By Hannah Sivak, PhD

Skin Actives Scientific LLC

If there is something I dislike is fear mongering. There have

always been fear mongers, people who scare other people to make money or

just for fun. These days, the category is been enriched daily with the

help of the Internet: anybody can start a website with a few dollars and

can start spreading false rumors and plain lies. These people try to

convince others that we are being poisoned by big companies aided by

complicit government agencies, and conspiracy plots are everywhere.

Sunblock will poison you, preservatives used in food and cosmetics

poison the environment and this is why we are living much shorter lives

and are sicker than our forebears. Except, of course, that this is not

true, and we, in the USA and Europe and other developed countries, are

living healthier and longer lives than ever before.

What we eat and what we use on our skin is safe. But, some companies, in their pursuit of novelty and marketing fluff are

using ingredients that it is silly to use, because their possible

benefits are so small and the risks, however small and theoretical, are

not worth taking.

Ingredients I don’t like: anything containing human (or other mammalian) cells or

tissue extracts. Mammal cells or tissue extracts may

contain viral particles or prions, the agent suspected of causing mad

cow disease.

TNS, for example, is discarded media used to culture human cells. It

may contain some useful growth factors, but will also contain useless

waste products excreted by the cultured cells and there is always the

possibility of presence of viruses and other infectious agents.

Perricone’s “neuropeptides” have no research whatsoever supporting his

claim to be beneficial, but even without any information on their

source, the only “almost legal” source of them can be the thymus of cows

or other mammals. I don’t think we will ever know where those were

obtained from.

The now infamous “eyelash growth factor” used by Jan Marini turned out

to be a prescription medication (please see my guide on the subject).

Other distasteful (but not dangerous) ingredients are those obtained

from species in danger of extinction. For example, “Ocean Actives”

claims that they obtain squalene from the liver of a species of deep sea

shark in danger of extinction. What is the point when you can obtain the

same chemical from corn? Just the novelty value.

We at Skin Actives recognize the value of proteins found in human cells

but don’t want to use any ingredient capable of including infectious

agents. The answer is high tech biochemistry: making perfect imitations

of human proteins in the laboratory. If there are peptides that we want,

make synthetic copies in the laboratory. This way, we ensure that the

actives are safe and we can sleep well at night, without worrying about

risks that are small but unnecessary.

For safe and effective actives, use Skin Actives Scientific products and

those by reputable companies that are not using silly ingrediets “just because”.