If you’ve read about skin care you’ll come across the role of collagen. What is collagen, what does it do and do collagen supplements work?

Collagen. It’s one of the most important proteins in our bodies, and in our skin. Collagen basically holds us together.

You’ll find collagen in most areas of our bodies. Collagen exists in our bones, our cartilege, our teeth, tendons, blood vessels and more, including, of course, our skin.

Collagen is a very strong protein, and forms strands or fibers which are extremely strong, and add to our bodies ability to hold itself together.

And in our skin collagen, along with other essential skin components like elastin, helps maintain our skin strength and elasticity.

When we age we lose collagen in our skin, and elastin, and so our stores of skin collagen and elastin deplete. So, for example, our skin loses it’s ability to hold itself together quite as well, and is less elastic. It begins to sag under the influence of gravity, and this is what causes our wrinkles and lines and crows feet that we see beginning to form on our faces as we age.

So obviously if we lose collagen and elastin as we age, and this loss of collagen and elastin causes skin problems like wrinkles, we need to supplement our collagen and elastin stores to reduce the aging effect.

Yes absolutely. But here’s the rub. It’s not that easy. And although it’s possible to buy various products with collagen in them, like collagen pills or collagen supplements and many brands of anti aging skin care products, they don’t really add to our skin collagen, so don’t work.

Here’s an interesting article about collagen in our skin, as well as other parts of our body, and about how it works, (or doesn’t).

So what about collagen in skincare products? Doesn’t that replace our lost skin collagen? Sadly no. You’ll see from that article that collagen molecules (and elastin molecules) are too big to penetrate the skin, so remain on the skin surface. They do nothing.

Actually that’s not true. They do something. They help sell the product because people buy products like moisturizers, night creams and other skin care creams and anti aging creams if they see collagen and elastin listed on the label. And that’s why they’re there.

But they do nothing for your skin.

That’s why Cynergy TK is such a stunning new innovation in skin care. For the first time it’s possible to improve our skin’s  store of collagen, not by just rubbing collagen on or taking collagen pills or collagen supplements, but by actually stimulating the skin to produce more of it’s own collagen.

It’s a complete breakthrough in skin care. One of the most important discoveries in skin care science ever.

Read more from our site about Cynergy TK or find out more about Cynergy TK at Xtend Life, the natural skin care company that makes products that use Cynergy TK, and which are the worlds best skin care products.

And why don’t the big brand skincare companies use Cynergy TK? Read the rest of this entry

Get the finest (and safest) organic and natural skin care products on the planet. HERE

Written by - Natural Health

(And make sure you read our page about Natural Skin Care, it's quite an eye opener about modern skin care products.)

This is how you tell if a cosmetics or skin care company has a commitment to product safety.

We’ve talked elsewhere about the Campaign For Safe Cosmetics. It’s an organization set up to monitor the ingredients used in the cosmetics and skin care products and anti aging products and all those other beauty and personal care products that you, and just about everyone else, uses every day.

It’s a sad indictment that there is any need for an organization like the Campaign For Safe Cosmetics. Surely we should expect that any product that we put on or into our bodies must automatically be safe for us to use. But sadly that’s not the case, and there are many instances of products containing ingredients that are known to be hazardous to human use.

Like the lead found in many of the big brand name lipsticks recently tested. Or the new Environmental Working Group report, just a month old, finding hormone disrupting chemicals in many cosmetics and body care products, and then finding that many of our teenage girls had up to 16 of these toxic chemicals in their bodies.

So the Campaign For Safe Cosmetics has a “Compact For Safe Cosmetics” (there’s a bit of a pun there) for cosmetics, skincare and personal and beauty care product manufacturers to evidence their commitment to product safety.

How does it work? Well any company that produces a line of cosmetics or other products and is prepared to sign the Compact can do so, and by doing so it commits itself to the following:

That all of the cosmetics and personal care products made by our company anywhere in the world meet the formulation standards and deadlines set by the European Union Directive 76/768/EEC to be free of chemicals that are known or strongly suspected of causing cancer, mutation or birth defects. To implement substitution plans that replace hazardous materials with safer alternatives within three years. We will accomplish this by: * Conducting an inventory of potential chemicals of concern in our products (or byproducts) to determine their toxicity to living things, their persistence in the environment, their ability to increase in concentration in the food chain, their contamination of our bodies, or qualities they possess that pose hazards including carcinogens, endocrine disrupters, sensitizers, mutagens, reproductive toxins, developmental toxins and neurotoxins * Developing an aggressive substitution plan and timeline: to move to safer materials, prioritizing for substitution those compounds internationally recognized as most toxic; to provide for an ongoing review of safer materials and chemicals as effective, cost-competitive alternatives are available, and; to work with upstream suppliers to provide toxicity data on chemicals in products. * Publicly reporting on progress to meet these goals.

Oh, and the European directive is basically this. Whilst the US has done very little to attempt to control the use of dangerous chemicals in cosmetics and skincare products and body care products the European Union has, and has a directive banning “the use of chemicals that are known or strongly suspected of causing cancer, mutation or birth defects.”

There are many companies that have signed the Compact For Safe Cosmetics, including Xtend Life who, we believe, make the best, and safest skin care products in the world. And Ferro Cosmetics who make a wonderful line of safe, effective cosmetics.

Both wonderful manufacturers of safe, effective products that you and your daughters can use with confidence. Read the rest of this entry

Get the finest (and safest) organic and natural skin care products on the planet. HERE

Written by - Natural Health

(And make sure you read our page about Natural Skin Care, it's quite an eye opener about modern skin care products.)