Skin Deep

The skin can reflect some of the innermost physical conditions, serving as a barometer. The skin is often taken for granted and sometimes ignored unless a condition such as excessive oiliness, dryness, a rash, blemish, or a wrinkle gets someone’s attention. Some of the functions the skin performs:

• To protect and serve. Skin serves to protect the body structures and organs from injury.
• It serves as a protective barrier and shield to ward off dangerous rays that could significantly damage vital organs.
• It serves as a very important organ of elimination, our largest, excreting water, oil and other waste products.
• The skin helps to regulate body temperature.
  It is an important sense organ, receiving the impulses of heat and cold, touch and pain.

The importance of caring for this extremely vital organ and having a thorough knowledge of the skins’ nature and structure is significant. It is important to understand the skin is one of the most efficient organs of the body, which grows, continually renewing itself, while protecting and serving as it reacts instantly and constantly to outside sensations and stresses.

Understanding the skin and its many functions leads to a necessity to consider the quality and the contents of the products that are put onto and into the skin.

In the 1960’s health and beauty did not always seem so intertwined. Make-up users and hunters seemed to have commonality, the use of camouflage. Health and beauty were so separate, the goals totally different. People greased their bodies with baby oil and would lie in the sun. The object? To get the darkest tan possible. Many were horse lovers and horse back riders, their skin would come to resemble their saddles. A beautiful saddle is to be admired, a person, whose skin resembles a saddle, is not. Skin cancer? Who thought about that?

Now many people pursue health and beauty as one goal. The industry, over the years, has changed but one thing remains the same, it is very big business. The cosmetic industry is a multibillion dollar industry. In years past advertisers used appealing ads, beautiful models and peoples’ innate desire to look good and be attractive. For many people beauty has no price and the big companies market their products in very aggressive ways and imply results that cannot be delivered in a bottle through chemical magic.

People want to believe that through the use of products, so attractively packaged and marketed, that they will discover something special. There are celebrity spokespersons for some make-up lines, and just as there is a huge market for celebrity diets, the cosmetic buying public is ready to believe, and buy, and buy.

As was referred to in the earlier history of Real Purity®, for Virginia Easterling Jenkins, our first president and founder, the journey to come to use pure ingredients, without harsh chemicals, synthetic components, chemical colors and fragrances, was one of personal belief, growth, and conviction.

From some of Virginias’ writing in the early 1980’s:

“Once we have attained certain criteria that says to others that we are in fact, a professional, we of course wish to exercise the very best of our expertise to build a worthy and favorable reputation from those we serve.

However we can only exhibit an expertise reflective of our working tools. In the case of the skin care specialist those tools are the very products available for supposedly specific problems. After many years of seeking, searching and investigating numerous, different so called professional products, one common thread was evident in all products, and thus I felt was prohibiting the favorable and positive results the client deserved. That “common factor: harsh chemicals” in the form of additives, preservatives, artificial colors and extenders.

In many cases animal and petroleum by products were present in the formula, causing many people unfavorable reactions, sending them to the dermatologist for medical relief. Cosmetics that were supposed to cover and hide troubled skin, only to intensify the skin problems with the application once again, of more harsh chemicals.

I could not in good consciousness, continue to use products with toxic ingredients on my clients or to sell this type of product in my clinic. So began another journey, investing a long and painstaking amount of time in seeking specific non-chemically treated plants, flowers, barks and herbs.

I was going back to the years of my youth surrounded by Mother Natures’ gifts and being taught to study Mother Nature as I did my regular school disciplines. Much to my surprise it appeared these lessons from nature were about to become main cornerstones of knowledge in my crusade in the development and formulations in a new approach to personal care.

I will endeavor to incorporate the laws of Nature in this new concept, as no greater gifts can we possess and share with others than the God given plants, herbs and wondrous beauty found in Nature”
 Virginia Easterling Jenkins 1983

This was to be the beginning of Real Purity®. When buying skin care products some things to remember:

Each square centimeter of skin has millions of cells, 100 sweat glands, 15 sebaceous glands and thousands of sensory points. Amazing! Years ago scientists thought the skin to be a water proof barrier. Totally wrong! It is a vehicle for absorption with adult skin comprising 15-20 percent of total body weight.

The skin is alive and constantly changing. The skin renewing cycle takes approximately twenty six days and new cells are constantly generated. The skin releases impurities deposited by capillaries in its important job of waste elimination. Impurities are released through perspiration and sebum.

The skin is a tireless worker and regenerates continually to complete a cycle. After a cell is born in the dermis, the lower layer of skin, it moves upward for about two weeks until reaching its next destination, the epidermis. The epidermis is the outer layer of the skin and is a group or mass of dead cells that are continually being replaced by newly made cells as they rise from the dermis (the lower layer).

The cell spends about another two weeks in the epidermis as it gradually flattens and moves toward the surface. Its’ life and activity over, it is shed. Around 2-3 billion cells are shed daily as the body continually replaces the skin every month in its quest for homeostasis and the maintenance thereof. The bodys’ first line of defense against infection, bacteria, viruses, injuries, temperature extremes and dehydration. (See earlier work on Phagocytosis and First Line of Defense/by Dr. Rich Easterling).

Back to the dermis, the dermis is the lower layer and contains the glands and the tissues that produce new hair, skin and nails, as well as, protein fiber and collagen, collagen is an important player in tissue elasticity and support. As mentioned earlier, the dermis plays a critical role with sebaceous (oil) glands, and sweat (moisture) glands.

The important fluids produced by these glands are key factors in a healthy complexion. What we perceive as perspiration and oily skin secretions are fluids that have water and fat properties, hydrophilic and hydrolipholic respectively. skin cells also help in the detoxifying of harmful substances and play an important role in the elimination process of waste, along with the liver, kidneys and lungs.

The acid mantle of the skin is a film created from the secretions of oil and perspiration. This surface skin mantle helps to protect and maintain balance and health.

Potential hydrogen is a term representing a reference scale for the relative alkalinity or acidity of a solution. The numbers are a reference as to how many hydrogen atoms are present compared to an ideal or standard solution. The term “potential hydrogen” is commonly referred to as “pH”. Skin care products are often said to be “pH balanced” but balance is a relative and often changing ideal.

The pH scale ranges from 0 to 14 with 0 being the most acid and 14 being the most alkaline. Healthy skin should have a pH of 4.5 to 5.5. There are topically applied products that can restore the acid mantle to an optimal level. The pH of the skin depends upon other factors. The blood is of high priority and through homeostasis, it is maintained at a rather narrow range of 7.35 to 7.45. The pH of urine randomly collected may vary greatly compared to the blood, while the pH of a 24 hour urinalysis can range from 5.5 to 7.4 with the ideal range being slightly acidic and ranging from 6.3 to 6.7.

“Beauty is only skin deep”. The Temptations were right as far as the song went, however, the fact is that proper diet, rest, air, exercise and proper breathing, along with environmental factors, play a significant role as to whether the beauty will even be skin deep.

The water we drink is a critical factor along with intake of fats and proteins. Carbohydrate intake is another factor in good diet and many people choose carbohydrates that are not healthy.

We find many people today that are sugar and carbohydrate intolerant. Often these people tend to eat more protein which, almost half of digested protein is converted to glucose upon demand. The key words are “digested protein”. Glucose is a very major source of brain, as well as, cellular energy. As mentioned earlier, many people are susceptible to the numerous fads, fads in health, nutrition, exercise, diet, drugs and supplements.

In our clinical practice we see people who have participated in some of the various diets. One in particular, the low fat, high complex carbohydrate diet, usually accompanied by a great deal of exercise, has been of interest. Often these people have slimmer, harder bodies than they had before and that is appealing to them. However, they often have signs of collagen cross-linking along with its’ accompanying signs of wrinkles along with skin that seems to sag and has lost its’ elasticity. While they appear slim and trim and look good in their clothes, their skin looks to have accelerated the aging process. When this elasticity is lost it can be very difficult and challenging to regain what has been lost.

Obviously the aging process is not limited to those on fad diets, we are all challenged by environmental stresses, free radicals, pollution, oxidation and day to day life processes.

The skin is a vehicle able to deliver to the body nutrients through absorption. In the same manner, the skin can use and absorb nutrients that are applied topically, it can also absorb harmful substances it comes in contact with. Often these harmful substances are in the ingredients of soaps, shampoo, lotions, crèmes, and make-up that many people introduce into their skin unknowingly.

These products often seem harmless to some but for people that are challenged health wise, they can cause severe toxic reactions. Petrochemicals and synthetic ingredients, artificial colors, artificial synthetic fragrances are some of the more toxic ingredients found in many products. These substances have been shown to act as irritants, xenoestrogens, and neurotoxins and excitors. Over a period of time, the ability of the users’ to excrete these substances may be compromised. Certainly women use these products more and are the ones that are most effected with fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, multi-chemical sensitivity, and environmental illness. Why? Besides the fact that we are biochemcial beings and meant for using naturally occurring chemicals found in nature, (I don’t consider petroleum products as natural, although many argue otherwise), in the form of natural foods and plants, women are slower excretors than men and more likely to be endocrinologically challenged. When a persons’ endocrine system is not in balance, often times the thyroid is not operating properly, thyroxin (T-4) and triiodothyronine (T-3) may not be at levels in the proper tissues, that they should be. Serum levels may look fine.

When things are out of balance, it is common to see adrenal exhaustion. Protein and Protease deficiencies play a key role as many of these people have very fluctuating blood sugar levels. Protein is necessary to carry glucose, glucose is necessary to convert T-4 to T-3, a very important process, and when these conditions arise, often their is pituitary involvement. Corticosteroid and glucocorticoid hormones may not be optimally produced and utilized. Aldosterone, adrenocorticotropic hormone, and cortisol levels may fluctuate. If these levels are off and you are consulting with a techno-jock-doc, something like “Cortef” may be prescribed, often with confusing and sometimes disastrous results.

More and more people are using natural foods and supplements. Many are using more natural remedies for aches and pains. The use of personal care products is still heavily favored to the giants in the industry, and while they may say they are “natural”, they are anything but. (Please reference our white paper on "What is Natural".

Being sure what you put onto and into the skin is not only important to how the skin looks, but important to over all health and well being.

Being sure that you know what is in your skin care products, make-up and personal care items and what the desired results and consequences are, should be a very important and informed decision.

Being sure what you put onto and into the skin is not only important to how the skin looks, but important to over all health and well being.

Being sure that you know what is in your skin care products, make-up and personal care items and what the desired results and consequences are, should be a very important and informed decision.

Buy an all natural skin care product at Real Purity®, you'll be glad you did!

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