You can provide natural skin sun protection and help reverse skin damaged by UV radiation.

Here on our website we have mentioned over and over again that one of the best things you can do to maintain great looking skin is to prevent skin sun damage. Excess exposure to the ultraviolet radiation in sunlight can create all sorts of damage to your skin and this will result in premature and excessive skin aging.

The best way to avoid skin sun damage is to stay out of the sun during the hottest time of the day, particularly during summer. If you are unable to do this then wear a good sun hat and long sleeved shirt.

These provide excellent skin sun protection, however even wearing the right hat and clothes may not give you 100 percent protection. For instance even though a hat may shade your face it will not do so all the time. It is quite possible of course to buy sunscreens, however there is now evidence that not all sunscreens provide sufficient UV protection, particularly against UVA, for us to rely on.

However there are also natural sunscreens available that help prevent sun damaged skin by increasing our natural protection against ultraviolet radiation. One of these is called lycopene. And not only does it provide some protection against the ravages of ultraviolet radiation but studies are showing that it can also help reverse some of the more damaging effects of excessive sun exposure.

You may have heard of lycopene. It comes from tomatoes as well as a few other vegetables and has been studied extensively for many of its health giving properties. For instance studies are now suggesting that an adequate level of lycopene in the diet can help protect against prostate cancer in men and breast cancer in women. However studies are also demonstrating that lycopene has an effect as a natural sunscreen helping your skin stay younger by preventing sun damage, and that increasing the intake of lycopene in the diet can help reverse some of the damaging effects of ultraviolet radiation.

Sun damage to the skin is called photo-aging. Photo-aging from excessive ultraviolet radiation means that your skin begins to look older, drier and more wrinkled and, over time, can even begin to look leathery. It is possible to reverse some of the effects of photo-aging, and the use of lycopene is one of the ways of doing this. Studies are showing that increasing the intake of lycopene can help smooth your skin as well as increasing skin thickness and density.

Of course simply increasing the amount of tomatoes and tomato based products in your diet will increase your intake of lycopene, thereby giving you the benefits of this natural sunscreen as well as starting to reverse some of the damage your skin has probably suffered from excessive ultraviolet radiation over the years. And if the studies are correct it will also help provide men with some protection against prostate cancer and women with some protection against breast cancer.

However there are other ways to increase your intake of lycopene to help reverse sun damage to skin that has had too many days in the sun. There are products formulated which include lycopene as an active ingredient and which combine a range of other ingredients also known to be beneficial to improved skin health.

For example it is known that omega 3 fatty acids, namely DHA and EPA, that are found in fish and fish products are beneficial to improving the health of your skin. Omega 3 fatty acids are particularly effective in helping reduce inflammation, and reducing inflammation can improve skin health. There are skin problems caused by inflammation and omega 3 helps combat these problems. Omega 3 fatty acids are extremely similar to the composition of natural skin oils produced in the skin itself and they are therefore also an effective moisturiser.

Astaxanthin has also been shown to have properties to help improve the health of your skin. Astaxanthin has been found to help improve skin moisture content and this in turn will help reduce the appearance of wrinkles. It is also another natural sunscreen that helps provide you some further skin sun protection. It is also known to help reduce skin reddening.

In some circles lycopene has been touted at the latest miracle ingredient and path to optimum health. Whilst these claims are usually excessive for just about any natural (or unnatural) ingredient, it does seem that the science is showing that increasing our intake of lycopene may have some beneficial effects for your skin as well as some other aspects of your health.

It is possible to source a product that combines lycopene with omega 3 essential fatty acids as well as Astaxanthin, all in one supplement. Xtend Life produces a premium omega 3 supplement that includes lycopene and Astaxanthin, thereby combining the skin health benefits of all 3 in one capsule.

Simply taking these improved omega 3 supplements should help you protect your skin and reverse some of the effects of sun damage on your skin as well as provide a degree of natural sun protection. However for optimum skin care it is necessary to supplement the use of these high quality omega 3 capsules with the application of top shelf natural skin care products. Xtend Life, who make the Omega3 supplements to which we have already referred also make what we consider to be the worlds finest range of natural skin care products.

Combine the use of high quality premium omega 3 supplements containing lycopene and Astaxanthin with high quality natural skin care products and you’re well on your way to improving your skin health and looks.

Every year science is finding new ingredients from such natural sources as tomatoes that have important implications for many areas of our overall health, as well as for our skin health. Cutting-edge science investigates these ingredients, and cutting edge health care and skin care companies produce the products which can be taken by the average person such as yourself. 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.)

What powerful reasons are there for you to choose a natural moisturiser, and what do mice have to do with it?

There’s powerful reasons to choose a natural moisturiser. Mice need one, for reasons which you’ll find out about soon, but for the same reason humans should also seriously consider using a natural moisturiser rather than so many of the mainstream moisturisers that you see on the shelves of your local store.

If you’ve read our site you will see that we talk extensively about some of the dangerous ingredients found in skin care and anti aging products such as moisturisers. A study published in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology highlighted some of the risks that mice, and you, take when using chemical laden modern moisturisers.

This was a study undertaken to see if caffeine caused cancer in mice. As part of the study a group of mice received 5 applications of moisturiser per day for 17 weeks. Although it was not intended to study this, the researchers found that the application of the moisturising cream to the mice “increased significantly the rate of formation of tumors and the rate of increase in tumor size per mouse”. In other words the use of moisturiser on the skin of mice increased the rate of formation of skin cancer for those mice.

In fact the use of moisturiser on these mice “increased the total number of histologically characterized tumors by 69%”. 69% is a very significant increase in the risk of skin cancer to those mice. Now of course this refers to mice not people. A 69% increase in the risk of skin cancer in people would be worrying indeed, however that may be the ultimate conclusion to be drawn. Of course this was not studied on people, but the obvious conclusion is still there.

However to understand why natural moisturising is so preferable to using chemical laden mainstream moisturisers you need to know something about the moisturisers that were used as a part of the experiment. You see the moisturisers that were used were Dermabase, Dermovan, Eucerin Original Moisturizing Cream (Eucerin), or Vanicream. And each of these moisturisers contain mineral oil and sodium lauryl sulphate.

We’ve talked about mineral oil in skin care products such as moisturisers on this website before. Mineral oil is a common ingredient in a wide range of personal products such as skin care and anti aging products, cosmetics and much more. It is a petrochemical byproduct and is used in these products because it is incredibly cheap. However there are serious health issues involved in using products on your skin containing mineral oil. Just ask the mice.

We haven’t talked about sodium lauryl sulphate on this website before. You may know about sodium lauryl sulphate because it’s been in the news a lot because it’s found extensively in personal products such as soaps and shampoos and there are also serious health concerns raised from applying products to your skin that contains sodium lauryl sulphate. It’s also in some moisturisers.

Of course the mere fact that moisturisers containing mineral oil and sodium lauryl sulphate, when applied to the skin of mice, can increase the risk of formation of skin cancers by 69% doesn’t prove that the mineral oil and sodium lauryl sulphate caused the skin cancer. However there is one more fact that you should be aware of.

The researchers were so surprised by the unexpected results of the study that they did the study again using a moisturiser that didn’t contain mineral oil or sodium lauryl sulphate. Using this more natural moisturiser they found that there was no increase in the risk of skin cancer to the mice at all.

Now you may be beginning to see why so many people are choosing to use products such as natural face moisturisers and natural anti aging products that don’t contain so many of these chemical ingredients. And that’s why there are entire organisations such as the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics that have been set up to combat the proliferation of chemical ingredients in our personal products.

The sad fact is that there are many natural ingredients that can be used in natural facial moisturisers which are known to work exceedingly well at both moisturising the skin as well as promoting better overall skin health, but they are very rarely used by the mainstream anti aging companies because they are much more expensive than chemical ingredients like mineral oil and sodium lauryl sulphate.

You may now be getting more interested in natural moisturising after you’ve read about the study, and there’s many many more studies confirming the risks of applying mainstream skin care products to your skin which contain so many chemical and petrochemical ingredients. If you’re interested to find out more then read these pages from the Cosmetic Safety Database. Read more about mineral oil, and about sodium lauryl sulphate.

Products such as avocado oil and macadamia oil can do wonders for your skin, they are excellent natural moisturisers. They are, of course, completely safe and have been eaten for centuries in total safety. And the good news is that there are excellent niche skin care companies that make natural skin care products such as natural moisturisers using ingredients like these which are both safe for your skin and your health and highly effective at better skin care.

One company in particular which makes what we consider to be the worlds best skin care products doesn’t actually make a moisturiser at all. This is because it uses a wide range of natural ingredients in it’s products all of which have excellent properties as natural moisturisers, and therefore all their skin care products moisturise effectively, and there is no need for them to produce a dedicated moisturiser.

Hopefully now that you’ve read about the study you can understand our headline to this story and understand the significance of the mice. Those mice, if they were able to, would be searching for a natural moisturiser just like you should be. 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.)