We’ve gone and done it again! We created another revolutionary skincare ingredient and we are the first, and only, to offer it to our loyal customers. Late last year, we introduced you to the healing power of Honey Bee Defensin-1 in our Regenerating Defensin Serum which quickly became a top-selling product. Before that we added Apocynin to our Advanced Ageless line of products. And who can forget about our successful High Potency EGF products. 

With much fanfare, we are very excited to bring the power of hops into your skincare regimen. That’s right, hops, which is a key ingredient for making beer. You may have heard of people using beer on their hair and skin, well, we did our own research and discovered that hops is really good for your skin. So our top chemists have been working with none other than San Tan Brewery in Arizona to create an “upcycled hop extract” using discarded hop material from the beer brewing process. 

What is Hops?

The common hops plant has many beneficial phytochemicals, some of which are unique to hops. Historically, hops have been used to bitter, flavor and to provide a mix of fruity and flowery aroma to beer. They are also used in herbal teas, medicines, and some soft drinks. Hops contains polyphenols, among other things. The bitterness associated with hops is due to alpha acids, whereas the hops aroma and flavor are due to nonphenolic compounds in the essential oils. There are many beneficial chemicals present in the hops extract including xanthohumol, bitter acids, polyphenols, ferulic acid and quercetin.

What Are the Benefits of Hops Extract for your Skin?

Xanthohumol is one of the key components of hops extract and has many key benefits for skin health. So much so that we created our own custom ingredient for skincare products we call Santahumol^TM.  We start with hops extract from San Tan Brewery and boosted the effect with additional xanthohumol. The result is a new active ingredient we call Santahumol. The benefits of Santahumol include:

• Anti-inflammatory/anti-dermatitis
• Antioxidant (free radical scavenging)
• Anti-melanogenic
• UV protective
• Free Radical Scavenging
• Antibacterial, anti-acne
• Promotes a healthy microbiome

Skin Actives New Products Using Hops

With so many benefits, is it any wonder we are so excited? The problem we faced is what products to make with our new Santahumol ingredient. We have so many amazing and effective products already. So we decided to reformulate some of our existing products to make them even better and more effective. And only launch one new product that we felt was missing from our portfolio of products. Here is a summary of the new and newly formulated products.

Skin Brightening Cream – Although we have many satisfied customers of the current Skin Brightening Cream, we know that dark spots and hyperpigmentation are caused by many things and are difficult to get rid of with creams. Therefore, we amped up our current formula to make it more effective. If you haven’t tried our Skin Brightening Cream in a while, you need to try it now. With continued use, it should be more effective at reducing the appearance of dark spots. 

Daily Cleansing Gel – Again, we have many people that love the Daily Cleansing Gel for its effectiveness. Most of our customers that buy this product like how clean and smooth their skin feels after using it. However, some feel it is too drying and their face feels tight after using the Cleansing Gel. So we keep the best of the Daily Cleansing Gel and added Hops Extract, Tremella and Hyaluronic Acid to eliminate the drying effect, to make a gentle, non-drying, effective daily cleanser.

All New Skin Brightening Serum – For the first time, we have formulated a serum targeted at reducing dark spots associated with age, UV rays or other hyperpigmentation. In addition to Hops Extract and Xanthohumol, we made sure to have key ingredients such as niacinamide, Arbutin, and Kojic Dipalmitate that specifically target dark spots as well as other ingredients to sooth, moisturize and regenerate skin cells.

We are very excited to bring you, our loyal Skin Actives family, these new and reformulated products to help you with one of the toughest skincare concerns. We hope you love them as much as we do. Skin Actives has been developing revolutionary new ingredients and products since 2006 and during that time, we have always been committed to keeping prices as low as we possibly can because we believe everyone should have access to affordable skincare. So we are not raising our prices on our two reformulations.