Want to know more about the down side of anti aging skin creams? (And the upside)?

If you’re worried about your gradual ageing then you may be much more interested in anti aging skin creams than you were when you were in your 20s. The more you see the visible effects of ageing on your skin the more you begin to think about your aging skin and what to do about it.

Chances are you’ve spent hours reading the advertisements, browsing the shelves of your department store and reading women’s magazines to try and determine whether any of the anti aging skin cremes on the market actually work. There are hundreds or even thousands of aging skin care products that make all sorts of promises about reversing the effects of ageing on your skin, and the reality is that many do very little.

Unfortunately the problem is that the market for antiaging products is enormous and is worth billions of dollars. In any industry where there is that much money to be made there will be companies, often the biggest and most profitable companies, who focus on the profit rather than the product. That’s true in the anti aging and skin care industry just as it is in many other industries.

The result is a plethora of new and supposedly wonderful skin care products which are advertised to reverse premature skin aging and make you look 30 years younger. The reality is in many cases they do very little.

The reason is that it is very easy to make huge amounts of money by making a poor quality product that costs very little and then spending big dollars advertising it. Advertising of skin care products, particularly on television using big name stars, is highly effective and sells millions of dollars worth of products, many of which are worthless.

That’s the bad about the skincare and anti-aging industry. Most of the big players are prepared to spend as little as possible on product quality and as much as possible on advertising because it works to make big dollars.

Now for the ugly. Not only do many of the glitzy anti aging skin creams that you see advertised do very little for your skin, they can also be damaging to your health and your skin as well.

There are many products that contain chemical ingredients which are known to cause cancer and a range of other health problems and which are also known to irritate your skin. There are petrochemical products such as mineral oil and petrolatum in anti aging skin creams and these are known to be dangerous when applied to the skin and in some cases are banned in Europe for this reason.

The reason for this is the same. These ingredients are extremely cheap to use whereas safer alternatives which are known to be effective at promoting better skin health are much more expensive. If you’d like to find out more read some of the articles listed under the categories at the right.

Now to the good news. What I said above does not apply to all anti aging products. There are companies that seek to produce high quality products and which have a different business philosophy to most of the big players. These companies, one small one in particular, seek to produce high quality products with ingredients which are known to be extremely effective at promoting skin health and which are also known to be safe.

The products that these companies make are much more expensive to produce. However they are cost competitive to buy for one reason.

These companies rarely advertise. If these companies were to produce expensive products and also to engage in television advertising to compete with the big players they would be unable to market their products at a price that was competitive in the market place. However by saving the money they would have spent on advertising and applying that to product quality they are able to produce a much higher quality product and still sell it at a comparable price.

But of course because these companies don’t advertise you won’t see anything about their products in the magazines or on the television and so chances are you won’t know them.

These companies rely on their products doing the talking. The companies understand that slow organic growth of customers who buy the products and who use them for life is still an effective long-term business strategy.

One company in particular takes this to the extreme and even offers a 100 percent money back guarantee on all of their natural anti aging skin creams (all of which are highly effective and safe to use) which allows a potential customer to try the products knowing that they have the money back guarantee to rely on if they wish.

This company honors it’s guarantee in full but is rarely called on to refund any money as customers are invariably extremely happy with the products.

I believe this company makes the finest anti aging skin creams in the world however it’s unlikely that most people will be using them any time soon because they don’t advertise.

That’s the good, the bad and the ugly of anti aging skin creams. Read the rest of this entry

Find the worlds finest and safest natural - anti aging skin products

Why would anti aging skin products be dangerous?

“Over the last 100 years, the rate of cancer in the U.S. has sky-rocketed from 1 out of 800 people diagnosed, to 1 out of 3 today. Are you Wondering WHY?”

Do you know who said that? Ralph Nader said it and you’ll find it quoted the forward the book “The Safe Shopper’s Bible”.

Here’s another quote from the book: “Not a single cosmetic company warns consumers of the presence of carcinogens in its products – despite the fact that several common cosmetic ingredients or their contaminants are carcinogenic themselves or are carcinogenic precursors.”

The sad fact is that cosmetics, as well as a wide range range of personal, beauty, skin care, bath and anti aging skin products contain ingredients that may both be damaging to your health and damaging to your skin as well.

This has been the case for a long time. Unfortunately the FDA is not required to satisfy itself that any of these types of products, including for our purposes anti aging skin products, are either safe for the public to use or for that matter that they work as advertised. The result of this is that there is a wide range of ingredients found in many anti aging skin products, cosmetics and much more that so many people in our country, including you, may well have used on their skin today.

It’s not just a small range of obscure products. Many of the names that are household names in the anti aging skincare industry are suspect. You know the ones. The big expensive ads on television with a highly paid movie star who probably has never used the products. Those are the ones that you will probably find contain ingredients that, if you knew exactly what they were, you wouldn’t want to put on your skin.

Even those advertised as the best anti aging skin products in the world can be just as suspect.

Here’s a couple of the ingredients that you may find in anti ageing skin care products on the shelves of your local store. Many of them are petrochemical products, meaning that they are a byproduct of the distillation of crude oil. In other words many of these products come from oil. And you have to ask whether you really want to put them on your skin. But you shouldn’t find any of these in top quality anti aging skin products.

1. Mineral Oil.

Mineral oil is a petrochemical product and is found very commonly in our personal, beauty and skin care products. Baby oil is pure mineral oil, often with a fragrance added (and many fragrances can also be suspect too). If you’re in doubt just look on the label of the next bottle of baby oil that you see.

Mineral oil is found in many anti aging skincare products. It is intended to be used as a moisturizer however mineral oil does not have moisturizing properties. What it does is to cover the skin in a thin film of oil and the intention is that this will stop moisture loss from the skin, and to some extent it does. However mineral oil does not actively moisturize your skin.

Mineral oil is considered to be a carcinogen. You might be familiar with Material Safety Data Sheets. A Material Safety Data Sheet lists all important information regarding individual chemicals that should be known by any one who may come into contact with them. A Material Safety Data Sheet on mineral oil states that “mineral oils are suspected carcinogens of the skin and scrotum, larynx, lung and alimentary tracts” and “may cause eye, skin and respiratory tract irritation” and “pre-existing skin disorders may be aggravated by exposure”.

2. Propylene glycol.

This too is a petrochemical product and is intended to moisturize the skin whilst having no moisturising properties at all. A Material Safety Data Sheet on Propylene Glycol states that it “causes irritation – avoid contact with the eyes, skin and clothing” and “wash thoroughly after handling” and recommends the use of goggles and gloves when using this product.

That’s just two ingredients that you will commonly find in so many anti ageing skin care products. And you may not even know that they are there because they go by a range of different names, many of which you won’t know, and they usually on the label in the smallest font possible to make it as hard to read as possible.

It is our intention, over time, to alert you to a whole range of these types of ingredients that you will find in so many common and well-known skin care products. To list them all now would make for an extremely long read, so come back often to find out more.

The obvious question is why do these companies use these ingredients in their products? The answer has to do with cost. Many of these ingredients are extremely cheap to buy. You’d expect that companies would strive to make the very best anti aging products that it’s possible to make, however that seems rarely to be the case. Rather what they do is to seek to make the cheapest anti aging products it’s possible to make and to spend as many of their available dollars as possible on marketing rather than product quality.

That’s why you see so many of those extremely expensive television ads. If they spend that much money on advertising and also used expensive ingredients in their products their products wouldn’t be cost competitive.

That’s the dirty truth of the anti aging skin care industry. The reality is that the products are made down to a cost rather than up to a quality and the result is that, because they can, they include a range of very suspect, cheap, ingredients.

The next obvious question is this. If you want the best anti aging skin products how do you find them? Are there any good anti aging products or are they all as bad as each other?

Whilst it seems that there are few ethics in business (and not just the skin care industry) that doesn’t mean that you should tar all skin care companies with the same brush. There are small companies which strive to make extremely high quality products and which succeed. There are excellent natural anti aging skin products available that work extremely well and which do not have any suspect ingredients.

However you should be aware that even products promoted as “natural” anti aging skin care products are not necessarily free of suspect ingredients. It’s a case of buyer beware and we hope we can help there.

In our research we have found one small niche anti aging skin company that makes excellent natural skin care products which do not contain harmful ingredients and which work well. This company is called Xtend Life.

Over time we shall talk more about the sorts of ingredients that you should be avoiding in your anti aging products, the sorts of ingredients you should actively look for and how to source the best natural anti aging skin products in the world. Whilst we can’t cover at all right now if you’re keen to get started than visit the website of Xtend Life and have a look at their products. You won’t be disappointed. Read the rest of this entry

Find the worlds finest and safest natural - anti aging skin products