Alpha hydroxy acids (AHA's) are widely promoted in Women's and
beauty magazines. Much is written about their effectiveness of
preventing wrinkles and slowing down the aging processes in your
skin... but do you know what they are? Should you use them on
your skin? Are they natural? Should they be in your natural skin
care products?
In the following article we will attempt to shed some light into
these questions and give you all the information you need to
make an informed choice.
Alpha Hydroxy Acids: Do they belong in natural skin care
products? ?What are they? ?How are they useful to our skin?
?Are they a natural ingredient in skin care? Alpha hydroxy acids
(AHA?s) are Fruit acids, which are weak organic acids derived
from various sources such as, grapes, apples, sugar cane, maple,
pineapple, papaya, willow bark, lemon, lime, sour milk,
blackberries, yoghurt and cider, and play an important role in
skin care.
Fruit acids are natural exfoliants that perform a number of
functions at the level of the stratum corneum on the skin's
surface: ?Loosen and dissolve dead cells from the skin?s surface
?Help to regenerate new skin cells, ?Aid in the control of acne,
smooth rough dry skin, improve the texture of sun-damaged and
aging skin and ?Retain moisture, which leaves your skin healthy
and vibrant.
Naturally contained AHA?s are basically a good thing,
unfortunately, many companies are using concentrated extracts,
or worse still, synthetically manufactured AHA?s or BHA?s (beta
hydroxy acids), and that is not a good thing.
When scientists comes across a ?new substance?, so to speak,
they have a tendency to want to make it better than nature?s
version? more concentrated for quicker results? and so on.
Unfortunately, this usually brings with it side effects and
sometimes actual physical damage.
A natural ingredient ? just what exactly does that mean?
Does it mean it is a substance that nature created and it has
been added to a product in order to make that product natural?
No, a natural ingredient is an ingredient that is, where ever
possible, present in it?s natural form, for example AHA?s can be
extracted and then added to a product, thereby the maker of that
product can claim it contains ?Natural ingredients?. Or the
AHA?s can be use in a product in the form of an extract of
Papaya with all the other ingredients present in Papaya fruit.
This is a more balanced set of ingredients that work together
(synergistically) to achieve a desired effect, thus it is a
truly natural ingredient.
Let me give you an example: Aspirin (a very commonly used pain
killer) is derived from the bark of the white Willow tree. The
substance or the active ingredient is called Salicylic acid, a
BHA. This is the stuff that reduces pain. It is also the stuff
that can cause Stomach ulcers?.
Now, the herbal extract of the white Willow bark does not (or is
much less likely to) cause Stomach ulcers. Why? Because the
herbal extract contains many other ingredients that are
contained in the bark, which the extraction process brings out.
Some of these substances are mucilaginous (Porridge is
mucilaginous) which means they are slippery and when taken
internally, they cover the membrane of the Stomach (the lining)
and prevent the salicylic acid from causing irritation or
ulceration ? clever, isn?t she, that Mother Nature woman?
Sometimes you will hear these additional ingredients referred to
as ?phyto-chemicals?. This is very current topic today with
respect to Vitamins and other ?natural? supplements.
What does all this have to do with natural skin care? Well, as I
have written before. Natural skin care is not necessarily
natural and one could debate back and forth what ?natural? is,
or what it should be. One thing is certain, natural skin care
products should not contain any ?un-natural? ingredients, be
they synthetically produced or in ?purified / isolated form?.
Natural should be as close as possible to the way it is found in
nature.
That is not to say one should not use Vitamin E as a principal
ingredient in a cream, but it should not be of a synthetically
derived form. Wheat germ oil, for example, is very high in
Vitamin E and contains many other phyto-chemicals, which are
nourishing to the skin.
At Wildcrafted Herbal Products we choose to define natural as
?the way nature created it?, so we prefer not to use isolated
natural ingredients. Instead, we choose to use ingredients from
plant extracts, essential oils, carrier oils and other
extraction processes according to Naturopathic principles, which
preserve the integrity of the plant or relevant plant parts.
I hope this clarifies some of the confusion that is propagated
in the media about AHA?s and provides you with information you
can use when next looking at ingredients on natural skin care
products.
About the author:
Danny Siegenthaler is a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine
and together with his wife Susan, a medical herbalist and
aromatherapist, they have created Natural Skin Care Products
by Wildcrafted Herbal Products to share their 40 years of
combined expertise with you.
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