Saturday, April 9, 2011

Removing Age Spots - Avoid Harmful Products If You Really Want Results

By Kerri Doyle

Are you also like thousands of others who keep worrying about removing age spots safely from the skin? If yes, then you have come to the right place. In this article, not only I am going to share with you the ways to avoid harmful products but I will also share with you the best possible solution for age spot removal without any side effects. Read on to find out more.

It is a fact that more than 90% people who use products for removing age spots do not get desired results. Instead, they have to face issues like irritation, redness of the skin, cancer, infertility, poisoning of the body organs etc. All these issues sound alarming, isn't it? The fact is that they are more alarming than they sound, its just that we have not given them enough importance till now.

Why?

Because the cosmetic companies always hide the internal details from us, they do not want us to know that there are harmful ingredients present in their products. The reason is simple, profitability. If common people like you and I will come to know about the reality of such products, we will not buy such products anymore.

How to identify such bad products?

Read the ingredients list.

By law, every manufacturer has to publish the list of ingredients on the product label. If you read all the ingredients present in this list and try to understand the repercussion of using all such ingredients then you will be able to make a wise choice. Here are few harmful ingredients to look out for.

Alcohol - We all know that it is a dehydrating agent. Still we go ahead and use products which consist of alcohol. Try this simple experiment. Rub some aftershave lotion on your hands and let it vaporize. It does give a wonderful fragrance but it also makes skin very dry. Think yourself, if the hands get so dry, what will happen to the sensitive skin like face, back of neck and shoulders.

Parabens - Not many people are aware that Parabens, which are used to increase the shelf life of products, are actually potential carcinogenic materials. Experts do not recommend using products with Parabens for longer period of time.

Therefore, if you want to avoid side effects while removing age spots then avoid using products, which consist of Alcohol and Parabens.

The best and safe solution is to use products, which consist of natural ingredients. Ingredients which are derived from sources like Plants, Fruits, Berries, Natural herbs etc. such ingredients do not have any side effects and they attack the root cause of the problems.

In a nutshell, removing age spots is simple if you avoid using harmful products and start using natural products. So what are you waiting for? log on to the internet and find some natural products that suit you and your skin. You will be glad that you took the decision of using natural products.

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Dealing With Dark Circles Under Your Eyes

Having dark circles under the eyes are some of the most common problems that face women today.

Dark circles under your eyes can make you look tired, depressed, old, and sickly.

Even if you are not stressed out, or even if you have a healthy lifestyle, these dark circles can still appear.

It usually starts small, barely visible “pillow” of puffiness below the lower lid of the eye.

If left untreated, it could billow out further until it becomes a full blown eye bag that’s clearly visible.

When these puffs grow bigger, the skin around the eye also loses elasticity and loose wads of skin will form.

Despite what most of us think, dark circles under the eyes are not really caused by being tired or stressed.

Most dermatologists and plastic surgeons agree that these are hereditary, one of the effects of aging or caused by capillaries that leak blood close to the surface of the skin.

The blood that leaked could oxidize and turn into a bluish red color that is similar to what you see when you have an ugly bruise and because the skin under the eyes is very thin, this can lead to the appearance of dark circles and eyebags.

Depending on how transparent your skin is and how much blood pools under it, the more darker the circles will appear and if not treated immediately, this discoloration could become permanent.

If you have been cursed with dark circles then there are things that you can do to minimize the appearance of these discolorations.

The first thing is to get more sleep. If your dark circles are caused by inadequate sleep then try getting a little more sleep. Adults should have between 6 and 8 hours of sleep each night.

If you don’t have time at night to get this much sleep, try taking a siesta on your lunch break.

If you are looking for a homeopathic remedy for your dark circles then try potato slices.

Refrigerate a potato until it is cold. Then slice it thinly and place the slices on your eyes. Let the potato slices sit on your eyes for 15 to 20 minutes. This will do two things for you.

First of all it will reduce the puffiness of your eyes by cooling the skin around your eyes. Next it will reduce the appearance of the dark circles by drawing out the toxins in your skin.

If you are looking for a cosmetic solution to your dark circles then you will need to use a highlighter and concealer.

First apply your normal foundation. Then use a concealer to cover the dark circles.

Finish by applying the highlighter to the area around the tear duct and to the area right below your eyebrow.

This will help draw people’s attention away from the dark area.

Treatments for Age Spots and Age Spot Removal Solutions

personal remedies

Quite a few fade lotions and gels can be found in department shops, in drugstores and on the web to lighten brown spots and other epidermis brown or redish colors. These might be beneficial alternatives depending on your darkness with the age spot and how typically you apply the cream. Effective cure would need to pass through by means of the base from the dermis – the topmost level of pores and skin – where the additional pigment is found. This suggests normal use through numerous weeks or months may possibly be needed prior to any noticeable benefits happen.

When you do go for an over-the-counter fade lotion, pick 1 that is made up ofhydroquinone or other acid. Note that some items, specially those that includehydroquinone, might result in pores and skin irritation immediately after continuousapplication.

Prevention

To support prevent dark spots, reduce your sunlight direct exposure. In case you should be by the sunlight, use a sunscreen lotion using a sunlight proper protection factor of no less than 14. It need to be a wide-ranging spectrum sun block, which implies it blocks each uv An and uv B sun rays.

* Prevent the sun’s rays all through high-intensity time. The sun’s radiations are most damaging from tenam to fourpm. Lower the moment you have open air for the duration of these hrs.

* Put on shielding garments. Protect your epidermis with garments, for instance lengthy sleeved tee shirts, very long trousers and large brimmed caps. Also, maintain in mind that specific apparel types and materials offer you much better safety from your sunlight than do many others. For instance, tightly woven materials tend to be far better compared to loosely woven textiles.

* Use sunscreen lotion. Use sunscreen lotion liberally 25 minute earlier than going outside in order that your epidermis has time to soak up the sun screen lotion. Next re-apply in accordance on the guidance to the content label – normally about each and every 60 minute.

When to see a health care provider

You may possibly not like the way they appear, but dark spots are generally benign and do not call for medical care. Nevertheless, your health care provider ought to evaluate spots which are darkish or have changed physical appearance mainly because these could be indications of melanoma, a really serious type of pores and skin cancer.

It is greatest to possess any new epidermis alterations evaluated by a health practitioner, specifically if a spot or lesion:
* Is of dark pigment
* Is swiftly growing in dimension
* Has an unnatural boundary
* Has an strange mixture of colours

If you are disappointed with the look of brown spots, treatment options can be found to lighten or eliminate them. Because the pigment is found at the base of your dermis – the topmost level of pores and skin – any solutions meant to lighten the dark spots will have to penetrate throughout this layer of pores and skin.

Age stain treatment options contain:

* Medicines. Prescription bleaching lotions (hydroquinone) utilized alone or with retinoids and also a mild steroid may well step by step fade the spots more than various months. Sunlight shield is strongly suggested in the event you use medication solutions.

* Laser remedy. Laser remedy destroys the additional melanocytes that produce the dim pigment with out damaging the skin’s area. Remedies using a laser usually demand a number of sessions. Immediately after therapy, dark spots fade steadily through many weeks or months. Laser treatment has couple of side effects, nevertheless it may be costly.

* Freezing or cryotherapy. This technique requires applying liquid nitrogen or an additional freezing agent on the brown spots to destroy the additional pigment. As the region heals, the pores and skin appears lighter. Freezing is ordinarily employed on a simple or little group of brown spots. Although efficient, this process poses a slight risk of permanent scarring or discoloration.

* Dermabrasion. This technique consists of sanding down (planing) the area level of the epidermis using a swiftly rotating brush. This method removes the epidermis floor, and a brand new layer of pores and skin grows in its location. Inflammation and momentary scab formation can consequence from this age spot therapy.

* Chemical peel. Superficial and medium-depth chemical peels can fade dark spots. With superficial chemical peels, many remedies are needed earlier than you notice any outcomes. A chemical type peel off consists of applying an acid solution, that eats away at the surface level of one’s pores and skin, to your dark spots. As your pores and skin peels, new epidermis creates to take its area. Sunshine proper protection is highly recommended following this cure.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Removing Darkened Age Spots

Interesting things happen to our skin as we go through life. When we’re young, we get acne, as we get older we get wrinkles. Somewhere in between, patches of our skin choose to switch color.

Dark spots, also called age spots, liver spots or sun spots, frequently appear as oversized freckles. They are typically not a wellness concern, it is merely an area of skin that created more pigment than the other parts. At times this is caused by sunshine or other exposures to pollutants. For the most part, it is simply nature taking its track.

There are lots of products professing they can reduce the appearances of darkened age spots on your skin. Some of them work, some are merely hype. What should you look for should you desire to reduce discolored areas?

Alpha Hydroxyl Acids will be listed on a label as AHA, and this is the key component needed for the removal of dark spots. AHA includes a group of natural acids that we see in different foods and plants. These acids perform as a natural skin peel, and can be quite potent.

Alpha Hydroxyl Acids, when applied directly to the skin, erodes the uppermost layer of the skin. Employed frequently, it persists to remove the discolored skin, until finally fresh and light new skin comes out. Typically speaking AHA is a bleaching remedy for dark spots.

The strength of the AHA you obtain in goods on your local beauty shop racks is much under you would get from a doctor or dermatologist. That does not mean these lotions are extremely weak to be effective. Depending on your own skin and its condition, these beautylotions and serums will work quite good.

However, should you discover these items are largely having no effect on your skin, consult your doctor for a prescription of a more concentrated and stronger level of AHA. Keep in mind, this is a whitening ingredient, so take extreme care to merely utilize it on affected parts and be certain to completely clean hands right after applying.

While there is no remedy for getting older, we can at least possess a younger look. Using AHA to eliminate age spots will leave your skin looking as youthful as you feel!

Removing Age Spots – Which Treatment is Best?

Removing age spots seems quite a popular theme of skin care treatment. Age spot removal especially on the features such as the face is something that people will pay a lot of money for as, let’s face it, it is the most noticeable place that they can be.

Another area where age spots seem to be very prominent is on the back of the hands and that is one of the places where they seem to appear first. Besides looking at the various types of treatment available for them let’s look at why we get them in the first place.

Liver spots appear because that part of our skin has been exposed to sunlight. They are the skin’s natural defense against UVA and UVB rays. They are made up of melanin cells that give our skin its pigmentation but as we get older the evenly balanced cells become blotchy.

This process happens by fewer melanin cells being produced and those that have been grow larger so that they appear as blotches of brown leaving light and as we get older translucent skin around them.

There are various types of treatment that can be used and for many of these it is necessary to go to see a skin specialist doctor. One such type of treatment for removing age spots is to have them frozen with dry ice.

This then is left for a few weeks for the new skin to come up to the surface when this happens the old skin containing the age spot is simply peeled off.

Other age spot removal techniques involve using chemical creams with different levels of success.

By far the best age spot removal treatment and the safest that I have come across is by using a natural plant extract that was discovered in Germany as a way of treating inflamed skin.

Almost by accident it was noted that this extract was actually able to lighten the skin by reducing the number of melanocytes naturally giving the skin an even color.

A friend introduced me to a range of anti aging skin care products that contain this special extract and lots of other specialized natural extracts that have the ability to work in harmony with the body in turning the aging clock backwards.

I love using their creams they are so silky smooth and leave the skin looking great and feeling nourished. As well as effectively removing age spots this skin care removes wrinkles by getting the cells to produce more of the structural cells that it loses in the aging process giving your skin a more youthful and healthy glow.

For more information on fighting the causes of aging visit my website www.clean-skin-site.com today.

Karen is an holistic therapist, health and nutrition researcher. Visit her site to find out what ingredients work best to battle the causes of aging. A great ingredient is Phytessence Wakame and discover her recommendations to her clients.You may use this article or any parts of it as long as you include my name and website address.

Sunday, April 3, 2011

Causes of Human Skin Hyperpigmentation

The color of human skin is due primarily to the production of melanin by specialized cells in the skin called melanocytes. Melanin produced by these cells both absorbs and scatters UV radiation and thus protects skin from the damaging and mutagenic effects of the solar radiation. Melanocytes can exist in either an activated or resting state.


Your skin is continually in and out of the sun, and thus, your melanocytes are always being turned on and off. During these years of sun exposure the resting state of the melanocyte slowly resets itself to one that is more active. Excessive exposure to sunlight can cause some melanocytes to multiply, producing an uneven distribution of active melanocytes in the skin. The high level of melanin production by some melanocytes and not by others results in a blotchy, uneven "freckle-like" appearance of melanin on the surface of the skin. These areas of hyperpigmentation are called lentigenes and are commonly referred to as age spots or liver spots.


Sun Exposure and Inflammation
How does long term exposure to sunlight cause the activation of melanocytes in the skin? The answer can be summed up in one word: inflammation. Exposure to the UV rays of the sun causes an inflammatory response in the skin and, as we all know, if this inflammatory response is severe, a sunburn results. However, exposure to solar radiation doesn't have to result in a sunburn before inflammation occurs. Very brief exposures to UV radiation can produce an inflammatory response in the skin. Simply walking outside to get in your car can cause subtle inflammatory processes to be initiated in your skin. This non-detectable but active level of inflammation may be thought of as smoldering inflammation.


How Inflammation Activates Melanocytes
If skin exposure to sunlight causes inflammation, what does inflammation have to do with activating melanocytes? When the sun hits the skin, it activates cells in your skin to produce hormone-like substances, commonly called inflammatory mediators. These hormones activate a wide variety of responses in the skin, including: increased vasodilation of blood vessels, which increases redness; increased vascular leakiness of fluid into the skin, which causes swelling; the activation of nerve endings, which causes pain; an increased release of histamine, which causes itching and irritation; and an activation of the melanocytes. In fact, during an inflammatory response, the skin may produce as many as eight to 10 different types of melanocyte activating hormones, which bind to specific receptors on the surface of melanocytes and, in doing so, trigger the activation of the cell from its resting state to a melanin-producing, active state. If the skin is continually exposed to solar radiation over many years, the constant production of inflammatory hormones ultimately results in a permanent activation of melanocytes.


Other Factors Contributing to Inflammation and Hyperpigmentation
Solar radiation isn't the only cause of skin inflammation and hyperpigmentation. Any external stimulus that damages the skin triggers the production of inflammatory mediators, which then activates melanocytes. There are many examples of this type of inflammation-induced pigmentation. Both topical and oral antibiotics (e.g., tetracycline) can induce phototoxic inflammation in the skin, resulting in hyperpigmentation. Accutane also increases the sensitivity of the skin to sunlight and can cause inflammation. Other inflammation triggers include topical retinoids, various fabric dyes, plant derived irritants (e.g., poison ivy), non-steroidal drugs, and chemotherapeutic drugs. Various forms of dermatitis, like eczema or chemically induced contact dermatitis, can cause hyperpigmentation. Acne (an inflammatory condition) and physical trauma to the skin (e.g., laser resurfacing procedures, cosmetic surgery, and temperature and chemical burns) can all increase skin pigmentation. Finally, in addition to inflammatory hormones, other hormones—primarily the sex steroids progesterone and estrogen—cause broad areas of hyperpigmentation, a condition referred to as melasma. This type of hyperpigmentation is quite common in pregnant women and those on birth control pills.


In conclusion, we can see that any insult to the skin can cause inflammation and trigger the onset of hyperpigmentation.