What is the precautionary principle and why are the best anti aging products paraben free?

It’s a bit of a controversy. Parabens in anti aging products and cosmetics. Parabens are found in a wide range of cosmetics and anti aging products such as moisturizers, so if you’re looking for the best anti aging moisturizer, should you avoid parabens and search for paraben free alternatives?

If you’re new to the debate about parabens here’s the rub. They are a class of chemical that are used in many products, including some foods, cosmetics and skin care products such as anti aging creams and moisturizers and some consider them to be dangerous.

They work very efficiently as preservatives however there is a raging debate about their safety.

As we said parabens are a class of chemical, there is actually quite a few that are used in these products. If you see these names or similar names listed on the label of any of your personal products then they are parabens. Methylparaben, Ethylparaben and Propylparaben are just some of the more commonly used parabens in our personal products.

The big question is are they safe for people to use? It is well known that once a product containing one of the parabens commonly used is applied to the skin then that particular chemical is absorbed through the skin very fast and can be detected in the blood stream within a relatively short period of time, hours in fact. They don’t just remain on the surface of the skin, they penetrate your body and are found in your blood.

One of the major reasons that they are found in so many personal products is that they are extremely cheap. There are other preservatives available which are effective as preservatives but are much more expensive, in many cases these more expensive alternatives are safe to use but are not used because of the price.

So where does the controversy come from? Why is it that so many people searching for the best anti aging products avoid any skin care products that have parabens listed on the label? It’s because there are serious concerns over the safety of parabens in our anti aging and skin care products and cosmetics. Whilst there is no clear proof one way or the other about whether these chemicals are safe to use there is certainly some questions raised.

For example there are studies that link parabens to breast cancer.

One such study found parabens in 18 out of 20 breast cancer tissue samples tested. Whilst of course this doesn’t actually prove that these chemicals cause breast cancer it is certainly something that causes you to sit up and take notice.

Secondly it is also generally accepted that parabens can mimic the actions of the female hormone called estrogen. This too has not been fully proven to be dangerous however is also worrying.

If you visit the Cosmetic Safety Database you will see that Butyl Paraben, for example, is linked, according to them, to cancer, allergies and immunotoxicity, neurotoxicity and endocrine disruption and biochemical and cellular level changes.

Of course being linked to these things doesn’t actually prove the the link, it just means that there are links, such as the study that found parabens in 18 our of 20 breast cancer samples.

There is something called the precautionary principle. This basically says that, in situations like these, where there is a risk to public health, there should be a presumption that the risk exists and those seeking to use the chemicals should prove that there is no risk before the chemical is used, rather than those who are at risk being forced to disprove the risk before use of the chemical is discontinued.

There are many calls for the discontinuance of parabens in all our personal products until they are proven to be safe. If they are continued to be used until proven unsafe it may be too late for some.

If you’re looking for the best anti aging moisturizers or other anti aging creams and products the decision about whether or not they should contain parabens is yours. There is no clear proof either way, however we personally prefer to avoid anything that is linked to health risks until it is clearly proven safe. Paraben free anti aging products, including the best anti aging products in the world, don’t have any risks of chemical preservatives because those chemical preservatives aren’t used at all.

The best anti aging products are all paraben free and also free from a wide range of other chemical and petrochemical ingredients, many of which are commonly found in so many of our personal products such as cosmetics and skin care products.

The company that makes the worlds best anti aging products has a total philosophy about the use of chemicals in it’s products. It refuses to use any chemical ingredients that have question marks over their safety and formulates products using natural ingredients that are known to be safe and are actually more effective than the chemical alternatives as well.

This company told it’s researchers to formulate its anti aging products using ingredients that were all known to be safe enough to eat. This is a total philosophy about product safety and they have the same commitment to product quality. Read the rest of this entry

And for that matter what are “all natural anti aging products”?

The market for all natural anti aging skin care products is growing at a huge rate. Recently L’Oreal purchased The Body Shop, we expect because L’Oreal recognizes the future of the natural anti aging products industry and wants to get a toehold in that industry. And for good reason.

Here on this website we seek to alert our readers about some of the dangers of many of the ingredients that are found in so many of the skin care products (and other personal products) that are found on the shelves of your local stores and which you may be using right now.

If you’d like to find out more about those dangerous ingredients in skin care products please read some of our other articles because today we want to talk about all natural anti aging skincare, what it is, what it isn’t, and what you should be looking for if you’re seeking to find effective and safe anti aging products.

The first thing to say is that the word “natural” has no formal definition in the anti ageing industry and there is no formula to determine whether or not ingredients used in any products, whether they be advertised as “natural” or not, are really “natural”. This also applies to “organic” anti aging products which equally have no formal definition.

In our research we have found products which are advertised as natural skin care products and when you look on the label you will see so many of the ingredients that so many people consider suspicious listed there. Parabens are an example.

There are no laws or regulations which govern when a manufacturer can claim that their skin care products are “natural” or “organic”. And of course there will always be manufacturers of anti ageing products that will take advantage of this.

Therefore if you’re seeking to find safe and effective “natural” skin care products it is not sufficient just to rely on the advertising. You need to go further.

How you do that? Firstly lets examine why people are searching for anti aging natural products.

Clearly one reason is that many people now recognize the risks inherent in mainstream skin care products and therefore they are seeking a safe alternative. They also recognize that many mainstream skin care products are not very effective because the amount of money spent on active ingredients is minimized so that the maximum amount of the budget can be spent on advertising.

Therefore, if that is the case, you need to discover something about the company that makes the products that you are considering purchasing and in particular its business philosophy. The big skin care companies tend to focus on sales and marketing rather than product quality and safety. This means that their products are not their main concern.

The best skin care companies that make natural skin care products reverse that equation. They focus primarily on product quality and safety and tend to spend less money, or none, on marketing and in particular on television advertising. Rather they know the quality of their products and they also understand that their products will sell through word of mouth and that once they have a customer they will often have that customer for life.

They may not be able to quickly ramp up sales as the big companies do by spending millions on television advertising but over time they can develop a committed and happy customer base that understand the quality and safety of the products.

This is a totally different corporate philosophy to the big anti aging companies. The big companies tend to have a very small moral compass when it comes to producing their products, and are happy to produce a product that will sell whether it’s effective or not and whether it uses safe ingredients or not.

There is one company that we have found that has a corporate philosophy about its products that gives us a huge sense of relief. They are committed to both the safety and quality of their all natural anti aging skin care products.

Their commitment to the safety of their products started even before their first anti aging product was even produced. Their brief to their development team was that any antiaging products that they were to develop had to be “safe enough to eat”.

And that is their first commitment to their customers, that their products are safe enough to eat. For this reason none of their skin care products contain fragrances.

Their second commitment to their customers is about their product quality. They seek to produce (and do produce) the finest anti aging skin care products in the world. They do this by maximizing the money they spend on product quality and they use a range of natural ingredients that are way more expensive than the chemical alternatives used by the big companies.

As we said there is no definition of natural, and even natural products can be dangerous. This company, called Xtend Life, will only use products that are known to be safe and known to be effective. This includes a wide range of natural oils, extracts from seaweed and the wool of sheep and a wide range of other natural products all of which are known to be both extremely effective and safe, though many of them are expensive.

Their natural skin care products work very well however they fully understand that people are suspicious of this because of a poor result that they may have previously obtained from mainstream skin care products and so, as evidence of their commitment to their products, and so that prospective customers can have some of the worry eliminated from buying the products they offer a full 90 day money back guarantee. That is extremely unusual in the antiaging industry.

Because they spend much larger amounts on product quality and ingredients they do not have the money to spend on television advertising and they don’t advertise at all. This reason, even though their products contain expensive ingredients, they are still able to market them at an extremely competitive price. They do not need to factor in the cost of advertising. And you’ve probably never heard of them for that reason. Read the rest of this entry

Why should you avoid anti aging products that make you smell nice?

People of any age like to smell good. However there is a few things that you need to know about smelling good, including about fragrances in your anti aging products. Aging isn’t something that many of us look forward to and so many women use anti aging skin care products to limit the effects of ageing on their skin. However some of the ingredients, like fragrances, are not quite as good for you as you may think.

Here at Restore My Skin we like to tell you about the risks as well as the benefits of so many modern anti aging skin products. And one of the most common ingredients in anti aging products as well as a host of other products is fragrance.

Fragrances have no anti aging properties. They are merely there because people like to smell nice and so if the products contain fragrances that make them smell nice they are more likely to buy the product. However fragrances are not an inert ingredient.

Of course fragrances are not limited to skin care products, they are found in a massive range of other personal products including, of course, perfumes.

There are thousands of different fragrances, some estimates are that there are over 4000. Virtually all of them are synthetic chemicals designed in a laboratory. Many of these have been shown to cause cancer or are toxic in other ways including toxic to the central nervous system.

Not all fragrances are dangerous, for example many essential oils are not, however chemical fragrances are usually used in such products as anti aging skin care products because they are much cheaper than safer alternatives such as essential oils.

The risks to our health are real from the ingredients found in so many anti aging products. Aging afflicts everyone and so the market for antiaging products is massive and billions of dollars are spent every year on lotions and potions to make us look younger. So many people are now using products on their skin that contain potentially dangerous ingredients like fragrance.

Some organizations are battling against this is. For instant the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics (see link at right) is one such organization that attempts to publicize the risks inherent in so many modern skin products.

And it is even possible to search the ingredients found in so many products at the Cosmetic Safety Database (right) to see what the suspected risks are from those ingredients.

If you go to the Cosmetic Safety Database and search “fragrance” you will find some disturbing results. Various fragrances that are used in commercial products that anyone can buy are listed as being linked to cancer, allergies and immunotoxicity and neurotoxicity, disruption of the endocrine system and lastly, irritation to the skin, eyes and lungs (and more).

But the reality is for most people that is extremely hard to know whether the ingredients in the anti aging products that you may use now include fragrances like these.

So if you’re ageing and are interested in finding effective anti aging skin care products that don’t contain dangerous ingredients such as fragrance, what do you do?

At least one small company has made the decision to eliminate all potentially dangerous ingredients from their anti aging products. This company is called Xtend Life and they have decided not to use any fragrances in their products at all because firstly there is a risk attached to them and secondly that it is not essential to add a fragrance to any ageing products.

Their recommendation is not to use fragrances at all, or if you really wish to do so then use a perfume instead of buying anti aging products with fragrance added.

Why would you use a perfume? Surely perfumes are just a fragrance? Surely perfume too, if it’s a fragrance which it is, is equally risky?

That is in fact true, however when using skin care products you usually cover a reasonably large area of your skin with the product, and therefore the chemical ingredient that creates the fragrance covers a large area of your skin. The chemical can be absorbed into your skin and is therefore absorbed in a larger quantity.

Generally speaking when you use a perfume a couple of dabs on the neck is sufficient which greatly minimizes the surface area of the skin which can take up the fragrance into your system.

And if you’re buying perfumes you should also choose them very carefully for obvious reasons.

Xtend Life have a total commitment to making anti aging products that are not only safe to use but are also highly effective. At the commencement of their research into anti aging products the chairman of the company tasked their technical staff with developing a range of anti aging products that were “safe enough to eat“.

In other words all of the ingredients used in these products would be safe for your body even if you ate them. And in effect that’s what happens when you put them on your skin because they are absorbed into your system just as if you ate them.

The result is a safe and highly effective range of skin care and anti ageing products.

If you’re starting to realize the risks involved in modern personal products such as skin care products you may be moved to spend more time finding out about the ingredients that go into these products. Read the rest of this entry