When you think of copper, you probably think of metal, or a color even. It’s strange to think of metal being in the air or in the water. But it is, and the amount of it in your personal environment can vary due to a wide range of conditions, such as how old your house is, or whether you live in the city or the countryside.

In addition to being a metal and a color, copper also describes a micronutrient which means that it is a chemical element required in trace amounts for the normal growth and development of living organisms. Our bodies have very important enzymes that depend on copper for activity. For instance: Tyrosinase, is an enzyme we need to make melanin, the pigment in our skin and hair.

We need copper for good health, but how much?

How Much Copper Is Too Much in Skin Care Products?

So, how much copper do we really need?

As a trace element, copper is necessary at minuscule concentrations for cells to grow and multiply. But too much copper inhibits normal metabolism. Thus, as copper concentration increases, your body will increase its efforts to sequester the offending element. But even then, if the amount keeps increasing eventually the cells will die. An adequate amount of copper to stimulate the growth of those desirable enzymes is only 10 micrograms to every 100 kilograms, depending on body weight. Keep in mind that’s micro-grams, an incredibly small amount; you probably don’t even have a device at home calibrated to measure that small!

Toxicity from overexposure to copper will develop with more than 5.0 miligrams of copper per kg body weight is present.

Ironically, the same reason why some of our enzymes use copper is what makes this metal cause damage: the oxidation potential of copper may be responsible for some of its toxicity. And yet, some serums from seemingly reputable skincare companies offer as much as 1% copper peptides in them! That is 160 mg of copper per 100 grams of serum, added to the copper you are already ingesting in water and food. This is a staggering amount, and well past the point of potential toxicity.

And 160mg of copper is NOT a trace amount.

Copper in Supplementation and Skin Care

What are the common causes of copper deficiency? There are many, but some of the ones that are more common in our contemporary society are linked to the mal-absorption of copper that can occur after gastric surgery or zinc supplement overuse. However, it’s important to keep in mind that these don’t happen often and you are more likely to see an excess of copper in tap water and in the environment than a symptom of copper deficiency.

The Problem with Most Products using Copper

It may not seem obvious at first, but you don’t need copper to be at toxic levels throughout your entire body to develop problems in your skin.

Sometimes it seems like skincare products include too much copper. The problem here is that excess copper in skincare products aggravates an existing concern: the presence of copper in polluted air and the presence of ROS* already cause skin aging. At high concentrations, copper is known to produce oxidative damage to biological systems. This is why we use so many antioxidants in Skin Actives anti-aging products.

So if you are applying serums, creams or lotions with these exceptionally high concentrations of copper, expect more wrinkles, more hyperpigmentation, less collagen, less hyaluronic acid, less viable cells, and slower healing. All of which we are trying so hard to avoid!

At Skin Actives Scientific, we no longer formulate skin creams with copper. While the cream we did formulate was within safe tolerances for that ingredient, it just didn’t sell well enough to keep around. Now you’ll find copper in our selection of products for hair health, and that’s it.

Instead of looking for a copper-based product, we’d like to invite you to look at Skin Actives’ Advanced Restoration line of high potency EGF products. These products contain 10x the amount of epidermal growth factor found in our other egf products and are designed to stimulate and reignite cell growth. Developed for post-aesthetic treatment, our most fervent users find that their rejuvenating properties are unparalleled when used daily.

The Skin Actives Philosophy

At Skin Actives, our formulations are driven by a desire to see you happy and healthy. We make sure that our formulations and best practices are consistent with your health, not a reckless concern for beauty, label-value, fashion or fads. We think it’s dangerous and wrong what other companies are doing with these potentially toxic formulations and we object. But serving you with the best possible products, ingredients and formulations is the best that we can do!

Thanks for reading this blog and empowering yourself to become your own skin health expert. Please keep stopping by here to check up and read, and use what you learn to make the best decisions for the health and well-being of your skin. See you next time!