Danne Montague-King Discusses The Importance of BioActives In Skin Revision
It has come to my attention via social media that thousands of therapists have become ingredient obsessed. Often refusing a very good, effective product because it doesn’t contain a “new” peptide or another buzz ingredient Du jour!
There is nothing wrong with researching ingredients. I have always encouraged practitioners in Aesthetics globally to do just that! But for the right reasons.
The right reasons being how does such and such ingredients work synergistically with the other ingredients in the products’ formulation and what does it do at the epidermal cell level that has a logical connection to the skin anomaly from which the client is suffering, and what biological changes or interactions are taking place.
It is not good enough to rush into using an ingredient based upon its marketing description of being an “antioxidant” or “anti-inflammatory” or even that old, overworked saw “anti-aging”! These phrases are meaningless to a true skin revisionist.
Before using any ingredient for a tool or a protocol to help alleviate the many skin anomalies the world is cursed with, a good biochemist must address the following. I say biochemist because this is the person who conceptually puts together the tools that any professional in the business of Aesthetics can use for a positive outcome and reliable results.
Contribution by Danné Montague-King
Founder of DMK International, Danné is a pioneer in his industry, Danné has seen the depths of depression associated with poorly functioning skin. In fact his everlasting passion was born from his dissatisfaction with his own acne (scientifically know as acneic) as a teen. Many times he has shared the story of how his parents would take him to lavish events where he would find a dark corner to hide away in, ashamed of this blemished skin. Not understanding the condition completely, and after failed attempts from top US dermatologists to cure his acne,
Danné took things into his own hands and desperate for a cure, became his own guinea pig. A string of breakthroughs, trials and tribulations, and many travels would follow, until he found his first true breakthrough in the 60’s involving vitamin C therapy.
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3 Points A Biochemist Must Address
What is the source of the ingredient?
Let’s use Sea buckthorn as an example. The Sea Buckthorn “bush” can be farmed in many places on the planet including here in the USA! There are good farms in Canada that will put out fairly good quality raw materials which would include the roots, leaves, and little orange fruit this remarkable plant possesses!But a small city in inner Mongolia processes the Sea buckthorn harvested right from the indigenous wild plants on the hills outside of town—collected a few times a year by local villagers and preserved at certain temperatures until rendered into Chinese medicines, drinks, and other holistic items, nothing for skincare.
I was the first and only, as far as I know, because things like this are REAL trade secrets, there are no such things as secret formulas anymore in the skin business!).Sources of raw materials include the soil where the plant is grown, and the way it is harvested and kept until ready for shipment.
Extracts
Although I have rendered a lot of my extracts for several years there are a few overseas companies and two USA companies I know produce bioactive raw materials via the right extraction. Not all extraction methods are the same for every plant, root, rhizome, leaf, seed, or fruit.
Some maintain top activity through maceration (normally leaves) which is like cold soaking the herbs in purified water for two weeks or more and drawing off the empowered liquid.
Another is cold press (seeds) but this is only good for larger pips or seeds. Smaller seeds such as Evening Primrose require faster rotation to extract the oil (most cold pressing machines are rotary). The faster the rotation, the more friction, the more friction the more heat. And excess heat will denature a lot of the vibrations in the oil. Rendering it safe for consumption in EFA+ supplements but with only 40% of its original power. So cold-pressed is limited. EPO seeds are best extracted with a hexane process—the “dreaded” solvent extracting 100% power from the seed and then evaporating harmlessly.
My favorite and the one that maintains ALL the frequencies and plant vibrations is Super Critical Extraction. This equipment is expensive, a table unit costing up to $80,000.00! but well worth the investment. In this manner, we can control all our raw materials without having to hit-or-miss with outside companies or suffer any of THEIR problems with employment setbacks, plant wars like they have in India and China over menthol and other popular botanicals. And we can perform efficacy testing on the spot and make quick adjustments if necessary.
Delivery Systems
No matter how “active” an ingredient is on its own, it’s only as good as the delivery system into the epidermis. Fragile amino acids like Peptides rarely even make it into the skin as a “workhorse” (not a primary player as often touted) because of a faulty lipid delivery system—usually an oil into water crème or gel (misconstrued as “serums” when in fact serums, like blood serum, is water-thin).
Water into oil is usually a good delivery system—especially when compounded with a wetting agent like DMSO—my favorite oldie but goodie. Unfortunately, at certain levels on the skin, it can smell garlicky! But some new others act very much like DMSO (a trade secret—do your own research).
Percentages do not matter that much since the shunts of the skin only accept a certain percentage of anything, anyway!
‘We have 40% vitamin C in our crème” means nothing. 3% would be just fine.
The late ’80s and ’90s were the big “percentage wars” in Aesthetics—it became a joke and smacked a little of conspiracy theory and misinformation! The misinformation being in the form of making an ingredient seem much more special, even exclusive than it really was.
One company touted its “C’ESTA” vitamin C and raved on about its exclusive “ester” discovered by the company founder: a woman who was a helluva marketing machine, but not much else.
Turned out I had been using this “exclusive C ester” all along when I purchased by 5 LB container of Ascorbic Acid from my friend who owned the Home Orange Juice Company in Chicago—it was cheap and plentiful.
A few years later and a whole lot savvier, I realized it was Ascorbyl Palmitate, the ester version of Vitamin C, cheap and reliable in its bioactive stimulation of the Fibroblast cells—little factories that make our collagen.
Labels by law must indicate what is actually in the product—but it does not have to list percentages. Highly active ingredients like the yeast cell-wall extract Beta Glucan. Good Beta-Glucans are expensive, so it would be cost-effective for a company to add 1% to its finished product to put it on the label. It takes at least 5% to bring its immune support powers to the skin!
Yes, Botanics are essential in our field. And plant vibrations can evoke many positive effects in the skin anomalies we or our clients suffer. Use logic, your eyes, and your brain—don’t just jump on the flashiest ad that comes out like some of those ridiculous skin products videos shown on social media!
As a professional, you have a right to research everything down to how it acts at the cell level—not just that it does!