t forget to make an appointment for a yearly mole check up!

3. Stop sleeping with your makeup on

Once you get in the habit of cleansing your skin before bedtime, it will become routine and your skin will thank you!

4. Sunscreen

Levels of SPF can be found in almost any beauty product these days, so there really aren’t any excuses on why you are skipping this life saving step.

5. Set your own skin care goals

Setting skin care goals can only lead to you fully achieving what you would like most for your skin. We all have them, we just need to stick with them and the results will truly be rewarding…a younger looking you!

Best wishes for the New Year and new improved you!

• It does matter what you eat and drink, because your skin is the largest organ in your body. It does show signs of any abuse, so we recommend you treat it like you would your best friend.

• Sleeping with makeup on is not ok, so please take that extra few minutes for yourself and do your recommended routine.

• We recommend looking at your lifestyle and finding what works better for your evening. For example: if you’re one that falls asleep on the couch, then you will need to do your routine after dinner or right when you walk in the door from work.

• Tanning beds are so 1980’s, so remember tan skin is damaged skin. If you want a little color, then try a spray tan or an over the counter self-tanning lotion. We recommend asking for a Level 1 or 2 depending on your skin type for spray tanning. Remember to always exfoliate your skin beforehand.

• Hats are a great accessory for your outfit and your skin. Visors and baseball caps are cute, but do not provide adequate coverage. We recommend a larger brimmed hat that is made of a tightly woven material and/ or a cotton material. Please feel free to bring your hats in for our stamp of approval.

• Applying sunscreen once daily is not enough. We recommend and so does the FDA that sunscreen of an SPF 30 or higher be applied every 40-80 minutes when in direct sunlight.

• Hormones, Hormones, Hormones… They rule our lives and our skin. We recommend having your hormone levels checked yearly. Everything from acne, pigmentation and excessive facial hair are all a result of hormonal changes.

Here’s to looking and feeling and great!

In our last segment, we talked about how your skin is the largest organ in your body. It’s not replaceable, so why abuse it?  We will say this over and over again……catch the hint?

As we previously stated, a lot of things are considered when it comes to getting healthy skin. Diet, regular exercise, vitamins, are all contributing factors and roles in maintaining healthy, balanced skin.

In this segment our Aestheticians focus on products and how they improve the health of the dermis.

The skin’s primary function is to protect the body from external pathogens, it poses a penetration challenge for some ingredients. Optimally, a topical ingredient should penetrate the entire epidermis/dermis if it’s to provide benefits. Using oil-based ingredients, or adding an oil or penetration agent to the product, can help the compounds get through the epidermis.

Promising Ingredients:
The primary causes of skin damage and aging are exposure to sunlight—UVB and UVA—oxidation and inflammation of the skin, decreases in supportive collagen, loss of muscle tone, and dryness. Topical anti-aging ingredients seek to ameliorate these conditions. Popular vitamins, such as C and E, are well-studied for topical benefits. Other compounds, such as DMAE, Hyaluronic Acid and CoQ10, are supported by emerging research. The following are some of the popular, scientifically backed inclusions for today’s anti-aging skin care products.

VITAMIN C: researchers discovered that vitamin C  had significantly reduced wrinkles and had rearranged wrinkle lines from deeper ruts into shallow, random order, a sign of younger skin and a stronger collagen matrix. The same researchers further tested vitamin C on post-menopausal women—previously thought to have severely limited skin-collagen-production capacity—and found that topical vitamin C significantly increased the production of collagen vs. placebo.

VITAMIN E: It’s recommended that supplementing orally with 400mg vitamin E daily can reduce photodamage and wrinkles and can improve skin texture, while topical applications, including blends with vitamin C, can soothe dry skin and protect against sun damage. Researchers have found the topical application of alpha-tocopherol to be more effective than internal supplementation at preventing UV damage. In another study, researchers found that a topical solution of alpha-tocopherol inhibited UVR-induced epidermal lipid peroxidation.

DIMETHYLAMINOETHANOL (DMAE): made its debut years ago as a cure-all antioxidant aimed at enhancing cognitive functioning and reducing fatigue and depression. Nicholas Perricone, MD, author of The Perricone Prescription, claims that it is even more potent topically, adding to DMAE’s credentials as a membrane stabilizer, anti-inflammatory and penetration enhancer.

A young face is characterized by short, thick muscles that prevent sagging. As we get older, the muscles get thinner and longer, causing a flatter and increasingly saggy face. Cosmetic surgeons cut muscles shorter to pull up the sags and round out the face.

DMAE stimulates the contraction of muscles so you correct the sagging and get a more rounded look and a physiologically younger face. A possible mechanism of action is DMAE’s stimulation of acetylcholine, a key component in muscle contraction.  DMAE also helps stabilize skin-cell membranes.

HYALURONIC ACID: Injected forms of HA have been used for arthritis, wrinkle-removal, ophthalmic surgery, and research supports its critical role in scar-less wound healing.Small facial cuts heal without scarring because of high HA levels. HA’s multi-faceted role in wound repair—carefully regulating inflammation, formation of granulation tissue, re-epithelisation and remodeling—has prompted its topical use.

C0Q10: CoQ10 decreases in level with age and thus skin at about age
30 is below optimum, resulting in a lesser ability to produce collagen,
elastin, and other important skin molecules.  CoQ10 is a small
molecule that can easily penetrate the skin. These studies indicate CoQ10 to be an effective topical agent and is a viable photo-protectant with the ability to penetrate into the skin.

*Skinetics products containing these wonderful and promising ingredients: C-Complex Cream, Green Tea Soothing Pads, Repairative Emulsion, Revitalizing Gel, RevitaMoist.

Stay tuned for more in the upcoming weeks……Here’s to healthy skin!