Dr. Zein Obagi
Retinol and Sensitive Skin
Lots of people think that sensitive skin means that they have delicate or fine skin. NOT! Sensitive skin is weak skin!
No one is born with sensitive skin. And it’s usually just women who complain of sensitive skin–not men or children. Why? It’s because the skin becomes lazy from the use of too much moisturizer, and intolerant from the use of products with perfumes, dyes and additives.
So once people think that they have sensitive skin, they start using products that are weak–which only further weakens their skin! So the problem continues, or gets worse.
In order to successfully treat symptoms—redness, itching, and bumps—we have to improve overall skin quality and reduce the reactive nature of sensitive skin. The best treatment for sensitive skin is a program of skincare products with retinol, because that strengthens skin, and enables skin to renew itself. A skin-strengthening product such as ZO Skin Health’s Radical Night Repair is an important step toward resolving sensitive skin issues. Retinol increases cell turnover which forces the damaged surface cells to slough off, allowing the new healthy cells to emerge. Because Radical Night Repair contains 1% retinol, a natural form of Vitamin A, it replaces what the skin has lost over time, (the ability to stimulate the retinoid-receptor found on every cell) and takes the skin to a new healthier state–and that is important in the treatment of sensitive skin.
The use of retinol, in some cases, can increase skin redness. Although it sounds counter-intuitive, that is why Radical Night Repair is especially great for sensitive skin. ZO Skin Health’s Radical Night Repair uses an encapsulated, time released delivery system that gently delivers the retinol load over a 6 – 8 hour period, while you sleep. We recommend using Radical Night Repair only one night a week, to start. This will gradually increase skin tolerance, and will prepare the skin, so that the treatment can be used more often. Long term regular use of retinol will provide the skin with the vital nutrient, (vitamin A) it needs to be healthier and less reactive to the environment.
Products with high concentrations of retinol will cause peeling, and make your skin more vulnerable to UV rays. So be sure to wear a full spectrum sun protection!
ZO Skin Health
TIP: Under a Lot of Stress? Relax!!!
Have you noticed that people are looking older these days? Could be that they’re not getting their Botox injections as frequently (that’s a fact!) or it could be that they’re under a lot of stress–and that shows up as wrinkles, skin laxity, rosacea and acne.
“The problem,” Dr. Obagi says, “is that stress increases the production of hormones that damage collagen and elastin.” Too much stress also takes the joy out of life–so you’re more likely to frown or scowl, which induces wrinkles.
Take good care of yourself, get plenty of exercise, and try to get 8 hours of sleep per night! Thirty minutes before bedtime, be sure to apply skincare products with retinol–nighttime is the best time to repair your skin. You’ll feel better–and better about yourself–in the morning!
ZO Skin Health
TIP: If you want to feel good, try this cocktail
Dr. Obagi has little patience with people who want a sweet-smelling, feel-good cream and expect it to improve their skin. So he has simple advice for those who just want to feel good: have a martini.
“If you want to look good,” he says, “use products with a high concentration of retinol.”
Then again, there are people who want to do both! For 2008-2009, sales of luxury cosmetics and skincare were up 63%. Sales of vodka were up 81% , and sales of rum were up 226%! Of course, if you drink too much, everyone else will look better too!
productsimple advice for anyone wanting to feel better: have a martini.
ZO Skin Health
What’s Hot in Skincare for Fall (and what’s not!!)
Want to know what is supposed to be hot (and what’s not) in cosmetics/skincare departments this fall? According to the beauty experts at Nordstrom, look for new anti-aging products for boomers and Gen X (born between 1974-1980)! Here’s what these women want–and what they can look forward to:
* Brighteners–they used to be called lighteners, but the new ones target hyperpigmentation and uneven skin tone. Remember the good old days of using baby oil and aluminum foil reflectors, and toasting your skin? Now all of that damage is really surfacing.
* Treatments–with some of the new technologies, you can enhance the penetration of active ingredients and stimulate muscle tone with microcurrent technology. This is a big advance in the state of the art.
* Retinol–it’s now bigger than ever, and better than ever. Everybody is jumping on the bandwagon for Active Vitamin A. But can they catch up with Dr. Obagi’s ZO Skin Health? Well, he’s already one step ahead. We’ll tell you more later! But the beauty experts at Nordstrom said, “Awesome”!
And what has lost popularity with boomers? Natural and organic products. Botanicals are good, but when it comes to anti-aging, people want what really works.
ZO Skin Health
Make Your Skincare Wishes Come True Part II
We recently asked our Facebook fans to share with us their ONE skincare wish. The “wishes” were as diverse as the women themselves. What many of them didn’t realize is that they can easily make their own skincare wish come true.
ZO Skin Health’s founder, Dr. Zein Obagi, thinks of skin like algebra. Every problem has a solution. Here, we follow-up where we left off Friday, and show the ladies who replied to our Facebook post the cause and solution to their skincare wishes. Take a look. And, to participate in our future Facebook conversations, follow us here.
ARLENE’S WISH: To find one moisturizer for combination skin (super oily and super dry).
Cause: Other than the weather, this can be caused by aging and hormonal changes. Some people start out with dry skin and then develop combination skin when puberty hits. Others start with oily skin and develop combination skin when hitting their 30’s.
Solution: We want to create a balance, to dry out the oily parts and hydrate the dry ones. Ommerse Daily Renewal Crème might just be your answer. It provides the excellent hydration your dry areas need, but the Hyaluronic Acid controls the oiliness, too.
KATHLEEN’S WISH: To get rid of dark spots.
Cause: You can usually blame sun exposure for age spots that aren’t brought on by a medical condition, like melasma.
Solution: SPF will help ward off new ones (the beauty experts never stop raving about Oclipse), but to work on existing age spots, our Daily Power Defense helps to fade their appearance. Its two forms of Vitamin-C make it work overtime, even lightening up unwanted freckles.
KATHLEEN’S SECOND WISH: To get rid of wrinkles.
Cause: The older we get, the more inactive our skin cells become. When they go dormant, the signs of aging emerge.
Solution: Wake up those skin cells! The best weapon you’ve got against dormant skin cells is Retinol, the only ingredient the FDA recognizes for stimulating collagen and elastin. It’s a hero ingredient, which is why Radical Night Repair Plus is a superhero product. It contains 10 times more Retinol than the competition.
**A special shout-out to Teresa, who had a wish, but has found what looks to be the solution in the ZO products. Glad your dark spots are improving, Teresa!
ZO Skin Health
You Multitask — So Should Your Skincare.
If you know how to do five things at once, most business professionals would refer to you as a fine multitasker, but you know better. You know it actually means you’re a fine example of today’s modern woman. You know that to get everything you want out of life, multitasking isn’t a choice, but a requirement.
The same can be said for your skincare. To get everything you want for your skin, your products simply must multitask. If anyone can appreciate this concept, it’s today’s modern woman: YOU.
That’s why Dr. Zein Obagi created products like ZO Skin Health’s Oraser Body Emulsion. Similar to your Blackberry, it accomplishes a multitude of tasks at once. We’re talking hydration, exfoliation, hyperpigmentation reduction, wrinkle prevention and wrinkle reduction. How? The ingredients are your personal skincare dream team: Retinol; Lactic Acid; Glucosamine; Vitamin E and Coenzyme Q10.
Dr. Obagi formulated this product with supreme efficiency because he could. When he sees an opportunity to give you the kind of product that works as hard as you do, he seizes it. He firmly believes that if skincare companies truly want your skin to have it all, they need to start giving it their all.
That was his thinking when he formulated Oraser Daily Hand Repair SPF 20. This product is a workaholic. It improves age spots, wrinkles and hyperpigmentation. At the same time it’s protecting your hands from free radicals and blocking UVA/UVB rays. Oclipse Sunscreen + Primer SPF 30 gives 200 percent, too. It protects your face from the sun’s harmful rays AND acts as a primer under your makeup. We’re not done. On top of that, it’s tinted, so that natural glow you’ve got? You’re welcome.
You know what it’s like to work hard. Isn’t it time you knew what it’s like for something to work hard for you? That’s what we thought.
ZO Skin Health
We Know What Mom Really Wants
You can call the local florist and have them arrange the biggest bouquet she’s ever seen. Or you can take her to brunch at that impossible-to-get-reservations restaurant downtown. But flowers wither and food digests.
This Mother’s Day, give your mom something she can appreciate every day: beautiful skin.
For the no-nonsense mom who never lets anything slip past her: Synergy Pack. With Radical Night Repair Plus’ high concentration of Retinol, you’re truly giving her an aggressive plan of attack on aging a woman like her can appreciate. But, if Mom’s skin can’t handle an approach as tough as she is, Ommerse Daily Renewal Crème calms things down.
For the mom who always thinks of everything: DNA Repair Program Kit. Like her, it covers all the bases. It starts with clean skin, which Exfoliating Cleanser delivers. Daily Power Defense incorporates pure Retinol to fight the good fight. Growth Factor Serum firms and tones and who could forget SPF? Certainly not this mom and she’ll love that ours doubles as a primer, too.
For the mom who means well: Anti-Aging Hand Care Program. She’s been so busy trying to minimize the wrinkles on her face that she forgot all about her hands. Microderm Hand Renewal, Daily Hand Repair and Overnight Hand Recovery can soon change that, though. Dead skin cells will slough off, age spots will fade and wrinkles will improve.
You have six shopping days left. Here’s where you can pick up the gifts that keep on giving.
ZO Skin Health
Ingredients: Know What to Look For
When you get serious about skincare, ingredients become priority number one. As a formulator, that is the way I develop my products. I don’t have time to waste on the ineffective stuff and neither do you. But I often hear women express that they just don’t know which ingredients are the real deal.
Is it pure caviar, shavings of 14 karat gold or particles from an exotic fruit everyone seems to pronounce differently?
None of the above. It’s much more simple than that — and nowhere near as sexy. Take a look:
Let’s start with the anti-oxidants. They protect your skin cells from UV damage, pollution and free radicals. The most common ones (and the most important !) are Vitamins A, C and E.
Retinol (aka Active Vitamin A): This ingredient’s main function is skin cell turnover, which produces collagen — the stuff your skin had a lot of in its prime. If you’re familiar with my skincare philosophy then you know the key to younger looking skin lies in keeping skin cells active. When they go to sleep — a result of aging —fine lines, dull skin and wrinkles form. Retinol is like a bucket of cold water to sleepy skin cells. Continued use of it in high concentrations wakes cells right up and puts them straight to work.
Active Vitamin C: This is another antioxidant, but it works differently — it helps synthesize collagen. This property lends a very valuable feature to your skin in that it stabilizes free radicals and in doing so protects healthy cells from getting damaged. In English? It’s an excellent preventative measure against wrinkles as well as the photoaging sun exposure can cause.
Vitamin E: It helps protect the skin from UV rays and, as an added bonus, softens and smoothes, too.
Be advised: Retinol is a pure and active derivative of Vitamin A. If you use a synthetic form of Vitamin A, or take oral supplements of these vitamins, you simply will not achieve the same results. It just doesn’t work that way.
Be advised: Vitamins A and C have to be properly stabilized, packaged and stored. They can’t be exposed to light or UV rays or the formula could turn colors, or just go inactive. If isn’t stabilized then it oxidizes and turns yellowish or dark when exposed to air or water, essentially spoiling it.
ZO Skin Health
Getting Older? Looking Older Too? Here’s How to Reverse that Trend.
Dermatologists like to tell people what they can do to treat lines and wrinkles caused by UV damage/wind/smoke, etc. It’s easy. There are lots of good ingredients for treating environmental aging.
But intrinsic aging—meaning, you and your skin are just getting older—is different. Until recently, if you asked dermatologists what ingredient worked best–hmmm, they would twittle their fingers, rub their fingers through their hair…because they didn’t know what ingredients worked for natural skin aging! But now, that’s changed…we have something to say to people who are getting older (and look that way!)
Intrinsic skin aging (aka natural or chronological aging) looks a little different from environmental skin aging. With intrinsic aging, the wrinkles are finer, and the skin gets thinner and more lax. Environmental factors, on the other hand, cause deeper wrinkles and hyperpigmentation.
John Voorhees, MD, and his team at the University of Michigan, did a test on the underside of the upper arms of older women—and found that high concentrations of retinol significantly reduced wrinkles and other signs of aging. The study was controlled (meaning that one arm was tested; one was not) and double-blind (meaning that neither the researcher nor the subject knew what products were being tested). The underside of the arms have never been exposed to the sun, so it’s easy to isolate skin aged due to natural causes.
The conclusion: high concentrations of retinol successfully treat intrinsic aging due to retinol’s ability to stimulate collagen and retain water. As Dr. Voorhees said, “this is the first systematic, double-blind study showing that it (retinol) improves any kind of aging – photoaging as well as natural aging. You can rub it anywhere, and it will help to treat the signs of aging.”
The study was widely reported, but first published in the Archives of Dermatology.
That’s why I’m so committed to ZO Skin Health’s Radical Night Repair Plus. Whether you’re concerned about environmental skin aging, or natural skin aging… Whether you’re concerned about your face or your arms, retinol—properly formulated—can make a big improvement.
ZO Skin Health
Pushing the Envelope–with 1% Retinol
It’s true; I do like to “push the envelope”. For me, “pretty good” is not good enough. That’s why in my new Radical Night Repair Plus, I amp’ed up the formula to put in 1% retinol. That may not sound like much, but to your skin–it’s a whole lot! Here’s why:
Retinol is the most effective topical ingredient for anti-aging—and the only one that is clinically proven. But for it to be effective, it has to reach a concentration in the skin of at least .60-.70%.
Typical drug-store retinol products (even the best selling one!) only contain about .15%—not enough to make a meaningful difference. No matter how much you put on—you can put it on all night—you’ll never reach .60%.
With a 1% concentration—like Ossential® Radical Night Repair Plus, you can activate and stimulate your skin cells so that they begin producing collagen and accelerate cellular turnover.
Scientists agree that an even higher concentration (for ex., 2% or 3% or 4%) would be even more effective, however the product would be unacceptably irritating. 1% is the ideal “cap rate”—the greatest concentration of retinol, with little or no irritation.
Please use Radical Night Repair gradually and apply according to label directions. Do not use in combination with other nighttime skincare products that may compete with it or induce irritation.
