What causes dry skin and what ingredients in skin moisturizers do work?
Dry skin is caused by two factors: (I) One is the damage to the skin's protective barrier and thus excessive water loss through the skin, and (II) A reduction in the concentration of the skin's water-holding sugar and protein molecules, the complex proteoglycans and glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) or carbohydrate molecular chains.
The major organic (i.e. carbon-containing) components of human cells are proteins, lipids, various carbohydrates and carbohydrate-containing molecules, and the nucleic acids (DNA and RNA). The carbohydrate-containing molecules can be quite complex polysaccharides; those in which carbohydrates are attached to proteins or lipids are called glycoconjugates. There are three major classes of glycoconjugates: glycoproteins, proteoglycans, and glycolipids.
Glyco means "sweet" and refers to monosaccharides, polysaccharides or sugars. The role of carbohydrates (sugars) in energy production has been long understood. However, their additional, crucial role in orchestrating the healthy structure and function of the body is a relatively new discovery that is the subject of a new bourgeoning field of science called the “sweet science of glycobiology”.
The polysaccharide content of the skin is responsible for skin hydration and water binding within the skin as well as for skin repair and skin renewal.
Yes, skin injured by stretch marks is weak, thin, rough, sagging, stiff, and its tissues are decreased in size when compared to healthy tissues. Also areas with stretch marks have diminished cellular proliferation, and decreased function, also called atrophia.
Many skin moisturizers and emollient products sold by cosmetic and skin care companies delay the healing of irritated and damaged skin and make the situation worse by inhibiting natural skin repair and increasing skin damage in ways similar to skin irritants. Occluding creams or moisturizing creams and dry skin products such as those containing petrolatum and lanolin to block water loss do not make things better either.
How to Treat Excessive Dry Skin?
What helps is to protect the skin surface and to help the skin heal from within, by providing at the site of lesions or skin damage ingredients that help the skin repair itself thoroughly.
Most if not all the popular moisturizers and emollients currently sold by the major skin care brands contain high concentrations of detergents and detergent-like chemicals that have the effect of stripping the skin of its natural lipids, despite many years of sound evidence that such detergents degrade the skin's natural protective function and damage the skin. Also, many of the dyes and optical diffusers used to give the appearance of healthy skin are damaging to the skin.
Lipids and fats in the skin provide the epidermal barrier to transcutaneous water loss. These lipids in the upper skin area called the stratum corneum are arranged in layers called lamellae. The lower skin layers contain more typical fats such as triglycerides and phospholipids while the upper layers have more ceramides, cholesterol and free fatty acids.
Waxes and oils placed on the skin seal the skin's surface and prevent excess water loss. Cosmetic moisturizers loosen the skin's protective barrier and hydrate (wet) the skin proteins but have the long-term effect of damaging the skin.
How to Heal Dry Skin on Face, Chin, Cracked Hells, Body... ? — Best Natural Face Moisturizer for Dry Skin Relief and Healing of Cracked Skin
Skin-care products are only as good as what they contain and how their ingredients help your skin function better. In fact, moisturizers (or any skin-care product claiming to have an effect on SKIN REPAIR, wrinkles or sagging skin) should absolutely contain a mix of antioxidants, cell-communicating ingredients, and intercellular substances as those are the ingredients that help skin keep a normal level of hydration, build collagen and prevent cellular damage.
Not the popular dry skin creams that have been in the market since the 1920's, when the cosmetic industry begun to promote oil/water/detergent creams for moisturizing instead of the vegetable oils that had been used for thousands of years. This was similar to the fallacious campaigns, we may all remember, that aimed to stop women from breast feeding their babies and promoted their replacement with synthetic infant formulas sold for profit.
Examples of biological dry skin treatment ingredients are: rose hip oil, squalene and other olive oil derivatives; proteoglycans and glycosaminoglycans and hyaluronic acid a glycosaminoglycan present in the intercellular matrix of skin where it has a protective, structure stabilizing and shock-absorbing role and plays an important role in tissue hydration, lubrication and cellular function, and is able to hold more water than any other natural substance.
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