Aromatherapy Skincare - From field to science, medicine and education

Is aromatherapy old hat? and mumbo jumbo? 

Yes, but I mean seriously old hat - in fact centuries old....

                                        .

Sadly, skin care products with newer names are currently in vogue such as spa, botanical and plant extracts. The reason I find this slightly upsetting, is that all these products are plant based, the same as aromatherapy essential oils.

I adore aromatherapy essential oils as they're highly concentrated plant extracts. A lot of plant extract material is needed for each of those small 10ml bottles of oil that you've seen.

I also believe there is a lack of understanding regarding aromatherapy which isn't helped by its 'new age' image. Many shops selling 'new age' products also sell aromatherapy essential oils and I find a lot of people believe that aromatherapy essential oils are simply about a nice smell.

• This is not true. 
• Aromatherapy is a real science. 
• There shouldn't be any mumbo jumbo. 
• Plants are made up of a host of different chemicals many of which are beneficial to the body. 
• Traditional medicine e.g. your prescription from the GP contain plant derivatives, but these are in the most synthetically produced. 

                                                       

I believe the gap between traditional western medicine and aromatherapy essential oils is not that great and fantastic studies are currently being carried out looking at this overlap. One example is the use of aromatherapy essential oils to treat cancer patients.

Did you know that qualified aromatherapist firstly studies anatomy, physiology and massage to 'A' level standard? Only after qualifying are they able to study aromatherapy. Unfortunately, aromatherapy is an area where many people dabble - without being qualified which can be extremely dangerous. Equally there are a lot of synthetic or fake essential oils on the market which don't have any beneficial properties. 

I qualified in 1996 and below is a link to the syllabus I studied.

http://www.itecworld.co.uk/Syllabus/Unit%20Documents/Aromatherapy%20Syllabus.pdf 

                                                    

I strongly believe in the therapeutic benefits of aromatherapy essential oils in skin care, particularly when considering the damage free radicals cause and the anti-oxidant properties of many aromatherapy essential oils. This passion I have was the focus for creating our aromatherapy skin care company INSKIN. 

I found very few companies which are aromatherapy based with a qualified aromatherapist at the helm. 


Interesting and perhaps a little worrying?

Many thanks for taking the time to read this blog, and if you've found it interesting I'd be delighted if you'd ask your friends to take a look. 

Many thanks 

Lizzy Radcliffe 

ITEC Certified Aromatherapist Graduate 1996

If you would like to test any of our products here at INSKIN skincare - please click on the INSKIN link:  http://www.aromatherapy-skincare.co.uk/inskin-testers/

Phytonutrients - Aromatherapy Skincare

Phytonutrients - 4 Reasons Why You Need Them

Phytonutrients are nutrients derived from plant material that have been shown to be necessary for sustaining human life. These plant nutrients form part of the plants immune system and their role in plants is to protect plants from disease, injuries, insects, drought, excessive heat, ultraviolet rays, and poisons or pollutants in the air or soil. 

Phyto, From the Greek word "phuton" meaning plant - Phytonutrient - plant extracts that sustains human life

As a qualified aromatherapist, I am interested in phytonutrients (plant nutrients) as part of aromatherapy skincare as one of the main benefits are their anti-oxidant properties. 

Anti-oxidants are very important as they deal with free radicals which affect our health, can cause disease and give the appearance of wrinkled skin as we get older. For more information on anti-oxidants, please click here to my Vitamin A blog.

Many clinical trials have considered phytonutrients from two angles:

• Eating certain food types can prevent certain chronic diseases 
• Using oils massaged on the skin are effective anti-oxidants

I believe it is crucial that or bodies receive many phytonutrients, and I would recommend that we: 

1. Eat as few unprocessed foods as possible (phytonutrients are only negligable after factory processing)
2. Eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables each day aiming to cover as many colours as possible. 
3. Different coloured fresh fruit and vegetables contain differing quantities of the different phytonutrient types
4. Use a face product high in anti-oxidants, if you're concerned about your skin looking tired and older (remember face creams/ moisturisers contain 50 - 60% water, whereas a facial oil contains 100% active ingredients.)

INSKIN skincare produce a truly fabulous facial oil with very high quantities of active anti-oxidant ingredients.

Inskin Precious Anti Ageing Facial Oil 30ml

                                    

Many thanks for taking the time to read this blog, and if you've found it interesting I'd be delighted if you'd ask your friends to take a look.

Many thanks, 

Lizzy Radcliffe

ITEC Certified Aromatherapist Graduate 1996

If you would like to become involved with our work here at INSKIN skincare - please click here to complete the form on the INSKIN website 

Frankincense - Not Just for Christmas

Frankincense is a word we're all familiar with due to the numerous nativity plays we've been in or watched.


I guess it's also something most people know very little about.
Frankincense is a small tree which is native to North Africa and some of the Arab countries. It's usage is best know within two areas - religion as a burning incense (it's a relaxant) and in the world of aromatherapy (it's a relaxant and fantastic in skincare).


When the bark of the tree is damaged the tree exudes a resin in drops and the essential oil is extrcted from this resin by a process called steam distallation.





Glycation is a new buzz word but very imporatnt. Using today's scientific knowledge with age old frankincence glycation can be fought.


Great, but what's glycation? Glycation is a chemical reaction which permenantly reduces your skin's ability to produce and and regenerate high quality collagen and elastin. (Collagen and elastin are fibres within the skin which give it its strength, structure and plumped up look. For more information please visit my blog on Vitamin A which explains the formation of collagen.)


So what is this chemical reaction? When naturally occuring sugar molecules enter the skin, it bonds to skin proteins such as collagen and elastin causing them to become brittle and less elastic which in turn produces the look of older skin.


The next stage is once these sugar molecules have bound themselves to the skin's collagen and elastin, they mutate creating new molecules. These molecules are called advanced glycation end-products (A.G.E.s)


So what can you do about it? Firstly, my advice would be to cut out as much sugar in your diet as possible (including alcohol)


But what has frankincense to do with all this? Something called boswellic acids are extracted from the gum of the frankincence tree and it is this acid that helps with glycation in two ways.

• the formation of new collagen through special cells called fibroblasts.
• the reduction of glycation occuring through the collagen's protein.

Two valuable studies have been carried out. 

The first is a study considering a cream containing boswellic acids and its stimulatory effects on fibroblasts. 

The second is a submitted patent using bowellia carteri (frankincense) as an anti-glycation agent - 3-0-acetyl-11-Ketoboswellic acid for relaxing the skin.

INSKIN Skincare produce a wonderfully beneficial facial oil containing frankincense. 

Many thanks for taking the time to read this blog, and if you've found it interesting I'd be delighted if you'd ask your friends to take a look.

Many thanks, hugs and kisses

Lizzy Radcliffe

ITEC Certified Aromatherapist Graduate 1996

If you would like to become involved with our work here at INSKIN skincare - please complete the form on the INSKIN website 

Aromatherapy - Meet Lizzy the Guru

Aromatherapy Skincare Lemon Oil - How bright is your skin?

I've always been a fan of lemon oil as it's an excellent skin brightener and goes a long way towards making ageing skin looking less dull and mottled.


This is a view that qualified aromatherpist's share and lemon oil has been successfully used for many years to help brighten, lighten and even out skin pigmentation. 


I believe many people feel that it's great to know the capabilities of lemon oil, but would like more facts to substantiate these claims. 


This is the aim of this blog.

Firstly, we need to get to grips with why our skin may suffer from pigmentation.There are cells in our skin which are responsible for pigmentation. Often, as we get older, this pigmentation becomes more pronounced. These cells are called  melanocytes.

Melanocytes produce skin pigmentation (melanin) in two forms.

The darker skin creating pigment is called eumelanin, and the lighter skin creating pigment is called phaeomelanin. 

The amount of each type of skin pigment determines the colour and degree of  pigmentation in our skin.


To summarise so far, we all have body cells which create melanin which in turn shows as skin pigmentation to varying degrees.

The production of skin pigmentation, (melanin) is complex and works through various cells converting some of them to be able to produce melanin. The 'bit' that actually is responsible for this conversion is an enzyme called tyrosinase. 

You'll have seen the work of tyrosinase when you've peeled a potato and after a few minutes the potato turns brown. This enzyme (tyrosinase) activates when the potato is exposed to the oxygen in the air. If you type tyrosinase into your search engine you can find a lot more information if required.

With us humans it's the same process, when our skin is exposed to the air, our melanocyte cells get working so that skin pigmentation melanin is produced. 


This is important as the production of melanin protects our skin from the sun. Melanin absorbs harmful UV rays.  

To summarise again, we now know we've some cells in our body that create melanin which can show as skin pigmentation. Additionally we also know that this is important as it protects us from harmful UV rays.


So, we're in the position of understanding that our body is doing a fantastic job in protecting us from harmful UV rays, but many of us aren't so happy that our skin tone often looks uneven from the varying levels of melanin produced.

Therefore, if the amount of melanin is decreased, we should have less visible pigmentation on the skin. 

• But how far do we go? 
• When is it dangerous if we're not allowing the body to protect us as well as it could from harmful UV rays? 
• Where do you draw the line between the look of our skin -V- it's protection?

How about turning the problem on its head though? Instead of looking at chemical ingredients to cut the production of melanin, why not create an environment where the body simply doesn't need to produce as much melanin?

Now it's getting very exciting.

Melanin has to be produced due to the skin's exposure to harmful free radicals of which some are produced by UV rays. As lemon essential oil is a phenominal anti-oxidant, the enzyme tyrosinase  doesn't have the same need to produce high levels of melanin to protect us from UV rays as the antioxidant properties in essential lemon oil partly takes over this role.

Applying high levels of anti-oxidants to the skin is very much an holisitc way to deal with problematic pigmentation.


Our final summary is:

• we accept the production of melanin is crucial to protect us from UV rays
• we often don't like the look of our uneven skin tone due to the pigmentation
• we're not happy to interfere with the reduction of melanin 
• we now understand a mighty dose of natural anti-oxidants is beneficial as they fight free radicals some of which are caused by UV rays

I'd advise anyone wishing to use products using pure essential oil of lemon to purchase products which have been formulated by a qualified aromatherapist as lemon can be a skin irritant if the correct dosage has not been adhered to. Additionally if your product contains lemon, please ensure adequate sunscreen protection is applied or even better, stay out of the sun.

INSKIN produce a wonderful - Anti-ageing Precious Facial Oil which contains the correct amount of pure essential lemon oil.


Many thanks for taking the time to read this blog, and if you've found it interesting I'd be delighted if you'd ask your friends to take a look.


In my next blog - I'll be considering "How cool is Vitamin A (Retinol)?"


Many thanks, hugs and kisses


Lizzy Radcliffe
ITEC Certified Aromatherapist Graduate 1996

If you feel you'd like more in depth knowledge please follow this link:- 

http://www.google.co.uk/patents?lr&vid=USPAT7429391&dq=citrus%20limonum%20skin%20lightening&printsec=abstract&id=jfCtAAAAEBAJ&output=text&pg=PA8