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Chapter 1

The Best Skin of Your Life Starts Here and Now…

A Message From Us

The title of this book and the name of this chapter make bold statements, yet we make them with the utmost confidence. That’s because the information you’ll find on every page is based on what current research shows can help you solve your skin concerns using a step-by-step cohesive skincare system you can understand and put into action. By doing this we know you can have and maintain the beautiful skin you’ve always wanted! All the details, recommendations, and encouragement we present throughout this book are what you need to get yourself on the fast track to finding the best products and best answers for your skin.

About Paula

As one of the authors of this book, I’m the one with the dubious distinction of being in the world of cosmetics and writing books about beauty the longest. If you’re not familiar with my work, I’ve been studying, reviewing, and researching scientific and medical journals about skincare for over 35 years. I have a background in science from my university studies, and I was a lifestyle reporter in Seattle for four years. Starting in 1985—and now with this book—I’ve written 21 books on beauty, skincare, makeup, and hair care (the first entitled Blue Eyeshadow Should Be Illegal), most of them more than 500 pages and some more than 1,000 pages, with millions of copies sold around the world.

By the way, of those 21 books, I’ve written eight with my co-author Bryan Barron, and two with my other co-author Desiree Stordahl. Together we have also written endless articles on skin and skincare.

I am also founder of Paula’s Choice Skincare, which I launched in 1995, a collection of products I formulated with options for practically every skin type and skin concern. Of course, I love my products. But, because there are many great products from other lines and because my mission has always been to help you get the best skin of your life, my goal is for you to understand how to take the best care of you skin, what you should and shouldn’t do AND to find the products that are ideal for your skin type and your skin concerns.

To that end, since creating Paula’s Choice Skincare, my team and I have formulated over 100 skincare products, and we’re still doing so today. My teams have grown to include some of the best talent in the industry, which means we leave no stone unturned to get you the most current information and research about skincare available. We are exclusively interested in facts and truth about skin. We will never waste your time on fabrication or guile.

Paula’s Journey: The Way-Back-When Machine!

I’ve had a love-hate relationship with the cosmetics industry from the very beginning. It started with an intense curiosity and passion for skincare, makeup, and hair care when I was very young. My passion wasn’t because I was fixated on buying cosmetics for a lark; rather, it was about trying to take care of my problem skin that progressively got worse and worse no matter what I used or what expert I consulted. It was emotional torture for me as a teenager. To this day, it is still painful for me to recount the stress and embarrassment of dealing with the unsightly skin problems I suffered through as a youth.

At the age of 11, I started suffering from acne and super-oily skin along with debilitating eczema over 60% of my body (in school I had to wear gloves to hold a pencil because my hands were so raw and sore from my incessant scratching of the eczema-caused itching). All I wanted at the time were effective products that would do as they claimed. This didn’t seem like too much to ask, right? Given how many times I was told month after month, year after year, how different products would end my struggle, surely something would work. However, over the next several years, no matter where I turned, whether to cosmetics counters, drugstores, spas, or even doctors’ offices, almost every product I tried led to disappointment. Despite the promises and claims, my skin rarely showed any signs of improvement, and it gradually just got worse! I felt helpless! I was in a frustrating cycle of trying to find products that worked—but every time it led to disappointment, and continued suffering. Yet, like most women, that didn’t stop me from trying again and again.

Finally, in early adulthood, I came to the realization that most skincare claims were either seriously misleading, just plain wrong, or, at best, delusional. I was determined and resolute to find out the truth about skin and skincare—it became a compulsion, eventually leading me to take my first steps into a career in the world of cosmetics. It was by no means a straight path, and I had no idea that it would lead me to where I am today; I only knew I was on a mission, and I have never wavered from that mission throughout all the years I’ve been doing this.

From my first book to thousands of media interviews and appearances, to presentations to women’s groups around the world, and to the products I’ve formulated, I have been, and continue to be, determined to change the face of beauty for myself, for the people I know, and for people everywhere. I didn’t want anyone to go through what I went through ever again. In looking over my evolving career, I believe I’ve accomplished much of what I set out to do. But I’m not quitting! There’s still a lot of work and research yet to be done.

Paula’s Life-Changing Moment!

I started my cosmetics career back in 1977. During my early years working as a makeup artist as well as selling skincare and makeup products, I didn’t know many of the technical details of why so many skincare and makeup products failed abysmally to live up to their claims; I just knew they didn’t work as advertised. More often than not, the claims made for the products and what they were supposed to do rarely matched their performance, or even came close, but at the time I had no way to confirm my suspicions; there was no Internet as we know it today and no one had personal computers.

It was about that time one of the most historic advancements in the world of cosmetics was taking place. In 1977, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) finalized the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act, a piece of cosmetic regulation that was about to change the face of beauty forever, and my future as well. What took place—after many years of legal wrangling and deliberation—was the mandatory requirement for all cosmetics to include a complete list of ingredients printed on the product’s packaging and presented in descending order of content. The ingredients first on the list were there in the largest amounts and the ingredients at the end were present in the tiniest amounts.

It’s difficult to imagine now how significant and radical an event that was. The United States passed this regulation in 1977; the next country to mandate cosmetic ingredient labeling (Australia) didn’t enact it until 1995! Other countries didn’t follow suit until 2000 through 2009.

Needless to say, I was very pleased to finally know what was in a cosmetic, but, at the same time, it was a disappointment because so many of the ingredient names were indecipherable (and they still are to this day). Here was this amazing information on the label, but I had no idea what I was reading and, on top of that, there were (and are) thousands of different ingredients that a cosmetics chemist can use to make a product. It made my head spin, but it also spurred the beginning of my quest to learn what it all meant and to then spread the word—that is where my books and, eventually, Paula’s Choice would play a critical role.

With a background in science from my university days and access to scientific journals (all in hard copy in libraries, as there was no Google back then), my search began. I immersed myself in biology and physiology books and the scientific and medical journals on skin (something I still do with my team today, albeit with much easier access).

Just Knowing Ingredients Isn’t Enough

As fascinating as it was to finally know what products actually contain, whether those ingredients were actually effective or beneficial (or how problematic they were), it wasn’t enough. In other words, although I now knew the function of an ingredient in a formula, fundamental and complicated questions remained. I still needed to know which ingredients, in what amounts, and in what types of products they would work best for which skin type and which skin concerns, from acne to wrinkles, dry skin, rosacea, oily skin, combination skin, sun damage, loss of firmness, blackheads, and on and on. Moreover, what should be done if someone had multiple problems, like oily skin and wrinkles with occasional breakouts, or dry skin with rosacea and sun damage? Many people, including me, deal with frustrating combinations like this, and it can be incredibly confusing to know how to treat seemingly contradictory skin concerns.

It was overwhelming, just imagining the vast amount of scientific and medical literature I would have to tackle to accomplish what I’d set out to do. There were myriad questions that needed answers.

The most basic question of all, however, was what kinds of products, among other elements of a skincare routine, could be combined into a cohesive routine that takes into account everything someone needs—and that excludes what is absolutely not needed—to have beautiful, healthy skin?

An even more complex problem is that most ingredients have nuances that affect their degree of benefit (or their potential for damage) to skin. For example, not all ingredients can be stable in the same formula, but those same ingredients can sometimes be combined with the right formulary considerations. There’s also the issue of how much of any specific ingredient is needed to get the best results.

When it comes to plant extracts, it gets even more complicated because different parts of a plant can have different attributes. Take green tea for example, which would be listed on a product as Camellia sinensis. Research is clear that green tea is a good skincare ingredient, but which part of the plant is the best? Do you want the leaves, flower, roots, or stem of the plant? Eventually, I was to learn that this nuance applied to most ingredients.

I went back to the library, spending endless days searching for answers to these questions. Over a period of five years, I assembled enough data and details to realize what formulations would be best for skin, for different skin types, different skin concerns, and perhaps most importantly, which ones would present a serious risk of irritation to skin.

All this culminated in my first book, Blue Eyeshadow Should Be Illegal, which was published in 1985. Two years later I appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show for the first time and would go on to make 14 more appearances on her show during the years it aired.

Ancient Wisdom Was Not Very Wise

…At least not when it came to skincare! With each book I wrote, I thought I had really, this time, finally said it all, and that now people would find their way, as I had, to having the best skin possible and I would never have to write another book. Obviously, that wasn’t the case, as I went on to write many more books and articles. I would have loved it if my first book could have covered everything, but as countless new studies were conducted and scientific discoveries were published, knowledge about skincare progressed and changed, and so did our conclusions and recommendations about what would (and wouldn’t) work for skin.

As the research evolved, so did our work, as we needed to incorporate what the most current research demonstrated to be true for skin. Each new book reflected the recent significant and meaningful information so you would stay informed and be able to take the best care of your skin. And, as with every book before it, beautiful skin is what this book (and Paula’s Choice Skincare) is all about!

Many people ask us: Why does skincare have to be so complicated? Believe us, we wish it weren’t, but it is, although some people understandably still doubt us. Women sometimes tell us, “Well, my grandmother just used bar soap and she looked great!” We have no doubt grandma was a beautiful woman, but we would no sooner expect you to use a typewriter rather than your laptop computer—or a hard-wired landline rather than a smart phone—just because that worked well for your grandmother. Like laptops and smart phones, advances in skincare reflect the same concept in terms of the innovative and cutting-edge technology used to develop today’s best products.

Taking care of your skin can seem as complicated as rocket science, but as multifaceted and complex as skincare is, we can bring it down to earth for you so you can make the best decisions for your skin.

With all due respect to previous generations and ancient cultures, the often-disastrous skincare routines and products used throughout history were not necessarily beautiful, and they certainly were not solutions. Don’t cheat your skin by accepting myths about skincare. Even as little as 20 years ago, there was little to no information about sun protection, antioxidants, increasing collagen production, preventing environmental damage, and so on.

It’s also important to remember that there are no miraculous ingredients when it comes to skincare. This is one of the more difficult facts to get across in this book, and you may find it hard to accept because cosmetics companies endlessly parade new ingredients with elaborate and enticing fabricated stories about their amazing effects on skin. It is not easy to ignore that barrage of inducements. Please try to resist being seduced by yet another rare plant extract, exotic plant oil, or some scientifically manufactured ingredient because, without exception, this belief will be a disaster for your skin. It’s not that new ingredients are not interesting and potentially beneficial for skin, but skin is too complicated for any single ingredient to be enough. If anything, just the opposite is true: Skin needs a vast array of substances to be healthy, to heal, to stay young looking, to feel smoother, and to look flawless.

The Genesis of Paula’s Choice

Paula’s Choice Skincare was launched in 1995 and I am very proud of the products we’ve created. That was almost ten years to the day from when my first book was published. What a remarkable journey it has been and continues to be!

Creating my own line of skincare products was controversial given that I had been such a strong and vocal critic of the cosmetics industry. Wasn’t I sleeping with the enemy and going over to the dark side? How could I ever be impartial again? Anyone who is familiar with my work over the years knows that I haven’t compromised my principles or integrity for one moment—you will find just the opposite is true. The more my team and I learned by formulating products and working with brilliant cosmetics chemists, the more in-depth knowledge we gained about skincare and skincare products. All this reinforced my drive to not just create great products but also to put forth reliable, research-supported information.

My reason for starting Paula’s Choice Skincare was in large part due to pressure from my friends, family, and readers of my books. They kept asking me to make my own products that didn’t have all the “buts” and warnings of the other products I reviewed. They would say, “You always write ‘this product is good…—but it’s too expensive for what you get, —but it has too much fragrance, —but it’s in unstable packaging, —but there are better products out there.” They’d practically yell at me, exclaiming: “Just make your own products so we know what to use, because otherwise it’s overwhelming and there’s no way to know what’s best!” I understood precisely what they were talking about.

There was also another reason I considered starting Paula’s Choice Skincare, though I’m a bit reluctant to admit it. The plain truth is I also started my own line of products because I didn’t want to write any more books. Each new book was bigger and bigger, requiring hours of exhaustive research and energy. It seemed relatively easier to put my energy, time, and what I knew about skincare into my own products—no more books.

So, in 1993, after all the cajoling and encouragement from people in my life and after overcoming self-doubt, it dawned on me that “Yes, I could indeed make state-of-the-art products that left out all the ‘buts’ and that were loaded with ingredients research showed were beneficial for skin.” The idea for Paula’s Choice Skincare was born; the first products began arriving nearly two years later!

Obviously, as you now know, my enthusiasm for writing books didn’t go away! I couldn’t give up what I had been doing for the previous ten years of my life. Skincare information is not only my mission and heritage; it is also my legacy.

I also want to set the record straight for those who think I hate the cosmetics industry and/or I like only my own products; nothing could be further from the truth. I am and have always been in constant awe of what well-formulated beauty products can do, no matter who they’re from. However, what I do hate are the ludicrous claims, misinformation, and poorly-formulated products that can hurt or mislead consumers into taking poor care of their skin and wasting their money. And, while I definitely love my own products as you will see throughout this book, I definitely do not ignore alternative options.

It Takes a Village…

In the beginning, I used to handle all of the writing and research myself, but fortunately, my co-authors Bryan and Desiree joined me, along with formula experts, researchers, and others to help publish our books and articles and maintain our website PaulasChoice.com, which is one of the best and most frequently updated sources for complete skincare information in the world.

Together, this amazing team accomplishes time after time what most would say is the impossible. As a result, each subsequent edition of our books has achieved a higher level of excellence in providing you with an unparalleled, easy-to-understand resource about skincare and makeup. Without question, this book would not be possible without the hard work and dedication of the entire Paula’s Choice Research Team. Each one of us has taken the information, research, and philosophy to new heights of dedication and responsibility.

Together, we search out and analyze endless studies on skincare and ingredients, pore over fashion magazines, and spend hours upon hours researching what works and what doesn’t, and in finding ways to help as many people as possible navigate the often-confusing world of skincare and makeup.

I always say it takes a village of enthusiastic and educated people to do the work we do at Paula’s Choice—to write books like this one, and to ensure the quality of the products we create for Paula’s Choice Skincare. Through it all, my team and I remain steadfast in our mission to provide current and insightful information about skincare and makeup.

Sharing Our Pursuit for Truth

I have always worked hard in trying to find the best way to help people see the difference between fact and fiction when it comes to taking care of their skin. In the beginning, I feared I was being too critical. Indeed, I was often told I just had a vendetta against the cosmetics industry, and would I please just stop being so critical.

Nowadays, if you Google my name you will see that very few people are neutral about my work—they either hate it or love it. You’ll read statements claiming that I’m not a dermatologist, I’m not a scientist, I’m biased, I’m critical of other products just to push my own, I’m not really objective … and on and on. You’ll also see lots of positive comments, such as praise for my 35 years of work, which speaks for itself, the fact that I’ve changed my views in response to new research findings, that I’ve helped their skin in ways they never thought possible, and that my team and I provide one-of-a-kind information you can’t find anywhere else in the world.

People also wonder about other companies; that is, if what we say here at Paula’s Choice Skincare is true, then why don’t the other companies know the same things? Why don’t they follow suit? The answer is: We don’t know. The research and studies my team and I cite throughout all our books and articles are accessible to everyone. There are no secrets in the world of skincare because all the validated published research, scientific journals, and medical textbooks are only a click away on your computer, and even on mobile devices these days—though sometimes fees are involved and the studies can be difficult to decipher. The point is that the research and its results are not secrets, and there are no patented secrets either as the legality of a patent worldwide means that every minute detail of the ingredient and the formula must be disclosed and available to the public.

Regardless of whether or not you agree with everything this book has to say, you will at least have someone else’s voice whispering in your ear, saying, “Here is the research showing why doing this is best for your skin” or “Given the physiology of skin, this is why a product can’t work or can work as claimed.” We believe this is a far better way to make decisions about how to take care of your skin than relying on a never-ending litany of misleading claims and flawed information that prevail throughout much of the cosmetics industry.

Skin Frustrations are Universal

Paula’s Choice Skincare products are sold in over 50 countries around the world. This has given me the opportunity to give hundreds of media interviews and to hold speaking engagements in places such as Jakarta, Indonesia; Seoul, South Korea; Stockholm, Sweden; Mexico City, Mexico; Singapore; Sydney and Melbourne, Australia; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Moscow, Russia; Taipei, Taiwan; Toronto, Edmonton, and Vancouver, Canada; and, of course, almost every major city in the United States.

What I’ve learned is that the business of beauty is universally crazy. There’s no place in the world where people aren’t frustrated about how to take the best care of their skin. No matter where I’ve been in the world, people are equally concerned about looking younger and having picture-perfect skin. As a result, I am asked the same questions wherever I go and I rarely have to change my responses!

People want to know why a product they bought didn’t work. Why didn’t their deep wrinkles go away? Why didn’t their red marks from acne fade? Why wasn’t their skin lifted? Why didn’t their skin discolorations change? Why are they still breaking out or just starting to break out? Why do they still have dry, flaky skin after buying so many products promising to make things better? Why is their skin so red and irritated? What is the best anti-aging ingredient? Do I know about a recently launched product with a supposed miracle ingredient and does it work? What about ingredients from Morocco, the Amazon, India, China, or some other far-flung place?

During my presentations, I’ve come to expect a look of understanding gradually wash over the audience member’s faces as they begin to grasp how myths have taken over the facts about what is best for skin.

What people everywhere want is to take the best care of their skin, look younger and have an even skin tone, with no breakouts, smaller pores, and on and on. In each country I visit, without fail, beauty ideals revolve entirely around youth and flawless skin, and how to get there. That last point—how to get there—is inevitably accompanied by shared confusion, worldwide. My team and I want to clear up that confusion for you here and now! We don’t want you to take our word for it. We want you to know all the facts.

Wanting Beautiful Skin

We understand the distress that skin problems can cause. Many of us feel a blow to our self-esteem when our skin doesn’t look and feel beautiful. At any age, that can be crushing. On top of that, what makes this utterly maddening, for us and for you, is that solutions can seem impossible to find. That’s not because solutions don’t exist, but rather because too often the truth or reality is mired in misleading information, myths, false pretext, and poor product formulations.

You’re often told that all-natural is the way to go, or that there is a new miracle ingredient that is best for your skin, or that this one product is the answer, or that whatever product the celebrity you admire is using is what you should be using, and on and on. The industry uses all of these methods to assure you that you will be doing the best thing for your skin, and that you won’t be hurting your skin … and then the next promises and miracle products or plant extracts start gaining attention in traditional and social media … and the cycle continues.

We understand why all that marketing makes it tempting and how easy it is to be seduced by it. All of us here at Paula’s Choice Skincare have gone through this ourselves. That’s why we are so dedicated to researching and discovering what really works and what doesn’t work for skin based on scientific studies and medical textbooks, not on fabrications or made-up claims. This is how all of us here at Paula’s Choice Skincare have resolved our skin problems, and how we’ve helped millions of people around the world address their problems. For that, we are not only proud, but also privileged to have lived our dream and to continue to do so every day.

We can assure you with complete certainty that the results for all of us have been nothing short of astounding—and we know you can experience the same real results without all the puffery or pretense! We know those are bold statements, but hang in there with us—you’ll find it well worth your while.

We Worry About You

Why are we worried? Because we know how much of the information you’ve read or heard about skincare is more often than not incomplete, one-sided, just plain wrong, or what amounts to nothing more than fear-mongering. That makes us worry about how you will decide what to use and what not to use on your skin. You can’t get the best skin of your life based on myths and fabrications. It’s absolutely frustrating to us to see consumers stuck in the middle, being pushed and pulled by such disparate, maddening information and hoping the next product they buy, or facial they get, or medical procedure they have will finally be the answer. It’s a vicious merry-go-round that isn’t all that merry and is hard to get off.

Much of the information out there is unreliable and spurious, and not only won’t help you take the best care of your skin, but can also make matters worse and consistently waste your money, two things we can’t abide.

We could wax poetic about the past and present senseless, impractical myths and bad skincare advice that has and still does run rampant in every corner of the cosmetics industry. Everything we reveal in this book will help you find your way through and come out of the maze of confusion. You will be empowered to start doing what is best for your skin! This book factually demonstrates exactly how you can do that, whether you use Paula’s Choice Skincare products or someone else’s. If we’ve succeeded, perhaps you’ll even have a little fun along the way! But first, a bit more background.…

Age, Skin Color, and Race Are Not Skin Types!

There are several aspects to understanding your skin type, but first you must understand that your age, skin color, and race are not as important as other factors. I know that may be hard to believe, especially considering how often you’ve read statements to the contrary, but it’s 100% true. It isn’t that older skin isn’t different from younger skin or that darker skin color isn’t different from lighter skin color, it’s just that when it comes to how you take care of your skin and what you should and shouldn’t do, these factors—age of your skin and color of your skin—don’t matter.

What does matter are the skin concerns you’re dealing with and your skin type. You can be 60 and have oily skin with breakouts and sun damage, but understand that someone can have the exact same issues at age 30.

The types of ingredients and products that treat dry skin, oily skin, rosacea, wrinkles, acne, blackheads, skin discolorations, uneven skin tone, red marks from breakouts, sensitive skin, sun damage (everyone has sun damage), eczema, combination skin, and on and on are essentially the SAME (with only minor exceptions)for everyone.

Think about it like your diet. What’s healthy or unhealthy to eat is generally the same for everyone. Adding more green, leafy vegetables and fruit to your diet is healthy, regardless of your age or race. Likewise, chocolate cake and hydrogenated fats can’t be considered health foods for anyone, regardless of their age or race.

Research has clearly established the types of skincare formulas that can work wonders and likewise those that are badly formulated and can make matters worse. This is true no matter who you are, how old you are, what race you are, or where you live. We discuss skin type further in Chapter 3, Skin Type vs. Skin Concern.

Setting Realistic Expectations and Goals

This section of our book may not be easy for some of you because we’re about to discuss the limitations of skincare. People do want to believe in miracle products and in miracle ingredients that will replace the need for cosmetic surgery or cosmetic corrective procedures. We wish we could tell you otherwise, but such products just don’t exist. It’s not that there aren’t brilliantly formulated, remarkable products to consider—it’s just that they all have limitations (and that includes my products).

It’s our devout promise that we will never mislead you or exaggerate the truth. Unfortunately—and we know from our own experience—it’s far easier to believe in the exaggerations and the hype hoping, just hoping, that there is some truth in it. So, while the information we present in this section may be somewhat disappointing for you, it is vitally important for you to stop the endless search for and temptation to buy yet another product claiming miraculous results.

It’s important to realize that skincare products have limitations, despite the claims made in the advertisements you’ve seen, articles you’ve read, or what you’ve been told by salespeople, dermatologists, aestheticians, or your friends. Skincare products cannot replace what cosmetic corrective procedures or face-lifts can do. They can make a phenomenal difference, especially when you consistently use great products and keep your skin protected from the sun (daylight) 365 days a year, but they cannot give you the kind of results you keep pinning your hopes on.

Skincare products can’t stop time and they can’t dramatically turn the clock back. You aren’t going to lift a sagging neck, jaw line, or under-eye area with skincare products. You also aren’t going to erase deep wrinkles or the effects of advanced sun damage. Again, skincare can provide impressive improvements, but it’s always within the parameters of physiological reality. Understanding the limitations and knowing what’s possible (and not possible) will not only save you from one disappointment after another, but also keep you from wasting a lot of money along the way. We discuss this in greater detail and provide key information about cosmetic corrective and surgical procedures in Chapter 13, Botox, Fillers, Lasers, and Surgery.

You’ve probably heard the saying that if you repeat a lie often enough it becomes accepted as fact. Well, the beauty industry is no exception. Throughout this book you will learn only the facts about what research says is best for your skin, in ways that will surprise you and often give you dramatic results (almost overnight), especially once you stop using products that are useless (or actually bad) for your skin.

Surprises Await…

We present a lot of information in this book, but the following list gives you an overview of some of the more salient, universal points we want you to keep in mind as you peruse these pages. In The Best Skin of Your Life Starts Here, you’ll find discussions and explanations of the following facts:

 Why you should avoid jar packaging

 Why many natural ingredients are bad for skin (really, really bad)

 Why spending more money on skincare isn’t necessarily better

 How irritating ingredients damage skin

 Why your skin doesn’t always let you know when it’s being irritated or damaged

 Why and how some anti-acne products can actually cause more breakouts

 Why some eye creams are a problem for the eye area

 How fragrance (whether natural or synthetic) damages skin

 Why some “essential” oils are unessential and, in fact, seriously problematic for skin

 Why antiwrinkle creams can’t work like Botox, dermal fillers, lasers, or light treatments

 Why sunscreen is the most important part of a daily skincare routine

 Why terms like “hypoallergenic,” “non-comedogenic,” “patented ingredients,” “dermatologist-approved,” and “cosmeceutical” are meaningless, and, in fact, are seen on some of the worst products you’ll ever use

 Why there are no miracle skincare ingredients (just lots of great ones)

 Why your skin doesn’t “adapt to” the skincare products you are using

 How you might be causing a skin type or concern you don’t want

 Which cosmetic ingredients you must avoid and what to use instead (and not based on the typical synthetic-versus-natural argument)

 Why the best approach to makeup is to learn techniques that really make sense and really work, not just buying more products

 And much, much more

What Are the Best Ingredients?

My team and I are continually asked which ingredients in skincare products are the best. If there’s a new ingredient being touted, we’re asked if it’s now “the answer” to their specific skincare woes, especially when it comes to wrinkles.

Aside from the fact that there are literally thousands of different ingredients that can be included in a skincare product, there’s no all-inclusive way to sum up which are the best. Actually, to even suggest there’s any one ingredient that will solve your skincare woes is just plain silly. Everyone is looking for a magic bullet from that one does-it-all product, but such a product just doesn’t exist in the world of skincare.

We wish skincare were as easy as finding the consummate skincare ingredient that can do it all, but it’s not … not even close. Skin, the largest organ of the body, has a vast range of substances and is the site of multiple hormonal and molecular interactions that keep it young, radiant, smooth, healthy, breakout-free, and even-toned. As you might suspect, countless things can go wrong when these systems become damaged or start slowing down.

When skin’s natural restoring system of antioxidants and skin-repairing ingredients are abundant and working correctly, your skin has a far better chance of healing and staying younger, longer. But when sun damage, age, hormonal changes, environmental damage, and other factors cause those substances to break down and those systems to slow down or change, you must provide your skin with what it needs to repair itself and prevent further problems. That repair can never be solved with any one ingredient or any one product.

Just like your body requires you to eat a complex assortment of beneficial foods to keep you healthy, your skin requires a similarly complex array of ingredients. In addition, different skin types require different products to meet different needs, such as oily, dry, or combination skin, skin that is affected by rosacea, sun damage, brown spots, red marks, acne, wrinkles, and so on. One ingredient may help some of these concerns, but certainly not all of them.

The good news is that there are hundreds of great good-for-your-skin ingredients. On the other hand, there also are dozens of ingredients (both synthetic and natural) that are a serious problem for skin. Whenever you read that some vitamin, plant oil or plant extract is the “best” ingredient for skin, ignore it. Think about it like this, green tea may be healthy for you to drink, but if you drink only green tea you soon will become unhealthy and even risk your life. Think of your skin the same way; it needs a range of substances naturally found in skin to keep “feeding it” day in and day out to be as healthy as possible. Unfortunately, that makes skincare complicated, but we have information and answers for you to help simplify it to the extent possible.

What About Natural Ingredients?

Natural or naturally derived and organic ingredients are a polarizing topic. Some people enjoy the idea of using only skincare products that contain natural or organic ingredients, but there’s no benefit to using natural ingredients if those ingredients are going to damage your skin. (Natural does not always mean better—after all, cyanide, lead and snake venom are all perfectly natural substances!) The question we always ask when evaluating any ingredient is: what potential benefit does it have for skin versus its potential to do harm? If it has the potential to irritate or damage skin, how strong is that potential, and is there an alternative ingredient that provides the same benefit without such concerns?

You will be shocked to learn how many natural ingredients can be a problem for skin, and actually damage it. Not all natural skincare ingredients are beneficial. Many companies touting their natural ingredients are not telling the truth when they suggest that synthetic ingredients are inherently bad for skin because, in fact, many are actually brilliant for skin.

In short, there are good and bad natural or naturally-derived ingredients and good and bad synthetic ingredients. That’s why we continually pore through the research literature, to help you find the products that contain more of what’s proven to help skin and avoid those loaded with irritating, harmful ingredients or over-glorified ingredients that can’t perform as you’ve been told.

To make it easier for you to understand what you’ll see on ingredient lists, we include in this book a portion of our Cosmetic Ingredient Dictionary, which you’ll find in Chapter 16. It highlights some of the more typical (and controversial) ingredients you’ll find in skincare products. This resource explains what an ingredient is and does based on published research, not on hype or fanciful storytelling.

Don’t Try This on Yourself

We’re often asked why someone shouldn’t just try a product to see if they like it or just rely on someone else’s experience with a product to determine if it would work for their needs. We can’t think of a bigger mistake for your skin than to rely solely on personal assessment, whether yours or someone else’s, to determine the benefit and/or quality of a product. Even here at Paula’s Choice Skincare we don’t personally test all our own formulas to determine efficacy. It’s not that you shouldn’t use a product you like, but you should make your selection only from the best-formulated products, those that are right for your skin type and that have the best ingredients research has shown to provide incredible results. How a product feels on your skin alone doesn’t give you the vital information you need about the quality of any formula.

So, what’s wrong with applying a product to see if it works? Just because you apply a skincare product, even for a relatively long period, doesn’t mean that you’ll be able to tell if it’s helping or hurting your skin. This is true for many reasons.

First, there is an incredible risk to skin from using (or even “just trying”) a badly-formulated product. Just because someone likes a product they personally tested doesn’t mean it’s a good product, for them or for you. They may like the feel or the look of the product, but that doesn’t tell you anything about whether or not it is beneficial for skin or harmful for skin.

When it comes to skincare, and even to one’s diet, people often “like” what isn’t good for them in the short term and, even more important, over the long term. As for skincare, it is difficult, if not impossible, to tell whether a product is good or bad just from applying it. The product may be packaged in a jar, which weakens the beneficial ingredients; it may contain problematic ingredients and so cause damage when used over the long term; it may contain nothing useful at all for repairing more advanced skin concerns; or it may be a daytime moisturizer that doesn’t contain sunscreen.

Think about it this way: Just because someone swears by smoking for keeping their weight down doesn’t make smoking good for you. It’s important to realize that many skincare products have positive or negative results that can be ongoing and/or that can take years to manifest. The benefit of a healthy diet doesn’t always show up immediately and the same is true for a terrible diet; it can be years before you see the resulting damage. This also holds true for badly-formulated skincare products: The harm would be ongoing and you wouldn’t know because the damage is taking place in the lower layers of skin, beyond what you can see. It can also take years before you see the damage on the surface of skin. I don’t want any of us to wait years only to find out that what we were using on our skin all along was detrimental.

It also isn’t necessary to test drive a product to know its strengths or weaknesses because the research on most ingredients has already been carried out so the information is readily available, just as it is for food or medicine. You don’t need to eat processed foods to know how unhealthy they are for you or smoke cigarettes to find out years later that was a bad choice. A vast amount of research has already been done to determine what those results will be, and the same is true for skincare ingredients.

How skincare ingredients are combined and how they work in products is well known from research in the cosmetic, medical, and biological sciences. There’s also extensive, documented medical and scientific research about how different ingredients affect skin. Our information about ingredients is based on that research, which is why our recommendations can really help you find products that work for your skin type, your skin concerns and that you will enjoy using—because they really work! Now that’s a concept all of us can agree on, right?

Can You Read an Ingredient Label?

I wish I could teach everyone how to read an ingredient label because therein lies the basic, but fundamental, information for determining the effectiveness and functionality of almost any skincare product (makeup is an entirely different matter, which we get to in Chapter 15). The ingredient list is the key to understanding whether or not a product’s claims make any sense and whether it’s problematic or beneficial for your skin. But, deciphering the ingredient list is not easy, especially if you don’t have a background in cosmetic science or cosmetic formulation.

The first and foremost complicating factor is the sheer number of ingredients available that can be included in a formulation. There are literally thousands of ingredients and thousands upon thousands of potential mixtures of those ingredients. The current International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients (INCI) comprises four huge printed volumes and an online subscription costs thousands of dollars.

Even more confounding are the chemical names of the ingredients, at times far too technical to understand. How can the average consumer ever hope to comprehend what polymethylsilsesquioxane, palmitoyl hexapeptide-12, or cetyl ricinoleate are, let alone understand what they do? Even plant extracts have names that are unpronounceable, such as Gaultheria procumbens or Simmondsia chinensis. Vitamin C is one of the many great ingredients for skin, but even that has over a dozen different forms with overly-technical names on an ingredient label, and each one has its own benefit and usefulness in a formulation.

In addition to the difficulty of untangling an ingredient label and all the claims espousing an ingredient’s or product’s benefits, there are also all the horror stories about some ingredients you encounter on the Internet and from other sources. Almost without exception, the fear-mongering you’ve read about such ingredients as parabens, silicones, mineral oil, sulfates, and so on is just plain wrong. Sometimes the statements made about these types of ingredients (and many others) are taken out of context from research, leading to irrelevant and silly conclusions, or the statements are made up out of thin air, derived or extrapolated from unrelated sources, and/or have no scientific basis.

Any ingredient can be made to sound scary by manipulating the facts. For example, water’s chemical name is Dihydrogen monoxide, which has been confused repeatedly with the dangerous carbon monoxide because the two have similar-sounding names—not to mention that as innocuous as water seems, drinking too much water within a short period of time can cause serious health problems.

To highlight how this fear-mongering works, we’ll use mineral oil as an example. There are those who want to scare you into believing that mineral oil is bad for you, but research reveals just the opposite. Not only is mineral oil natural (it begins as petroleum from the earth), but also the research makes it crystal clear that it’s one of the gentlest and safest cosmetic ingredients out there, especially for wound healing and dry skin. In some ways, it’s safer than water!

Other examples of ingredients that have been subject to fear-mongering include silicones, which are a brilliant group of ingredients that have been used in hospital burn units around the world for decades; sulfates, which are not problematic and do not cause cancer; and parabens, which are some of the safest, most non-irritating preservatives ever used in cosmetics.

The authentic scientific and balanced information is out there, but it’s been a lifelong pursuit for us to filter through the research, not something a consumer can easily pick up or find the time to figure out; even many people within the cosmetics industry have difficulty in this area, and so fall prey to misleading or completely false information. Now it’s time for us to give you the facts about skincare and about how to take the best care of your skin.