Skin Care News & Specials

A monthly e-zine from GreatSkin®.com
May, 2003
Mark Van Wormer, MD, ABAAM - Publisher

In This Issue:

» Hold on to Your Youthful Looks Without Surgery!

» Which GreatSkin® C Serum is best for MY SKIN?
    (The Difference between the two Greatskin® Vitamin C Serums)

Hold on to Your Youthful Looks Without Surgery!
Fighting Free Radical Damage with Potent Anti-Oxidants

By Lori Van Wormer, L.E.

How would you like to hold onto your youthful looks well into your later years without resorting to cosmetic or plastic surgery? Time isn’t as much of an enemy to our skin as are the dangerous free radicals caused by sun exposure, cigarette smoking, excess alcohol, environmental toxins, stress, poor diet, and lack of sleep. As we know, these free radicals can break down our skin’s collagen and elastin causing lines, wrinkles, and sagging of the skin. We need powerful anti-oxidants to

Lori’s Beauty Tip of the Month “Apply C Serum Daily right after cleansing and toning the skin followed by either the ‘All In One Scalpel-Less® Facelift’ Serum or Cream. Your complexion will be radiant!”

fight and prevent this potential damage.

Vitamin C Serum has long been and still is my favorite anti oxidant, however, there are a few new, highly effective anti-oxidants and ingredients that can even optimize and boost the effects of Vitamin C. They are: Alpha Lipoic Acid, DMAE, CoQ10, Grapeseed Extract, Pycnogenol, Copper, Zinc, L Carnitine, Vitamin A, and Vitamin E.

• Alpha Lipoic Acid not only can increase the positive effects of other anti-oxidants like Vitamin C, but can also increase our cells metabolism (which slows down as we age) meaning that the cell increases its energy production and capacity to heal. Alpha Lipoic used in conjunction with Vitamin C can reduce inflammation, enlarged pores, acne scars, lines, wrinkles, sallow, dull skin as well as puffy eyes or dark under eye circles.
• DMAE stimulates nerve function and the muscles to contract and tighten under the skin. When mixed with other amino acids, vitamins, and nutrients, it has dramatic firming effects on the skin resulting in increased smoothness, brightness, and line reduction.
• CoQ10 protects the cell membranes from free radical damage.
• Pycnogenol and Grapeseed Extract are both powerful anti-oxidants that help protect the collagen in our skin.
• Copper and Zinc both help the production of enzymes and can help with firming of the skin.
• L Carnitine helps repair damage already visible and helps to repair and reverse it.
• As we already know, Vitamin A as in Retin A can help both acne and lines and wrinkles.
• Vitamin E not only smoothes the skin helping to diminish lines and wrinkles, but also has anti-oxidant abilities to protect from further damage.

How would you like all of these wonderful ingredients in one product to help you have the gorgeous skin that you desire? GreatSkin® is proud to announce our new “All In One Scalpel-Less® Facelift” Cream (for combination to dry skin) and Serum (for either sensitive or combination to oily skin) which contains all of those ingredients. All you will need for continued, fresh, youthful skin is our GreatSkin® C Serum used in conjunction with the “All In One Scalpel-Less® Facelift” Cream and Serum.

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“Which GreatSkin® C Serum is best for MY SKIN?”
The Difference between Ester C® and L-Ascorbic Acid

By Mark E Van Wormer, MD
Director, GreatSkin® Med-Surge Spas of the Southwest

Many of our clients are confused as to which type of Vitamin C product they should be using topically. The following summarizes the unique features of the GreatSkin® C Serum with Ester C® as opposed to the GreatSkin® 25% L-Ascorbic Acid Serum.

L-Ascorbic Acid is Vitamin C in its raw, natural, “levorotary” (“L” means “levo-rotary,” or the Vitamin C crystal rotates a beam of polarized light to the left) form. This molecule is highly unstable and requires that it be dissolved in a very low pH medium, (pH about 2 .0) and be protected from light as it oxidizes, losing its potency, very rapidly when exposed to light or air. (This is why fruit quickly turns brown when peeled and left to the air). The original studies by

Dr. Mark says: “For Antioxidant therapy to be effective on the skin, one must use a broad variety of free radical scavengers simultaneously such as Vitamin C, Alpha Lipoic Acid, Pycnogenol, DMAE, etc., for the electron transport cascade to work effectively.”

Sheldon Pinnel, MD (the world’s foremost researcher on the effects of Vitamin C on the skin) used raw concentrations of L-Ascorbic acid in various low pH mediums in order to detect their effects on porcine and human skin. It turns out that concentrations of about 20% and pH’s of the suspending medium of about 2.1 are optimal for absorption in the skin. At this concentration and pH, the solution stings a little when applied, and is fairly unstable with a shelf life of no more than about 30 days when at least 50% loss in potency of the L-Ascorbic acid occurs.

Ester C® is a patented group of Ascorbic Acid “mineral ascorbates.” This means that the Vitamin C is compounded with certain minerals: calcium, zinc, and threonate to be pH neutral, free of rapid oxidation degradation and truly bioavailable to the deep tissues of the skin to enhance collagen and elastin growth. Ester C® has topically been studied and shown to penetrate deep into the dermis where collagen and elastin growth occur. It has a very long half life (more than 2 years). It is not ascorbyl palmitate or ascorbyl phosphate, which are esters of Vitamin C and much less effective than L-Ascorbic Acid. Instead, Ester C® is really a misnomer, not an ester, but a mineral ascorbate. Mineral ascorbates are much more bioavailable to the skin than esters of Vitamin C.

In summary, Ester C® is a pH neutral (no pain, stinging or skin irritation), L-Ascorbic Acid mineral complex which protects it from rapid oxidation yielding a stable, long shelf life solution, yet delivers the same wonderful benefits of topic L-Ascorbic acid. Those benefits are

1. Photoprotection from UVA and UVB irradiation
2. Powerful free radical scavenging
3. Stimulation of collagen and elastin growth.

Why would a client choose to use the L-Ascorbic 25% C serum? First, this is a highly concentrated l-Ascorbic Acid product, more concentrated and powerful than any other on the market today. Second, the product contains hyaluronic acid, which is a wonderful natural moisturizing agent. It may sting transiently when applied, but this diminishes rapidly. The results of using this product are exceptional. We recommend this product for all normal skin types; the GreatSkin® C Serum with Ester C® for more sensitive types.

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