Messages

1636

Dermarolling / Microneedling / Skin-identical Ingredients | Barrier-Repair Ingredients | Natural Moisturizing Factor and Derma Rolling

« on: January 27, 2011, 05:57:26 PM »

When you are young, there is no need to supply the skin with many substances that the skin already normally contains unless your skin is somehow "impaired". You should always protect your skin from the excessive sun exposure (some moderate exposure is wise because we get vit. D from the sun), protect the skin from extreme weather conditions (cold, wind or excessive dryness), do not overdo it with the frequency of skin cleansing because it takes the natural oily protective film off the skin and do not overdo exfoliation or acid peels either.  The more is not automatically the better in skin care.

     

  Dry skin doesn't need an external water supply. Dry skin is caused by excessive evaporation of water from the skin and that has to be prevented by an oily barrier.

   

  One of the best moisturizers that is efficient but not heavy is almond oil. Wet a cotton pad, add almond oil and clean your face with it. It will clean the skin and at the same time it serves as a good moisturizer.

   

  On non-facial skin use even heavier moisturizers such as for example Eucerin for dry skin with 10% urea.

   You can compare it with hormones. There is no need to supply our body with hormones that our body normally produces until we have a hormonal disorder or until the levels of hormones diminished with age (such as estrogen after menopause etc). You should clean and protect the skin but if you are young, you do not have to pump into the skin everything a healthy skin normally produces. The skin itself will do take care of this and we do not want to make the skin "lazy". There is evidence that when levels of nutrients are kept artificially high for a long time, that this diminishes ( it is reversible)  the natural capacity of our body to utilize them. This is provenly the case in vit. C megadosing, for example.

  After dermarolling with long needles, the skin protection is impaired for a while.

   

  Infadolan is an outstanding barrier moisturizer:

   

  https://http://forums.owndoc.com/dermarolling-microneedling/Why-Infadolan-works-on-wrinkles

   

  ..and it protects the skin. That is why we recommend it after dermarolling.

1637

Dermarolling / Microneedling / I just did the dermaroller for the first time

« on: January 27, 2011, 04:06:46 AM »

Just a quick reply:

1. Lack of sleep results in a very severe depression of the immune system. It's more accurate to call it immune system depression than stress. But indeed it is a form of stress. You get the acne (= bacteria) because of the damage lack of sleep causes to the immune system.

2. There is no such thing as "detoxing". "Detoxing" is a quackery term, like "Aura" and "Chakra". The only people that need detoxing are people on kidney dialysis and people in need of a liver transplant.

3. Liquid food can be just as healthy as solid food, but it is hard to do. You need some fibre, for example. That can be had from real, fresh orange juice for example and vegetable juices.

And long-term, liquid food weakens the stomach muscles and the muscles in the colon (that do the peristaltic movements).

4. The food pyramid is unsound dietary advice. If you follow the food pyramid, you're eating quite sub-optimally. A paleo-diet comes closest to what humans need. Lots of good fats (fish fat, some mammalian fat and fat from nuts), some fruit, many greens, quite a bit of protein, very few carbs. Avoid diary products and bread. Yes I know - such a diet is unsustainable with our current population, and it is unfair to animals in the bio-industry. I believe we, and the animals would have been happier if we never left the African plains or the rainforests..

1638

Dermarolling / Microneedling / Vit C and pigmentation marks

« on: January 20, 2011, 05:25:05 PM »

Vit. C is acidic and you may suffer from irritation. In that case you should dilute it until you won't get that irritation any more. Try with four times more water and work your way up to two times more water if the irritation disappears. Apply it in the evening. Vit. C is light sensitive.

Related forum posting:

https://http://forums.owndoc.com/dermarolling-microneedling/Brown-skin-after-c-vitamin-administration!

1639

Dermarolling / Microneedling / swelling

« on: January 19, 2011, 07:05:28 AM »

You will usually get a mild swelling lasting up to 24 hours when rolling with a 1.5 mm dermaroller.

     

  Individually needled acne scars or stretchmarks/surgical scars: Swelling will gradually diminish and can last up to three days, depending how densely and deeply the dermarolling is performed.

   Swelling will subside much quicker than redness. Redness can last for many days in densely and deeply needled scars. The redness of "spot scars" like acne scars disappears quicker than redness after needling long patches like stretch marks or surgical scars.

   

    Just needle one scar as a test patch to see how your skin will react and how quickly the swelling and redness will last.

1640

Dermarolling / Microneedling / derma stamp

« on: January 19, 2011, 07:03:02 AM »

I was referring to Capillarity (having nothing to do with capillary veins or inflammation).

When you pierce the skin and make a micro-hole, you have created a thin, narrow, long  tube.

Because when we say that the hole "closes", we don't mean that it closes in the horizontal plane. It closes in the vertical plane. That the skin "closes" means not that some kind of crust forms on top, but that the sides of the micro-channel move towards eachother, so that there is no 0.25 mm wide "air hole" in the skin. That happens immediately after rollign due to water cohesion and the surrounding tissue pressure.

A "closed" microchannel resulting from rolling with a 1 mm dermaroller can be regarded as a capillary tube with a depth of around 0.7 mm and a width of extremely much less than the original 0.25 mm needle diameter that was used to create that hole. From microneedled skin micrographs (microscopy photo's) we can see that those "closed" microchannels are but a few skin cell diameters wide, at most. And they are not filled with air, but due to capillary action (adhesion) filled with tissue fluids.

Of course those tissue fluids, because they have direct access to the skin surface (they reside in a pierced hole) evaporate continuously, and lateral friction in the moving skin also causes those fluids to be partially expelled from the "hole", aiding their evaporation.

Replensihment of those fluids happens with more tissue fluids, but also with externally applied skin products, due to capillary effects and lateral friction causing a suction effect (on a molecular level, whereby adhesion and cohesion forces play major roles).

1641

Dermarolling / Microneedling / Questions about the Vitamin C crystals (serum)

« on: January 19, 2011, 06:24:58 AM »

No, don't use potentially harmful "penetration enhancers". Unless you have a thick layer of grease covering the entire skin that you don't manage to remove, there will be no problem in obtaining a uniform vit. C concentration increase throughout the skin, because the vit. C is absorbed by the parts of the skin not covered in oil, and the myriads of subcutaneous cappilary veins distribute it to those parts covered with oil. In your example of sebum-filled pores, the skin area adjacent to those pores will absorb the vit. C (aided by a low pH of the vit. C solution) and the cappilaries underneath that area will transport this vit. C to the immediate area around the pore. The skin is a highly interconnected organ in terms of blood perfusion so rubbing something skin-absorbable on area X will cause that substance to be increased in concentration also in area X + 1 mm, etc. In your example, a pore is so tiny that the sebum inside it has little effect on the eventual vit. C levels reached in the pore cells around that sebum, because those cells are supplied with blood travelling throught surrounding skin area, which, when cleaned of skin oils, will have sufficient permeability for properly prepared vit. C (correct pH - below 3.5 - for optimal penetration tested on pig skin), and the cappilary veins in that area will distribute the vit. C uniformly in that area. Those few dozen skin cells affected by outpouring sebum do not have a significant impairing effect on that process.

1642

Dermarolling / Microneedling / Subcision frequency

« on: January 15, 2011, 08:19:42 PM »

As far as I remember, you were a nurse trying to perform the saline injection method on yourself?

   

  The saline should be injected about once every 2 weeks.  6-8 procedures are normally required to get results.

   

  You can try two approaches on two different scars as a test:

   

  The first test scar: Needle it, wait about 2 weeks, then perform a saline injection every two weeks without additional needling.

   

  The second test scar: Needle just before the saline injection to make a pocket underneath the scar for the saline solution. Wait 3 weeks and repeat.

   

  Yes, you can dermaroll with a .25 mm dermaroller in between but do not roll for about 5 days on the areas with saline subcision.

   

  You can also try to add the suction method, as it is described by Lainey here:

   

  https://http://forums.owndoc.com/dermarolling-microneedling/Saline-injections-for-acne-scars /a>

   

  Use for example some adhesive tape to lift up the skin.

1643

Dermarolling / Microneedling / Copper peptides

« on: January 15, 2011, 04:09:49 PM »

The key to understand in this case is that Pickart sells two very different copper peptide products, GHK-Cu (extremely expensive to make), which has been proven to work in independent research and "random" copper peptides (very cheap and simple - Dr. Pickart himself says that any chemistry student can make them in ten minutes), made by mixing Copper chloride and hydrolized soy protein. The latter is associated with very serious negative side effects on the skin and there is virtually no serious research backup to validate his claims of them being even better than GHK-Cu.

Pickart was notified of this thread by Emily100 and he replied to her. I pasted his full answer a bit earlier in this thread.

1644

Dermarolling / Microneedling / Lines around and under the eye

« on: January 13, 2011, 05:10:34 AM »

You could try and apply Infadolan daily around your eyes. Some of our customers started to apply it there and their lines slightly diminished. We never excepted this would happen and we never recommended Infadolan for wrinkles.

 

It was an unexpected "side effect" that was reported to us by several customers. Infadolan doesn't make wrinkles miraculously disappear (no cream does). It happens most likely because it is a super efficient and long lasting moisturizer and vit. A is useful for the skin as well. And as it is often the case with such remedies, it is not going to work for everybody. Dermarolling doesn't work for everyone either - but for most it does.

https://http://forums.owndoc.com/dermarolling-microneedling/Infadolan-experience-thread

1645

Dermarolling / Microneedling / Retino A or Tretinoin gel ???

« on: January 11, 2011, 07:00:30 PM »

Retin-A contains all-trans Retinoic acid (= Tretinoin).

1646

Dermarolling / Microneedling / Copper peptides

« on: January 09, 2011, 04:28:10 PM »

I don't take these things personally. I tried to un-ban her but I only managed to turn it into a 1-day ban. I've been going through some stressful days lately, sorry for being hair-triggered. I'm a "Lymie", Lyme neuroborreliosis. Lyme rage :-(

1647

Dermarolling / Microneedling / Copper peptides

« on: January 09, 2011, 02:33:52 PM »

Pickart commented on this thread:

Who is the "chemist"? Does he have a real name? Did he go to a real school? Has he published any papers on copper peptide chemistry? If he is that confident about his statements he certainly can reveal his name and background. He then can come to Seattle and explain is his ideas in a court of law.

I have a BA degree in chemistry and mathematics from the University of Minnesota and a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of California at San Francisco.

I seriously doubt this "chemist" is real. Copper peptides are prepared by a very simple procedure. A copper salt is dissolved in water. An adequate amount of peptides is added to the solution to bind the copper ions. The pH of the mixture is raised to pH 7 and the copper peptides are formed. Copper ions cannot stay in solution as the pH is raised. If there are no peptides to bind the copper ion, then the copper ions form copper hydroxide which precipitates from the solution. The binding affinity of small peptides for copper 2+ ion is about 10exp(+9). This means that for each billion molecules of copper-peptide, there is 1 free copper ion.

A grade school student, with proper direction, could make copper peptides in about 10 minutes.

........................................

The safety tests on the 2nd generation copper peptides were published.

In vivo nickel contact dermatitis: human model for topical therapeutics. Zhai, Chang, Singh, and Maibach (University of California, San Francisco, USA) Contact Dermatitis Vol. 40, pp. 205-208, 1999

Stripped skin model to predict irritation potential of topical agents in vivo in man. Zhai, Poblete, and Maibach (University of California, San Francisco, USA) International Journal of Dermatology, Volume 37, pages 386-389, 1998

Sodium lauryl sulfate damaged skin in vivo in man: a water barrier repair model. Zhai, Leow, and Maibach (University of California, San Francisco, USA) Skin Research and Technology, Volume 4, pages 24-27, 1998

Human barrier recovery after acute acetone perturbation: an irritant dermatitis model. Zhai, Leow, and Maibach (University of California, San Francisco, USA) Clinical and Experimental Dermatology, Volume 23, pages 11-13, 1998

Howard Maibach is considered the top expert on the safety of skin products in the world and has published about 2,400 papers and books.

......................

Further safe tests on second generation copper peptides were performed at the Shanghai Medical University, a top medical school in China, and the testing facility of the Shanghai Municipal Government. The 2nd generation copper peptides were found to be non-toxic, non-carcinogenic, non-poisonous, and non-allergic.

...................

The methods of making such peptides are detailed in:

Pickart US Patent 5,382,431 Tissue protective and regenerative compositions US Patent 5,554,375 Tissue protective and regenerative compositions US Patent 5,698,184 Compositions and methods for skin tanning and protection US Patent 5,888,522 Tissue protective and regenerative compositions.

The basic method of making copper peptides is also in:

Tripeptide in human serum which prolongs survival of normal liver cells and stimulates growth in neoplastic liver. Pickart and Thaler (University of California, San Francisco, USA) Nature New Biol 1973 May 16;243(124):85-7

Growth modulating tripeptide (glycylhistidyllysine): association with copper and iron in plasma, and stimulation of adhesiveness and growth of hepatoma cells in culture by tripeptide-metal ion complexes. Pickart and Thaler (University of California, San Francisco, USA) J Cell Physiol 1980, 102(2):129-39

Growth modulating plasma tripeptide may function by facilitating copper uptake into cells. Pickart, Freedman, Loker, Peisach, Perkins, Stenkamp and Weinstein Nature 1980, 288, 715-7

...............

In over 10 years of clients using our 2nd generation copper peptides, we have had zero claims for damage on our liability insurance.

1648

Dermarolling / Microneedling / Copper peptides

« on: January 09, 2011, 05:59:59 AM »

Emily100 sent me Pickart's copper "peptides" ingredients list, and I found exactly two products that actually contain Copper peptides (underlined in green):



The rest don't contain Copper peptides but Copper chloride and hydrolized soy protein.



His real Copper peptide products are:

- Super GHK Copper Cream

- Super GHK Copper Serum

Buy these if you are interested in using Copper peptides on your skin. They are likely genuine. Buy his real products. I believe the above can be beneficial to skin.

Pickart's fake "Copper peptides" are:

- BioHeal

- Skin Signals Solutiion

- Regular CP Serum

- Super CP Serum

- Skin Signals Cream

- P&R Classic

- P&R High Retinol

- Day Cover

- TriReduction

- Regular Super Cop

- Super Cop 2x

These products likely do not contain any GHK-Cu and are possibly harmful to the skin. There have been plenty of people reporting damage that took a year to heal. We link to some in this thread (to EDS).

I think he could not make enough money with his "1st generation". GHK-Cu is extremely expensive. Even Chinese-produced GHK-Cu would cost him 100 dollars to color a large bottle deep blue. GHK-Cu products are very expensive and therefore a niche market. But Copper chloride is not much more expensive than ordinary table salt. His marketing genius lies in saying: "Look, I'm a Chemist, I invented this stuff, I file patents, give lectures and sponsor studies".

1649

Dermarolling / Microneedling / puffy eyes

« on: January 08, 2011, 12:43:08 PM »

Is your puffiness always present or does it go on and off?

   If it goes on and off it is most likely edema - fluid retention. Try cold compresses.

   

  Is your puffiness worst after sleeping? Use a thicker pillow if you can handle it.

   

  Are you allergic to something?

   

  If it is always present, it is most likely herniated fat. In this case you need a lower eyelid blepharoplasty. Choose your surgeon wisely. If he takes off too much fat, you will end up with "hollowness" under eyes. Some surgeons prefer not to remove the herniated fat but instead they inject your own fat or other filler around the herniated fat. This flattens the whole area.

  None of the products - Retinol gel, the A & D ointment and the vitamin C, a 1.5 mm dermaroller - can help with puffiness. You cannot roll in that area but even if you could, it would not help with water retention or bulging fat, sorry to say.

1650

Dermarolling / Microneedling / Copper peptides

« on: January 08, 2011, 12:29:04 PM »

Emily100 was banned because of the following reasons:

1. She said she did not understand my arguments but she also was not interested in them, preferring to believe Dr. Pickart instead of me, strongly suggesting that I was basically libelling him.

2. She suggested that our analysis of Pickarts' fake before-and-after pictures was bogus, disinformation. Without offering an alternate explanation or refuting our arguments.

3. Then she went on to strongly endorse Dr. Pickart's products, even though our (understandable?) rule is that promoting competing products here is not allowed. Especially not when the competitor has just been exposed as a scammer. Don't tell me I'm a liar. Just don't. Not on my own forum.

4. Various rude remarks directed towards you, and towards me. It is a well-known phenomenon on forums that the most valuable contributors such as yourself face vehement opposition from certain other discussion participants. We have chosen to have a zero-tolerance policy towards such meta-critiscism. (criticism against the person and character and intentions and ulterior motives and behavior and prolificness and topic-selection of a poster, not against the actual content of the postings). We ban spammers and since yesterday we ban rude people who provide no substance. It is an act of extreme disrespect to say that you do not understand the argument, that you are not interested in the argument, but that you prefer to believe that the site owner is the scammer, and not Dr. Pickart in this case. She even said that she did not like me any more, and that she would not post here any more, and that I should delete her postings. I do not want her postings to be deleted, because they document her increasingly rude remarks over the course of this thread. To avoid that she deletes her own postings and then accuse me of rudeness on other forums without us having the ability to defend ourselves, I blocked her from accessing her own posts.

I know that emily100 made nice remarks about me in the past but I won't tolerate suggestions that I am a slanderer, that I lie and mislead, that I cause customers financial damage out of negligence, that I am a bad forum moderator etc. Not on my own forum.

No amount of flattery will make me tolerate such insults. This forum is provided as a service to whomever is seeking answers to questions. It is not a platform for Sarah-bashing. Zero tolerance for anyone attacking other forum members, zero tolerance for spammers and zero tolerance for rudeness and accusations of malfeasance towards myself. If emily wants to post again, she can create another account, it is trivial. She's banned to prevent her from deleting or editing her offending postings.

I have just started reading several long threads about Dr. Pickart's copper products. It seems that the more informed the people are, the more sceptical they are of his claims. Some report skin damage. Others report contradictions, false statements and other irregularities. A lot of critiscism towards the "research". Let Pickart show the original image files if he can be bothered. And let him explain how he can turn weed killer into gold. A quote from that thread: "I have tried the SkinBio CP Serum (regular strength) and it was a disaster for me!"  "Honestly, I never thought that a skin care product could do this to someone's skin." and    "i only wish my experience with cps was as pure and simple as throwing  the little green bottle away along with my $40.  instead, my skin aged  10+ years in six months"

A forum poster on that Essential Day Spa thread says that when he asked Pickart to clarify about the danger of free copper in his 2nd generation products, he answered that he does not want to discuss it with laypeople.

"I too find Dr. P to be full of contradictions. I've been to their forum a  few times & his asnwers to questions are short & rude IMHO. I  have also noticed a defitinite double-standard. He trashes every other  skin care line out there & says not to use anything that is not  supported by placebo-controlled, double blind, peer reviewed studies,  but then his products don't meet those criteria either."

To sum up my opinion on copper peptides: GHK-Cu has at least some documented beneficial effect on skin remodeling in case of healing scars. And on collagen production in general. But Pickart's "second generation skin remodeling copper peptides" are a scam. Buy his 1st generation line if you like. Not the 2nd- they are dangerous and they aren't GHK-Cu. On other forums, similar discussions about Pichart's latest copper products ignited a firestorm of ad-hominems. It seems the topic of copper peptides is a passionate one, almost like religious fundamentalism, Pickart being the main deity. As I said, we want to avoid that - we ban people who start insulting others.

Here's what experts have to say about Pickart's second gen copper products:

"Dear Heather,

Thank you for your email. I can understand your frustration & confusion in

regard to copper peptides. Due to patent restrictions, open research on

this ingredient until recently has been somewhat restricted. We use the

GHK-Cu (Gly-His-Lys+Cu2) in our Bio-Copper Serum due to the fact that this

is the only copper peptide complex that has published research to support

its safety & efficacy. To be frank, it is the belief of our chief

scientist that the so called “second generation” copper peptides or copper

chloride+hydrolyzed soy protein is not a real copper peptide, but a copper

and protein complex. Unlike GHK-Cu, this copper complex is not naturally

found in the body. Skin cells have no receptors to accept this molecule.

Therefore, it is broken down into free copper ions and protein fragments

which apparently have little to no benefit for skin.

Until more research is done on the copper/soy digest complex, I would not

recommend its use to any of our customers. This would be the case even if

we did not produce a GHK-Cu product. Copper is a trace metal that can

trigger edema, contact dermatitis, pro-oxidation by hydroxyl radicals &

DNA damage if not bound to a particular peptide in a specific, controlled

sequence. Copper complexes other than those naturally found in the body

(such as GHK-Cu) have been found to promote double-strand DNA damage,

dependent on their geometric structures and types of ligands. This is why

we have concerns with the copper chloride/hydrolyzed soy protein material.

Please note that the INCI ingredient name for this material denotes that

it is not an actual peptide, but a combination of two different

ingredients (copper and protein). This view is also shared by the Procyte

Corporation, which for years held the patent to GHK-Cu and sponsored &

published many of the studies on the use & safety of GHK-Cu on skin.

As for studies, there are published studies on GHK-Cu and wound healing,

collagen synthesis & inhibition of scar tissue formation. We are currently

doing a pilot study investigating the use of GHK-Cu on intact, aging skin.

We do not how far this study will go – if the pilot study stirs up enough

interest that a third party wishes to undertake more research on this

topic, then we will be thrilled. The problem that we face as a

manufacturer is that any independent studies that we carry out, even if

published & peer reviewed, will be criticized and doubted, since we are

also selling this material. For credible research to ensue on this

subject, a third party would have to find this topic deserving enough to

take over the research on their own, devise & carry out a study & report

their findings. With cures for diseases such as cancer and AIDS still

evading the scientific & medical community, I do not know that a

researcher would find the use of copper peptides on wrinkles a worthy

endeavor, and would spend the time acquiring funding for such a study that

would provide no long term benefit in their eyes. And if we were to

sponsor the study, as has been done in the past by other cosmetic

manufacturers, then the findings again would be constantly questioned &

dismissed as purchased research.

I understand your desire to compare GHK-Cu with the “second generation”

copper/soy protein complex, however we believe that such a comparison is

impossible for a few reasons. Firstly, the two materials are completely

different – maybe not apples & oranges, but…let’s say oranges &

grapefruits. One material is a true copper peptide, and the other is a

combination of copper and soy protein. Secondly, there is no publically

available research on the copper/soy protein material. The firm that holds

the patent on this material cites only research done on GHK-Cu and will

not release any studies (if they exist) on the copper/soy complex for

comparison. This makes it impossible for me to answer your question. I’m

not trying to be evasive, but I only deal with facts, and I do not have

enough information on the copper/soy material to make an informed argument

other than to again state that it is the belief of our scientists that

random mixtures of copper and proteins should be avoided and that the only

safe & effective copper protein complex that can or should be applied to

skin is GHK-Cu (Gly-His-Lys+Cu2).

I hope that I was able to answer some of your questions. Thank you again

for contacting Pure Skin Formulations."

There you have it. Dr. Pickart's 2nd generation SRCP's can cause cancer as well as skin damage. There is no GHK-Cu in it at all. There is no evidence that it works. The before-and-after pictures are fake. The promises are commercial hype.

Some more "testimonials" on 2nd gen SRCP's:

"The premature ageing effect I personally experienced happened only when I  used the copper, and it occured very quickly. It stopped once I  discontinued the copper, and it took me coming up to 2 years to get my  skin 95% back to normal again (ie. not prematurely aged)."

"So, as someone who saw first hand the havoc this stuff can wreak on your  skin, I believe you 100%. I was shocked that a cosmetic could do this  to someone!"