How do you know your skin care is working? You are buying it, spending your hard earned money. In this economy, every penny counts. You want to make sure that every skincare product you buy does something, right? And maybe you look in the mirror and you think you see great results, but what about the placebo effect? What about confirmation bias? Some skincare companies base their high-ticket product lines entirely around those psychological phenomena.

At Skin Actives Scientific our products are made to work. We want you to feel the value for your dollar. That’s why we not only make products designed to benefit you to the highest level, but we make them affordable so that regular people can rely on them, even when times get tough.

So, again, how do you know your skincare is working? On some level, you have to trust the science.

But it can seem like science is in a state of flux right now. If you go on the internet and try and learn about the science behind your skincare, you are likely to come away with competing information. 

One of the hotly contested ideas online right now is absorption theory.

At its core, absorption theory is concerned with whether the active ingredients are able to penetrate your skin where they can do work. A quick search will show lots of different companies, influencers, and so-called experts out there with different ideas about how absorption theory works. Today, we have our Biochemist Founder, Dr. Hannah Sivak with us to discuss how Skin Actives approaches absorption theory and how this affects you when you use Skin Actives products.

Understanding Theories and The Role They Play in Science

So, in today’s episode, we’re back to high school science. Just as a refresher though, so don’t worry, this is just so we’re all on the same page.

With as much as we have been able to uncover about the nature of the material universe, there are still many things that we don’t know. This is one of science's great paradoxes: every question answered creates many new questions. This is because science is a process, not an end point. The art of science, if you will, is constant learning, constant observation, and with that observation change.

The shorthand we understand as a “theory” is a knowledge we have of how the universe works that underpins provable applications. We know the theory is real, because the applications that spring from it are provable and repeatable. Thus, “theory” is treated as fact, until such a time as a provable application disrupts the theory. At which point, the theory itself must be reexamined. This is the fundamental nature of scientific progress. It takes a long time, a lot of smart people observing the universe, as well the good faith of the observers (aka: scientists).

How Does Absorption Affect Skincare

So how do actives get into your skin so that they can work? A better question might be, does it matter?

Let’s take a look with Dr. Sivak:

“Does it matter how far a molecule will go inside the skin? It depends.

Sometimes medications are better if applied topically. If you apply a medication (hormone, for example) in a patch, it is very important that the medication will penetrate the skin in a consistent way, otherwise, the dose reaching the blood would vary too much to be useful. Extensive studies are conducted to ensure that the composition of the patch is the right one to facilitate the absorption of the medication, including ‘delivery systems’.”

This is a very high level look at the concept of absorption, specifically for medicine. But what about for something a little closer to home like skincare?

“For skincare, some ingredients should stay ‘outside’, like sunscreen ingredients (zinc oxide, oxybenzone), for example, or substances used to substitute for a damaged skin barrier (petrolatum, silicones).

Some ingredients are meant to penetrate the skin If you apply amino acids to your skin, you probably want them to end up inside live cells contributing to the building of new proteins. Don’t worry, some of those amino acids will go all the way where they are needed, in this case, you don’t need 100% delivery.”

Hyaluronic acid seems to be an ingredient that everyone is talking about in terms of molecular size, what about that? And what does it mean when we see “patented” hyaluronic acid molecules designed to penetrate the skin?

“Hyaluronic acid, a huge molecule, is used to help prevent water loss from the skin. You don’t need to absorb it, you make your own hyaluronic acid. Giving our skin small pieces obtained by breaking up hyaluronic acid may be counterproductive because they act as signals telling the skin that there has been damage and inflammation should ensue.

Sometimes people cite a “rule” that says molecules bigger than a specific molecular weight can’t enter the skin. There is no research proving that assertion, it’s just a “rule.” Some people keep forgetting that you need more than a theory (or a rule); science requires observation and experimentation.”

What Should You Know About Absorption?

Do you remember those little pills that would dissolve into sponge dinosaurs? Maybe you got those as a kid from a museum gift shop as a kid, or maybe you get those for your kids now. 

Anyway, what you need to remember about your skin is that it is not a little sponge dinosaur! It’s not meant to just absorb everything it touches.

Dr. Sivak continues:

“The outermost layer of the skin, the stratum corneum, limits water loss from the body to the environment and allows us, humans, organisms that depend totally on water, to walk around in the Arizona desert. The stratum corneum also limits water and chemicals penetration into the skin, slowing absorption of nutrients (and harmful chemicals) applied topically. ‘Limits penetration’ doesn’t mean that this layer is impermeable, as shown by trans-epidermal water loss. You can measure water loss across the skin with a laboratory instrument, and this water loss increases with age and skin damage. In skin aged by sun exposure, absorption of external nutrients and water loss will be higher than in young skin.

The absorption of water-soluble nutrients through the skin will increase with skin humidity, so it’s a good idea to take advantage of the skin’s higher permeability after a shower or bath. Amino acids are electrically charged molecules, but when delivered in cream, an emulsion of water and oil containing other nutrients and salts, this property should not preclude penetration. This reasoning led to our using the amino booster in an easily applied cream rather than a serum. Even a low uptake of amino acids applied topically should substantially improve the health of skin deprived of nutrients by decreasing blood supply to the dermis that occurs to all of us when we age. And this is valid for all useful actives applied topically: you don’t need to absorb 100% of them, so forget about delivery systems. You don’t special delivery; your skin is permeable enough.”

So we hope that clears up any questions you may have about absorption and the skincare you use. We know that we are another voice, added to so many on the internet, and we appreciate that you make Skin Actives your home for scientific straight talk and education about skincare matters. We will continue to work to keep you as informed as possible so that you can make the best choices for your skin health.

If you enjoyed hearing from Dr. Sivak, she maintains her very own blog on the skincare industry that you can follow here.

Check in weekly for new articles on science and skin health here at the Skin Actives blog!