From The Straits Times    |

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SNAIL slime. Argan serum. Ultrasonic waves to hydrogen sprays. You name it, some scientist from Korea, Japan or Taiwan would have figured out a way to turn it into a beauty serum or hand-held device to force feed your epidermis with nutrients. They may or may not work, but the only sure thing is that you will put your money on it.

At this year’s BeautyAsia, a swarm of brands from around the world descended upon the trade fair in Singapore, showcasing the latest trends and technology that will drive the beauty market in the coming years.

 

Portable skincare

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Salon-quality skincare at your fingertips has been the dream treatment for time-starved beauty junkies, hence the rise of pocket-sized gadgets that do just that. One of the latest to launch is the ionic skin care system in DeepSkin by Korean company Hicare (http://www.hicare.net/deepskin). It’s a face mask hooked up to a gadget that uses microcurrents to push nutrients from the mask deep into the skin’s dermal layer, a delivery method called iontophoresis. The exclusive ion infusion mask has whitening and wrinkle care functions and for 15 minutes after the gadget is turned on, you feel a light vibration over your face. Clinically proven results show 14 per cent skin elasticity improvement, 11 per cent hydration increase, 25 per cent of reduction in wrinkles and 17 per cent reduction in dullness after a 15 minute session, everyday for 12 weeks. Hicare’s recommendation is to use it two to three times a week.

Italy’s Skin Up (www.skinup.gg), meanwhile, is a gadget that looks like a slim mobile phone – you slide up the cover for a mist infusion on the go. The company that invented it, Phil Pharma, touts it as the first electronic system in the world able to nebulise hyaluronic acid. It uses ultrasonic technology to atomise the active ingredients in its solutions – a mix of hyaluronic acid, coenzyme Q10, lipoic acid, and aloe vera to hydrate the skin and slow down the aging process.

Japanese company Primary Step offers bisosui, a ”hydrogen dispenser” in a handheld container that can electrolyse hydrogen molecules in a serum, so that they become bubbleshaped nano particles. Hydrogen is known for its powerful antioxidant effect, so you spray your face after 10 seconds of activating the dispenser. The ”Repair Essence” serum contains ”Rosa Centifolia” flower water to nourish and revitalise the skin.

 

Only Natural

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Mother Earth followers will be relieved that the ”natural and organic” segment of the beauty industry continues to grow. For Japanese company Miyuki corporation, its Myufull brand (http://ex.myufull-pn.jp) boasts 100 per cent natural ingredient including Iranian-grown roses, deep sea water that’s gone through freeze desalination (for mineral balance), Arabic gum (which contains amino acids), and water-soluble turmeric (for the curcumin).

Another all-natural and organic range can be found in UK’s Beyond Organic Skincare, where formulations have higher-than-usual concentrations of sea buckthorn. Exclusive distributor Jennifer Pay of NewAge Global (www.Beyondorganicskincaresg.com), says it took her almost a year to find a truly safe and effective range of products, produced ethically and responsibly, to bring to Singapore.

From Thailand, Dermanour (www.dermanour.com) makes serum from Argan and spiders. The Argan serum is more concentrated than Argan oil, to improve regeneration and rejuvenation of the skin. The Golden Spider lifting serum and cream is patterned after a protein fiber that spiders make, to protect the moisture from the skin against evaporation, lifting skin up as well as tightening it.

 

Fermentation and fruits

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Fermentation may be associated with food, but producers in Japan and Taiwan tout its effectiveness for skincare. Japan has long had the expertise in traditional fermentation methods, and Glory International’s Ferjuve series includes anti-aging skincare made with fermented plant paste and water from Mt Fuji to stimulate collagen. (http://glory-web.com/item/cosme/ferjuve.html)

From Taiwan, Sufu soap (www.sonice.tw) is marketed as the ”grow hair” shampoo bar, using Taiwanese pineapple enzymes and Japanese production methods. The bromelain is what naturally decomposes sebum and oil from the skin and hair.

Fellow Taiwanese company Magic Beauty (www.magic101.org), is banking on its bio-enzyme crystal face soap that contains natural active fruit enzymes of papaya, charcoal, tea tree, kiwi and rose. These are supposed to produce peptides and amino acids to clear the skin and accelerate skin metabolism. They also contain betaglucan (sugars that are found in the cell walls of bacteria, fungi, yeasts, algae, lichens, and plants) to strengthen the immune cells under the dermal layer of the skin.

Singapore’s Imagen Labs will also soon launch its Kaizen Care (www.kaizencare.com) series. It partnered a Japanese company to produce skincare products made with fermented micro-algae and fermented lactobacillus.

 

From farm to beauty table

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The locavore movement in food is also influencing the beauty industry, with makers choosing to focus only on the ingredients from their immediate region.

Japan’s Karatsu city in the northwestern part of Kyushu Island was represented by the Japan Cosmetic Center (http://jcc-k.com/en) this year. The center inked a partnership deal with France’s Cosmetic Valley late 2013, and some of their innovations are being launched in the market.

Only ingredients from farmers in Saga prefecture are used. ”We are trying to help farmers expand the uses for their produce, and different ways of commercialisation,” explains Ichiro Morikawa, the Centre’s manager of business planning and development.

The products include a unique tea seed oil for moisturising, using raw ingredients untouched by pesticides or chemical fertilisers. Soy milk from Kawashima is made into a fragrance-free, preservative-free and surfactant-free face soap.

Soy has enzymes which are very similar to papain which breaks down protein, so it helps remove dead skin cells. The problem is that the face soap looks like a delicious tofu cake, so you might be tempted to bite into it.

Another company which grows White Jew’s Ear (hakubitake in Japanese and Auricularia Polytricha in Latin) has extracted the polysaccharides to make a translucent, ball-like soap for those with sensitive skin and skin allergies. ”A Drop of Hakubi” looks like a water drop and it’s meant to be gently moisturising.

Chiangmai-based company, Iatatai (www.iatitai.com) too has decided to harvest from its immediate area and uses only ingredients sourced from the northern part of Thailand. While its use of native ingredients is typically Thai, the company emphasises the quality of local harvests. Ingredients for its soap bars, shampoos and body lotions include longan, mangosteen, lemongrass and kaffir lime, as well as black sesame and jasmine rice.

 

DNA treatment

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The next frontier for DNA to be employed is in skincare. Italy’s World of Beauty (www.worldofbeauty.com) has a DNA Dermatology range where the recommended treatment is a detoxification for 30 to 40 days before application of other products. The VDI Detox lotion attacks free radicals generated from matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) which destroys collagen and causes pigmentation. The detoxification is recommended once or twice a year, for the creams to work better.

In Singapore, Imagen Labs (www.Imagenlabs.com) has made DNA testing a lot easier and user-friendly, offering customised skin, nutrition and fitness analyses. You just have to send your saliva sample for the oriSKIN test kit (www.AskOri.com), and the analysis targets 10 skin traits covering 26 genes. These traits include collagen breakdown, dryness, antioxidant deficiency and sensitivity to sun.

If the results show a high rate of collagen breakdown, for example, this affects skin elasticity. Customers are then recommended a customised facial serum to address potential skin concerns.

 

Salon gadgets

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It’s still hard to beat the machines at their game, which is why companies are constantly innovating to find better and more efficient methods of delivery. A new Magnetic Infusion Technology (MIT) is the core of Israeli company Synoia’s Wishpro machine. MIT is a revolving magnetic field that reacts with the charged ions in its serums to penetrate deep into the skin.

One applicator can be fixed with several different ”technology heads” and seven customised capsules to deliver everything from microdermabrasion to anti-ageing skincare. It works like an injection without the needle as it’s a non-invasive way of pushing high concentrations of a charged substance into the skin.

Another Israeli company, Pollogen, just launched a machine that can deliver a ”superfacial” – by integrating three most effective skin-enhancing technologies in one machine, to deliver skin nourishment, skin tightening and can reduce the appearance of wrinkles.

 

Turn Back The Clock

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CAN you really reverse aging with the right diet?

Human ageing is a lot more complex than we realise, and scientists have been looking at ways to measure biological ageing for a long time.

Recent discoveries in epigenetic research has made it easier to measure ageing, says Alexander Haslberger, head of Biotechnology, Microbiology, Genetics at the University of Vienna, Austria.

Epigenetics is the study of biological mechanisms that will switch genes on and off. And epigenetic markers in ageing are increasingly seen as more important than other markers.

“The key challenges were to understand the part that different mechanisms play, discover how they are integrated and work out how these can be analysed and measured,” he explains.

Findings include how ageing is caused by inflammation – or “inflammaging”. For example, being overweight and having a high BMI is low grade inflammation. Being overweight means we’re automatically older, says Dr Haslberger.

The importance of gut microbiota or flora also cannot be over-emphasised, as their link to all complex diseases are clear, he adds. So far, in the last 15 to 20 years scientists have only managed to “plate”, or work with 20 per cent of the gut microbes, so there are more that’s not known.

What’s his advice for ageing well? Scientists know that a vitamin and anti-oxidant rich diet helps DNA repair, but Dr Haslberger says it’s from whole, organic foods rather than man-made supplements.

“What we now know as scientists is that the quality and stability of botanical ingredients are absolutely crucial to produce safe and effective responses within the human body and to influence the mechanisms of biological age,” he says.

It’s crucial, then, to get whole nutrients from botanical sources rather than in pill form. Organic whole food sources are preferred over man-made vitamins that can be purchased individually. Taking out one compound, like in Vitamin E, isn’t healthy and high doses can be potentially dangerous.

But Swiss formulation TimeBlock, takes recent research into account. The supplement targets ageing, to improve skin elasticity and the renewal of fresh cells for a younger look.

Dr Haslberger was the lead for that research, and was in Singapore to give a talk during the product launch.

TimeBlock’s botanical ingredients are grown at altitudes above 1,500 metres which result in far richer, more powerful combinations of botanical extracts. It uses proprietary processing techniques designed to maximise the bioavailability of the active ingredients.

The source of ingredients, the combination and the processing technique are designed to impact key biological ageing mechanisms within the body in an optimal way which leads to significant and measurable age reversal. TimeBlock has undergone a human trial Vienna University – which showed a 23 per cent reversal in biological age of the 120 participants in six months.

TimeBlock claims to be the first product in the world proven in human trials to reverse biological age significantly. Dr Haslberger’s peer-reviewed paper on this study will soon be published in medical journals in March 2017.

 

Article first published on Business Times