The Trust Clients Place in You
Your clients entrust you the care of their skin, and most likely they pay you well for your advice. In turn you provide them with expert know-how, the best level of treatments you know and a range of home care products that you believe will give your clients the anti-aging benefits and healthy looking skin they crave.
The Importance of Staying Current
The rate of change, and the introduction of new ideas and modalities in the cosmetic field are breathtaking. Unless you keep upgrading your knowledge it is easy to fall behind.
The Evolution of Skincare Wisdom
Twenty years ago AHA-based skin care ranges were on a tremendous growth curve; today we know that daily application of acids will leave the skin in a constant state of micro-inflammation, leading to the creation of enzymes that may destroy collagen, elastin and hyaluronan. Perceived wisdom changes.
Understanding Water-in-Oil Creams
If you have never been touched by Dr. Spiller biomimetic skin care you may have a gap in your professional know-how. I am speaking about the advantages of water-in-oil creams over the more common oil-in-water creams. WIO creams are sometimes perceived as being heavy, gluggy and comedogenic. However, special formulation technology can create oil-based creams that are light, easy to apply, with a fantastic feel on the skin. More importantly, such light WIO creams offer superior performance in skin care as proven in many scientific studies.
Put bluntly, dehydration of the skin will lead to failure of the skin.
Hydration of the Skin
Put bluntly, dehydration of the skin will lead to failure of the skin. Scientists, dermatologists and product formulators have thoroughly compared skin hydration capabilities of water-based skin care vs oil-based emulsions. Some studies lasted for 12 months. The findings seem to be universal: WIO creams result in significantly longer lasting hydration of the skin. The reasons have been summarized in the book ‘Dekubitus — The Challenge for Carers’, published by four German dermatologists.
Do you ever see clients with dehydrated skin? It is a symptom that all is not well. You should never allow it to persist as it has a range of damaging consequences:
• The skin’s protective abilities are compromised
• Therefore the skin enters a state of inflammation, often perceived as ‘diffused redness’.
• This in turn leads to the creation of free radicals, closing the circle to what we call the three main causes of skin ageing: dehydration, inflammation and oxidation.
If you feel that we are overlooking the sun — what does an excess of UV exposure cause?
Elasticity of the Skin
One of the main reasons for a prematurely aged appearance of the skin is the loss of elasticity. We all wish we could maintain our skin’s youthful turgor and firmness. At least one long-term study presented at a Congress in Sydney in October 1996 concluded that WIO creams significantly increase ‘hydration, elasticity and skin smoothness’. It was found that water-based creams moderately increase hydration and skin smoothness but that they have zero effect on elasticity of the skin. Is this something that your clients would be interested in knowing?
Delivery of Active Ingredients
Separate studies have found that oil-based creams may be superior delivery vehicles for both oil-soluble and water-soluble ingredients. A study by T. Foerster of Henkel Central Research in Germany concluded that WIO creams deliver 120% more of the antioxidant ingredient α-tocopherol into the skin compared to water based creams.
A separate study focused on urea, a water-soluble ingredient that is often found lacking in skins suffering from dermatitis and psoriasis. Here it was found that, if applied with a water-based cream, urea was abundant on the surface of the stratum corneum but was barely found in the basal layer where it is needed. Application of a WIO cream containing urea resulted in significant deposit of urea near the basal layer of the skin.
In our training we explain the reasons for this important difference in product performance. There are some exceptions. Water-based vehicles result in superior delivery of the popular ingredient niacinamide (vitamin B3). For this reason Dr. Spiller included vitamin B3 in his Vitamin-C Plus Serum rather than a cream.
Low Level of Skin Reactions
For many years it has been held that skin reactions are mostly due to artificial colours and fragrances. Our experience indicates that skin reactions are mostly due to two ingredient groups that are foreign to the skin and that are inevitably found in every commercially available skin care product: emulsifiers and preservatives.
Emulsifiers, particularly those with high HLB-values as found in water based formulations, are much more likely to disrupt the skin’s natural protection than those of low HLB, as commonly used in oil-based formulations.
The readily accessible water content of water-based formulations requires careful protection from ever-present microorganisms. Bacteria don’t survive well in oil, therefore oil-based formulations are largely self-protecting. Levels of preservatives can accordingly be held low.
Why would that be important? It stands to reason that preservatives are likely to interfere with the skin’s natural flora.
Gentle Formulation Philosophy
The fragrance in Dr. Spiller products is light and adds to the all-round feeling of wellbeing during one of our highly effective facial treatments. Colours are from natural sources, such as our famous blue Collagen cream with colour derived from Azulene (German Chamomile). The incidence of skin reaction to Dr. Spiller creams or treatments is negligible.
