Why you should Spend Your Money On Quality Skin Care Products

Nailing down your skincare routine is an important part of your beauty routine. Good Quality products can help your skin look better now as well as in the future. However, using ineffective, low-quality products can be ineffective and even cause harm. A good Skin care routine is only as good as the products you use. Preventing skin problems is easier and less costly than trying to fix them in the future.                                           

Benefits of using Quality Skin Care Products

When considering Skincare, it's important to reach for good high-quality products that feature helpful Ingredients to resist the sign of aging, dehydration, and address skin concerns. Some benefits of good skin care include:

• Quality Ingredients: similar to the benefits that healthy food provides for your body, quality skincare ingredients can improve your skin.
• Protection from environmental damages
• Help fight the effects of aging, Such as wrinkles and sunspots
• Result for money: even if quality products cost more in some cases, they're worth the money
• Maintain a youthful Look. The older you get, the longer it takes for your skin's cells to turn over. This causes your skin to look dull and less radiant; but the good news is, Quality skincare can help! By using high-quality skincare products such as quality moisturizing cream, you can encourage your skin cells turnover and bring back your youthful glow.

Reasons why you should avoid Poor-Quality Skin-Care products

Poor Quality skincare  products are more likely to cause the following negative effects:

1. Ineffective results
2. Skin Infections
3. Allergic reactions
4. Worsen existing Skin problems, etc

Identifying skin lightening agents in cosmetics

What’s in your moisturizer? If it claims to ‘brighten’ your skin or ‘even out’ skin tone, it probably contains skin-bleaching agents. But finding out what those agents are can often be virtually impossible. These products might be legal, given that they are so widely available, how would the average person know what it is in them and whether the contents are harmful? 

If you google skin-bleaching products, the first thing that comes up is hydroquinone. This chemical can give the effect that many are looking for, but high levels of hydroquinone in products are dangerous, and excessive use is harmful to the skin.

I came across a research paper published by Waters Corporation, an organization with its headquarters in Massachusetts, which designs analytical technologies. In the study, chemists used a method called UHPLC (ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography) to identify skin-lightening agents in cosmetic products. By separating the different components of the products, they aimed to identify the percentages of pharmaceutical ingredients – such as hydroquinone, corticosteroids, and tretinoin – in these misleadingly labeled ‘cosmetic’ products.

Corticosteroids are drugs used to treat inflammatory skin conditions such as eczema and psoriasis, and long-term use can cause permanent skin damage, and even high blood pressure and diabetes. Tretinoin is a derivative of vitamin A and is used to treat acne. Both tretinoin and corticosteroids help lighten skin.

The scientists at Waters Corporation found that several of the samples bought online tested positive for skin-lightening agents that are not legal in cosmetic products. The labels were misleading and, in some cases, the skin-lightening agents were not listed on the product leaflets inside the boxes, making it more likely that people would use the products long-term, and suffer adverse side effects.

Skin bleaching seems to be very addictive, like taking drugs or drinking alcohol to excess. The women who use the products know they’re harmful, but they are addicted to that look; as long as they get the ‘glow’ they are looking for, they don’t think about the damage.

It would be perfect if there was a way of home testing your cosmetics to see if they contain harmful components. Here are some tips below:

1) Pour out a small amount of your cream/lotion in another container leave it open don't cover it. Let's it be exposed for 2days if the lotion/cream turns brown then its has hydroquinone. A lotion or cream with hydroquinone will lighten/whiten you in less than a week, a natural-made product can never do that.

2) Hypo/Bleach test for Cream: can also be used to test if your lotion oxidizes. Get two samples of cream (for comparison) add a drop of Hypo bleach or any bleach available to each sample and stir. Any of the samples that changes colour after stirring actually oxidized. You can use Your cream as sample A, then any Oriflame Product as sample B

NOTE: Hydroquinone is not bad; but excessive/misuse of it is. It has been made to fight skin conditions like hyperpigmentation and to fill spots. Although it is not a naturally derived ingredient.

Skin Health Day: ‘Organic creams’ in Nigeria can cause cancer – Dermatologists

The Nigeria Association of Dermatologists have warned that using mixed skin creams, commonly known as “organic creams”, constituted more danger than good.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the medical doctors held the campaign to commemorate the 2019 World Skin Health Day, tagged “Skin Care and Sun Protection”.

A consultant dermatologist, Ngozi Akueme, said that many of the organic skin products, which have become major beauty trends, contain high doses of steroids and harmful chemicals including hydroquinone.

“There are a lot of people who market this beauty trend of mixed cream and are quote clever on how they label it, they don’t call it bleaching cream but organic whitening or lightening creams.

“They tell you they mixed their skin products from the scratch, saying it is all-organic and natural, however, those creams contain are steroids, hydroquinone and mercury at a very high level.

“For instance, the hydroquinone in the ideal over-the-counter skincare creams shouldn’t be above two percent, but you will be amazed that we are finding organic creams containing as high as 13 percent in Nigerian markets.

“Studies are ongoing to determine what each of these creams contain and in the nearest future we are going to come out with our findings and the facts to back it up,” she said.

Ms. Akueme, who works at the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, said that skin bleaching also known as skin lightening and whitening could result in devastating effects including skin cancer, thinning of the skin, diabetes, hypertension, kidney failure and abnormalities in an unborn child.

According to her, skin bleaching depletes the skin of melanin which is supposed to protect from the harmful effects of sun exposure.

“While we don’t often see cases of skin cancer in the hospital, it is becoming increasingly common and some of the causes have been linked to skin bleaching.

“We are being faced everyday with the side effects of skin bleaching, we see many cases patients who come every day with very bad unwanted side effects.

“Skin bleaching also results in poor wound healing and thinning of the skin. Surgeons have problems with such skin during surgery,” she said.

She called on regulatory agencies to take a firm stand on skincare regulations, saying “these creams are causing more damage than good to our people”.

The association noted that much unregistered skin lightening and whitening skin products are widely advertised on Instagram and Facebook with labels, including Half Cast Fluid, Hot Chocolate, Egyptian Glow Oil, Baby Glow Butter, Moroccan Whitening Cream, and Soft Tone Fluid with 100 percent organic creams, among others.

However, The skin is the largest and one of the most important organs of the body. It is therefore important to take proper care of it. You can protect yourself from the effects of sunlight by applying sunscreens on the body, avoiding the sun at its peak which is between 10 am and 3 pm.

Check the contents of the cream to make sure it has basic moisturizing and sunscreen properties not lightening chemicals. Report any skin abnormality to a skin doctor, eat lots of fruits and vegetables and avoid skin lightening and bleaching products.