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The Beauty Drugs

beauty drugs

VITAMIN A to spike wrinkles… Vitamin C to reverses sun damage… Vitamin E to regain baby-soft smoothness… AHAs for an at-home face peel… Liposomes to help other ingredients penetrate the skin…A balanced diet is the best way to ensure that your body is getting all the nutrients it needs to function correctly in addition to looking great.

Here is a rundown on ingredients that are currently the lings of the beauty biz and on the substance or fluff in their claims.

Retin-A

Appears to work by helping to slough off dead skin, and also by boosting the production of collagen

If you’re wondering whether a Retin-A product might merit a place in the face of your future, or the future of your face, here’s what you should know about the drug:

Natural Sources: Green leafy vegetables, melon, squash, yams, tomatoes, fish-liver oils.

Vitamin C

Vitamin C is deposited in the skin and is an essential part of the anti-oxidant brigade to protect skin against free radical assault from the atmosphere and from ultra violet light. Vitamin C plays a very important in converting inactivated vitamin E back into an active anti-oxidant form of vitamin E. This is probably the reason why vitamin C has such an important role to play in the protection of cellular membranes even though it is a water soluble product while cellular membranes are mainly composed of lipid molecules.

Natural Sources:
All fresh fruits and vegetables. Rich Sources include : rose hips, citrus, strawberries, apples, guavas, cabbage, tomatoes, turnip greens, green bell peppers.

Vitamin E

Cells in the body divide a set number of times; then they die and are replaced by new cells. With age, this process slows, and a progressive deterioration of all body systems begins. Though some of this decline is normal and inevitable, many researchers believe that unstable molecular species called free radicals accelerate the process, making us old before our time.

Cooking does not normally destroy significant amounts of vitamin E. Frying, however, especially in deep fat, can cause most of the vitamin E to be oxidized. Storage for long periods can destroy vitamin E, too. Vitamin E supplements are available in doses ranging from a few IU to more than 1000 IU.

Supporters of vitamin E as a skin-care ingredient believe that it can do for the skin what it does inside the body: seek out and neutralise the effect of free radicals.

AHAs (Alpha Hydroxy Acids)

The rejuvenators that have given vitamins, liposomes, nanospheres and herbal extracts a clear run for the big bucks in the anti-aging derby in recent years are alpha-hydroxy acids.

The acids, which are the active ingredients in these creams, were originally derived from fruits (eg. tomatoes), sugar-cane (glycolic acid) and milk (lactic acid). They have an “exfoliant” effect that is, they act as facial scrubs or peels, helping to shed dead skin cells and promote renewal. In fact, they were used by dermatologists for several years in face peels – sometimes producing severe irritation. Glycolic acid is still used in the “gentler” face peels.

OTC skin creams containing alpha-hydroxy acids (AHAs) are in business. Most cosmetic versions are “buffered” to reduce the irritation potential of the acids

Vitamin K

Vitamin K has a role in diminishing the healing time of bruises, both related to trauma, sun, and cosmetic procedures. There appears to be a role in vitamin K in helping to diminish the ruddiness on ones complexion.

Other Wrinkle-Erasers

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