Vitamins C and E – The Antioxidant Tandem

I have recently come across a couple of experiments proving that vitamins C and E have a powerful UV protection effects when used together (Research 1 & Research 2). Vitamin C is the most abundant water-soluble antioxidant and vitamin E is the most abundant fat-soluble antioxidant in the body. Each of the two vitamins is a powerful antioxidant in its own right, but neither of them, in isolation, proved as effective as the combination of them.  What is it about this combination that makes it so effective in combating UV damage? This is the question this bog post will look into, starting from the free radical scavenging action of vitamins C and E, to how they work together as UV protectors in the human body

Fee radicals

A free radical is an atom or molecule with an unpaired valence electron. This makes most free radicals highly unstable and reactive atoms/molecules, capable of causing damage by altering and destabilising living cells.

How do free radicals occur?

Some of them occur naturally during metabolic processes and some of them are useful e.g. in the immune response (some immune cells produce free radicals in order to neutralise viruses or bacterial).

Our bodies have evolved mechanisms for keeping free radicals in check. It is only when there are too many of them that a domino effect (known as a free radical chain reaction) starts to occur. Free radical chain reactions can cause a lot of damage to our cells and even lead to cell death. We can be exposed to free radicals from external sources like cigarette smoke, air pollutants and industrial chemicals. Free radicals are also generated during internal metabolic processes, e.g. when oxygen interacts with  unsaturated (especially polyunsaturated) fats.

 Antioxidants

Antioxidants are molecules which can safely interact with free radicals and terminate the chain reaction. They can donate an electron without becoming unstable themselves. The body produces several antioxidant substances. It also relies on micronutrients with antioxidant properties (vitamins), the most important  of which are vitamin E, vitamin C and  beta-carotene.

How do vitamin C and E work together?

Vitamin E has an interesting property – after it has interacted with and “disarmed” a free radical, it can be recycled i.e. returned to “fighting form” by other antioxidants (Research Info). Vitamin C  is one of the antioxidant molecules that can recycle vitamin E. The process is known as “the redox cycle”.

UV exposure depletes the antioxidants in our skin very fast. More antioxidant are brought to the skin’s surface all the time, but replenishing them might not happen fast enough to ensure all the necessary supply. The redox cycle supplies the skin with yet more antioxidants by recycling Vitamin E that already exists in the tissue. Thus the total number of active free radical scavengers stays high, helping the skin withstand UV radiation without damage.

The Humble Sunflower and Its Benefits to Skin Health

A ubiquitous plant, whose oil is found in foods and toiletries, from mayonnaise and butter to soap and face creams. An easy plant to tend, requiring little irrigation and less work than many others, sunflower is a comparatively profitable crop to farmers. Consequently, its oil is one of the lowest priced cooking oils on the market. So is sunflower oil so ubiquitous because it’s cheap or because it’s good for you?  This post will look into the nutrient composition of sunflower oil, the refined and the unrefined varieties.

The main fatty acids in sunflower oil are linoleic and oleic. Their proportions vary a lot, depending on the type of sunflower it is obtained from: linoleic, high oleic or mid-oleic. Yes, there are more than one variety of oil-producing sunflowers. And there is yet a different variety, whose seeds are roasted or used in baking and confectionery.

The linoleic sunflower is highly poly-unsaturated, with linoleic acid making up most of its oil and representing between half and three quarters of its total fatty acids (the proportions vary depending on growing conditions). The mono-unsaturated oleic acid represents 14 to 39% of the fatty acids total.

In the high-oleic sunflower, the relative proportion of the two fatty acids are reversed, with oleic acid making up 75 to over 90% of the total fatty acids.

The mid oleic sunflower, as the name suggest, is the middle way between the other two varieties, with about 43 to 72% oleic acid and 18 to 45% linoleic acid ( (See Source)

All three varieties of sunflower oil contain the saturated palmitic and stearinc fatty acids in proportions varying from about 1 to 6%, and tiny amounts of other fatty acids.

The advantage of the high-oleic sunflower oils is that, being predominately mono-unsaturated, it is less prone to oxidation and therefore more stable, with a longer shelf life. It is also less liable to form unhealthy by-products during cooking at high temperatures. For the same reasons, a high stearic variety of sunflower has been more recently developed. Stearic fatty acid is saturated, therefore stable at high temperatures. High-stearic sunflower yields an oil that is more suitable for cooking and baking than linoleic sunflower. It is also a lot healthier than – and it can successfully replace – the partially hydrogenated oils used in the food industry.

Looking at sunflower oil as a skin nutrient, the linoleic one is the more interesting of the four varieties mentioned above. Linoleic acid is the most abundant PUFA (Poli-Unsaturated Fatty Acid) in the epidermis. It is also the parent compound of all the Omega 6 PUFAs. Linoleic acid and its PUFA derivatives are crucialy important in the structural integrity and barrier function of the skin, as well as in modulating its inflammatory response. The skin’s ability to metabolize PUFAs is limited, so it is important that linoleic acid is present in our diet. Then the body can synthesize its derivatives, including arachidonic acid – the second most abundant PUFA in the epidermis. (See Research Info) Reassuringly, western diet typically does include sufficient amounts of linoleic acid.

The fatty acid profile of sunflower oil remains largely unchanged after the refining process. But there are several other compounds of the unrefined oil that are totally or partially removed during the refining process: phspholipids, sterols, vitamins and phenolic compounds.

Phospholipids – up to 1% of the of crude sunflower oil, of which lecithin represents about half. They are good water-binding molecules and have a moisturising effect on the skin.

Sterols – compounds commonly found in human skin. Their role is to regulate skin permeability. Sunflower oil contains 0.32% sterols, a smaller amount of sterols than other seed oil like corn or soybean.

Vitamins – high levels of vitamins A, D, E and K are present in crude suflower oil. Some manufacturers add Vitamin E back into the refined oil and will label their products to reflect this.

Most of the compounds removed during the refining process are undesirable purely for reasons to do with appearance or shelf life. There is however one exception:

Phenolic compounds – while they are useful topical antioxidants in skin care, they are not desirable in foods because they react with proteins, decreasing their solubility and ultimately reducing their nutritional quality.

It seems that unrefined sunflower oil is a far more useful for skin care than the refined one. Although it is not a mainstream product, it can be found in health food shops and specialist retailers.

Is Lanolin an Allergen?

A classic among cosmetic ingredient, lanolin has received some bad press on the account of its allergenic potential, but it has been quite popular with cosmetic formulators and it’s still going strong today.

Lanolin is sheep sebum – a waxy substance secreted by sebaceous glands in the skin of wool bearing animals. The lanolin used in cosmetics today comes from sheep bred for their wool. Chemically, lanolin is a wax – consisting mostly of wax esters – and it has waterproofing properties.

The cosmetic industry uses lanolin as an emollient and natural moisturising factor – it helps replenish the skin’s lipid barrier and diminish its water loss. Its use has a respectable history, going back centuries. Lanolin is mentioned in ancient medical texts by the Greek physician Dioscorides.

How did lanolin acquire a reputation as an allergen?

First of all, we should consider how widely exposed consumers have been to lanolin over the decades. Not only is lanolin found in a variety of toiletries – soaps, shampoos, lipsticks, shaving creams and moisturisers, but it is also used as an ointment base for topical drugs. It has industrial applications too e.g. metal coatings and adhesive plaster. More than that, wool clothing can have a significant content of lanolin, remaining in the fibre after processing. So the chances are that pretty much anyone allergic to lanolin would have had become aware of the fact.

Cases of lanolin allergies were reported as early of the 1920s and 30s, but the issue became widely recognised in the 1950s, when a couple of studies analysing the prevalence of lanolin sensitivity in dermatologic patients were published (Sulzberger MB, Warshaw T, Herman F. Studies of hypersensitivity to lanolin. J Invest Dermatol 1953;20:33–44 and Baer RL, Serri F, Weissenbach-Vial C. Studies on allergic sensitization to certain topical therapeutic agents. Arch Derm Syphlilol 1955;71:19–23)

Since then several other pieces of research have been conducted. Many of these were done on people suffering from dermatitis or with known sensitivities and allergies to cosmetics and toiletries in general. The studies carried on the general population point to a rather low incidence of lanolin allergies:
– Clark’s 1975 study estimated an annual incidence of lanolin allergy in the general population at a modest 8.75 cases per million (based on 825,000 patients in the catchment areas of three hospitals in the UK and Sweden – see Research Report)
– In 1998, Kligman reported testing 943 women with no history of skin problems and found no positive patch test reaction to lanolin. (Kligman AM. The myth of lanolin allergy. Contact Dermatitis 1998;39:103–7)

Researchers have been trying to find out which compounds of lanolin are responsible for the allergic reactions. The studies published so far point to impurities in lanolin: wool alcohols and detergents. These are mixed in or generated during lanolin extraction. A 1981 study by Clark and colleagues showed that reducing the free alcohol and detergent content of lanolin also reduces its sensitizing potential. This means that purified lanolin has a low allergen risk.

Lanolin continues therefore to be an attractive option for cosmetic formulators – being a lipid, it can penetrate to the deepest layer of the epidermis – the living cells called keratinocytes, responsible for renewing the protective layers of our skin. Lanolin is also cheap and it can be produced sustainably. Harvesting it doesn’t even involve killing any sheep although this fact might not appease all vegetarians and vegans. Is it a better, more effective moisturising factor than beeswax or the vegetal waxes available to the cosmetic industry? Or indeed more effective than the many emollient and moisturising vegetal oils and butter available to cosmetic manufacturers? I could find no evidence to prove such an assertion. So I must conclude that lanolin is one of the many good options open to formulators.

Oil-Based vs. Water-Based Skin Care

I should say it upfront that I am biased in favour of oil based skin care. It is because, of the many moisturisers I have tried, the water free ones have agreed best with my skin. The next category that I can use are water-in-oil creams – these are made with a small percentage of water added to a predominantly fat/oil base. The least good for me are oil-in-water creams and lotions, which consist of a large proportion of water (typically 70-80%) with some fats/oil emulsified into it. I can tolerate these for a couple of days. After that my skin starts to feel a little tender, flaky and slightly irritated. At this point, persisting with water-based creams gives me a distinctly uncomfortable feeling.

I do not believe my skin is in any way abnormal. A little incursion into skin anatomy and physiology actually backs the idea that fats and oils are what our skin needs to condition itself. Human skin is hydrophobic – that is it hates water. Its function is to keep external fluids – including water – outside the body. On the other hand, our epidermis has an affinity to fats and oils. This is fundamental to the mechanism by which the skin conditions itself using the natural oil (sebum) secreted by our sebaceous glands. Sebum contains fats whose role is to top up the structural facts of the epidermis as they get slowly worn out by wear and tear and exposure to the elements. The same mechanism of sebum secretion and absorption delivers vitamin E into the epidermis. Vitamin E is the primary defender against lipid peroxidation i.e. it prevents the oxidation of fats and oils in our body and on our skin.

Applying vegetal oils and butters on the skin – as out grannies discovered – is an effective way to condition it. With the knowledge we have today, we can understand the reason why this works: it’s because our skin has a natural, physiological affinity with lipids i.e. fats and oils.

Then why all this talk about skin hydration? This goes back to a measure of skin health called transepidermal water loss (TEWL). Healthy skin is very good at keeping the water in. The more damaged and poorly the skin is, the more water leaks through it. This is what causes the uncomfortable sensation of skin dryness in eczema sufferers. But is applying water onto the skin the answer to this problem? Far from it. Research has shown that a high level of TEWL stimulates lipid synthesis in the epidermis. This is the natural mechanism by which the skin restores its barrier and regulates water loss. Therefore the solution to high TEWL is not soaking our skin in water or applying lotions with a high water content, but topping up the fats and oils that help our skin stay water-tight. When you apply a moisturiser, it is the fats and not the water in it that contribute to you skin’s hydration.

Avocado Oil – Health and Skin Care Benefits

A relatively late addition to the European diet, avocado fruit and oil have been proven to offer significant health benefits:

– anti-inflammatory and vascular health effects (Research Info)
– prostate cancer cell inhibitor (Research Info)
– liver protector (Research Info)

The fatty acid profile of avocado oil is very similar to that of olive oil, around three quarters of the fatty acids being mononsaturated, with a hight proportion of oleic fatty acids, 12% polyunsaturates (linoleic and linolenic) and 12% saturates (palmitic and stearic).

Other nutrients in avocado oil include:

A Varied Mix of Vitamins
– Vitamin E, the main antioxidant in avocado oil, found in proportions similar to those in olive oil
– Vitamin A, in the form of carotenoids, most of which is lutein (70%). Lutein is beneficial for eye health, as it reduces macular degeneration. (Research Info)
Avocado oil also contains moderate amounts of vitamins C, K and most B vitamins – 1,2, 3,5, 6, 7 and 9. (Source: TP Human – See Article)

Sterols
The cold-pressed avocado oil also contains high levels of phytosterols, with beta-sitosterol being the main sterol – about 89% of total sterol content representing 2.23-4.48 mg/g of oil.

Phenolic Compounds
The phenols in avocado pulp are hydroxybenzoic acid, hydroxycinnamic acids and procyanidins. They are present in virgin avocado oil, but filtered out from the refined one because they tend to degrade relatively quickly.

Virgin avocado oil also contains chlorophyll, which gives its emerald green colour when. Chlorophyll is filtered out from the refined oil as it makes the oil more liable to photo-oxidation (hence the dark green bottles in which virgin avocado oil is stored).

Even without the phenolic compounds, avocado oil looks like an excellent skin care ingredient. And of course you can always resort to DIY face mask made with avocado pulp, so that you can enjoy all the skin nutrients avocado can offer.

One very interesting thing is that avocado pears will only start to ripen and soften once they are detached from the branches. If not picked or blown down by the wind, they can stay on the tree for many months, sometimes meeting the next generation of fruit. For this one fruit at least ‘ripen at home’ is just as good as buying fully ripe from the shop.

Argan Oil – A Look at its Nutrient Content

Argan oil has been a very popular skin care ingredient in recent years, widely believed to deliver exceptional benefits to the skin. Does it really live up to its fame? And is its popularity entirely deserved or could some of it be just marketing hype?

A study conducted in 2003 at the University of Metz – the only scientific analysis of argan oil that seems to have been published to date (Research info) revealed the following compounds:

Fatty acids: oleic, linoleic, palmitic and stearic
These are useful nutrients with structural and immunologic functions. All four fatty acids found in argan oil are abundant in many other oils, including olive oil and sunflower oil.

Sterols
Like many vegetal oils, argan oil contains phytosterols – specifically schottenol and spinasterol. While phytosterols in general are useful skin care ingredients, there is no evidence to suggest the two sterols in argan oil are better than many other phytosterols, present in other vegetal oils and herbal extracts.

Squalene
Naturally secreted by our skin, squalene is a natural moisturising factor with antioxidant and anti-tumor properties. It is thought squalene secretion peaks in our twenties and declines dramatically after that, so topping it up by applying a squalene-rich moisturiser seems a really good idea. Olives are a well known source of squalene and there are a few other vegetal sources that give a good yield (rice bran, wheat germ and amaranth seeds). The squalene content of argan oil is lower than that of olive oil.

Vitamin E
The vitamin E content of argan oil is slightly higher than that of sunflower oil and more than double the vitamin E content of olive oil.

Phenolic antioxidants
These substances can protect our skin from oxidative damage. There is a long list of phenolic antioxidants found in plants. The ones present in argan oil are vanillic acid, syringic acid, ferulic acid and tyrosol. While they are useful skin care ingredients, none of them are unique to argan oil. Vanillic and syringic acids are also fond in acai oil, as well as in wine and vinegar. Ferulic acid is widely present in cereals and tyrosol is found in olive oil.
The overall phenolic content of argan oil is a lot lower than olive oil’s phenolic content (by a multiple of hundreds) – most of the antioxidant action of argan is due to its vitamin E content.

The research supports the claim that argan oil is a good skin care ingredient, with an excellent vitamin E content, useful fatty acids, sterols and a fair percent of squalene. Is it superior to most other vegetal oils available for cosmetic use? The factual evidence we have so far does not support that idea, but places argan oil in a group of vegetal oils and extracts that make valuable skin care ingredients.

A Natural Cleanser – Moroccan Lava Clay

Lava Clay, also known as Rhassoul or Ghassoul Moroccan clay, has been used as a cleanser for centuries (the Arabic ‘rassala’ means ‘to wash’). The clay is mined from the Atlas Mountains in North West Africa – the only known deposit in the world.

The clay consists entirely of minerals, mostly silica and magnesium oxide, with smaller amounts of aluminium oxide, calcium, iron oxide and a few other minerals at low concentrations.

Its cleansing properties are due to the high surface reactivity of its cations, which bind to fats and impurities. The clay works by absorption only, so it will not alter in any way the structure of the hair or the skin’s structural fat layers. This makes it an excellent cleansing alternative for those with sensitive skin or who cannot use detergents.

How to use lava clay

As a face cleanser
Mix one part clay to two parts water. It will be easier to mix if the clay is added to the water, not the other way round. Spread on the face as you would do with soap and rinse off after a few seconds. The clay will not foam, but it has a soft silky texture and is will spread easily on the skin.

As a body wash
In the way described above, increasing the quantity of product accordingly. The mixture is light brown in colour. Although it might appear to soil your shower cubicle at first, the clay is easily removed with a splash of water, cleaning the cubicle in the process.

As a hair wash
Unlike other natural clays, lava clay is very easily rinsed off. This makes it a good replacement for shampoo.
Make a mixture of one part clay to two parts water or thinner. To wash thicker hair it is better to use a more liquid clay mixture, which will be easier to shift around the hair and scalp. For a light wash, you can remove the clay immediately. If left for a few tens of seconds, it will do a more thorough cleansing job.
Lava clay is suitable for coloured hair, as it will not interfere with hair dyes or henna. It is especially good for fine hair, as it gives volume and makes the hair look glossy and bouncy.
If your tap water is hard, you will get good results by mixing one or two spoonfuls of vinegar in the rinsing water.

I have used lava clay as a shampoo replacement for many years. It keeps my scalp healthy and my hair free from split ends. Any other shampoo makes my hair look flatter and duller by comparison, so I’m pretty certain I will stick to lava clay for the foreseeable future.

Amla – A Wonder Berry?

Known by traditional medicine (Ayurveda and Chinese medicine) for thousands of years, amla has been also investigated by modern science in the last few decades, with many studies highlighting an array of intriguing possibilities.

Amla, or Indian goosberry is the edible fruit of a deciduous tree – Phyllanthus Emblica – growing in subtropical and tropical parts of China, India, Indonesia and the Malay Peninsula. The fruit is fibrous, sour, bitter and astringent, and it combined with salt an spices to make it pallatable.

Scientific research has discovered amla’s potential in an amazingly broad range of medical applications:

• Treating bone loss conditions like rheumatoid arthritis and osteoporosis (Research info)
• Inhibiting cancer cells (Research info)
• Antiviral and antimicrobial, active against an array of pathogens including escherichia coli and Salmonella (Research info)
• Reducing the severity of acute pancreatitis (Research info)
• Reducing blood cholesterol (Research info)

Amla extract is a also a valuable ingredient in skin care:

• The extract promotes pro-collagen production. The same study showed it to be a useful in combating the signs of ageing because of its inhibitory effect on matrix metalloproteinase in human skin fibroblasts (Research info)
• The tannins in amla berrie  – emblicanins, punigluconin  and pedunculagin – are potent antioxidants (Research info)
• Amla leaf extract was shown to poses anti-inflamatory properties (Research info)

I think this is a pretty impressive record for any one herbal extract. I am going to include amla extract in my skin care routine and also try to find a shop that sells the berries. There seem to be plenty of amla capsules available on-line, but I would love to try eating the berries themselves.

What Does “Natural” Really Mean?

The word has been part of the marketing talk of cosmetic brands for many years now. But how much does it actually tell us? The short answer is ‘not a great deal’.

The use of the attribute ”natural” is not regulated. Anyone can make a natural claim without infringing any law. It is not surprising that different manufacturers give it different meanings:

• An ingredient or products obtained from a natural source and processed in a way that avoids adulteration e.g. a plant extract obtained by cold pressing
• An ingredient obtained from a natural source, then processed to alter its chemical properties. Some very natural sounding cosmetic ingredients belong in this category. Take almond butter for instance. The fat extracted from almonds is a liquid oil. To turn in into butter, it has to undergo hydrogenation, whereby hydrogen atoms are added to its molecule. The result is a substance with a different chemical  formula. Sometimes the chemical alteration leads to a substance that shares many properties with the original substance, as in almond butter example. In other cases the end chemical is functionally very different from the source. One example of this is the conversion of coconut oil into Cocamide DEA. The first in a healthy edible fat, the second is a a surfactant used as a foaming or emulsifying agent in toiletries.
• A product that contains mostly natural ingredients, with some added synthetic chemical like preservatives or surfactants.
• A product with only a a small proportion of natural ingredients. These can be included purely to justify putting the description ‘natural’ on the label.

Would it be a good idea to bring more rigour to the definition of the word ‘natural’? At first sight, this might seem to be a worthwhile effort, for the sake of clarity and helping consumers distinguish between various products and brands. At a closer look however, such an initiative would be fraught with difficulties.

1. From a scientific point a view, there is no difference between a substance harvested from a natural source and its synthetic equivalent as long as their chemical formulas are identical.
2. Natural does not mean healthy by default. The reason why we trust ‘natural’ is because we humans have  been exposed to these substances for a very long time and we have come to know the good from the bad. We are in fact still learning about traditional remedies. Take Arnica Montana  – while there is scientific evidence that it reduces inflammation and bruising, it has also been proven to be a skin irritant and a sensitizer.

The conclusion is that each ingredient has to be looked at for its own merits. Reading labels and researching each ingredient in the product you use – although time consuming – is the only reliable way to ensure you get clean, healthy cosmetics. Moisturisers especially are worth the effort. While soaps and cleansers are rinsed off after a few tens of seconds, moisturises will be absorbed into the skin, so they are worth a good check over before giving them your full trust.

The Cleansing Power of Natural Clays

This is one ingredient that cosmetic manufacturers don’t like to talk about very much. Because it is pretty effective on its own. And it often works better than branded face masks with a much higher price tag.

There is also an amazing variety of natural clays, so different skin types will easily find a suitable option:
White clay – gentle, suits sensitive skin.
Green clay – supper absorbent and the most powerful of mineral clays, suits normal skin and works wonders on oily skin prone to breakouts.
Pink clay – the middle way between white and green for gentleness and strength.
Moroccan lava clay – silky and easily rinsed off, can be used by the driest and most sensitive skin types and it can even replace soap, shower gel and shampoo.

How do clays work?
Clays face masks absorb the oils (sebum) from the skin’s surface. A lot of the impurities are bound with these oils But the effect of clay masks goes beyond lifting the sebum. Clay molecules carry a negative electrical charge, while toxins and other impurities on the skin have a positive charge. The exchange of electrons neutralises the toxic substances. While being very effective cleansers, natural clays do not affect the structure of the skin’s natural fat layers (the intracellular matrix). Therefore they are more gentle than chemical exfoliants.

There is one disadvantage – as natural clays come in a dry powder form, you will need to mix your face mask before each application. Pre-mixed products will very likely contain preservatives – what you gain I convenience you lose in wholesomeness. But if you are prepared to do a little DIY skin care, natural clays are both healthy and good value for money.