KEIKO Beauty column by Keiko Iwanaga, a beautician with over 40 years of experience. Collaboration with Dr.Oike opens a new frontier of beauty.
1-33. “Ask your skin” (日本語)
The market is full of “good” things.
A is good.
B can work.
C has improved recently.
It is becoming increasingly difficult to know what is really good for our skin because of many theories and ingredients which look good.
However, the answer is clear.
If you face to your skin system, the best ingredient is “The one that is naturally present in your skin”.
When it comes to moisturizing ingredients, what your skin naturally needs is a low-molecular moisturizer.
The skin has a system that produces low-molecular moisturizers by nature.
Skin cells first produce triglycerides, which are sebum, and the triglycerides are then broken down by resident bacteria into glycerin and low-molecular moisturizers.
When the low-molecular moisturizers are reduced, the skin senses this and starts producing sebum again.
Since low-molecular moisturizers have less moisture-retaining capacity, they require more than high-molecular moisturizers.
So why do skin cells choose low-molecular moisturizers?
That’s because it’s “easy to adjust the amount”.
Cells synthesize thousands to tens of thousands of molecules per minute at high speed.
When cells are producing large quantities at high speed, it is easy to adjust the amount of production.
On the other hand, if you’re making fewer large ones, you can’t respond to sudden changes.
This is also the system that allows the skin to protect itself…
It’s the good reason why our skin chose low-molecular moisturizers!
By the way,… the “propionic acid” that often appears in my column is also an excellent low-molecular moisturizer!
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Healthy Skin Moisturizing Cycle
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