Natural Ingredients vs. Cosmeceuticals

There is a never-ending search for the best skin care products. Of course, with new scientific findings each and every day, it's always about what is the latest and greatest finding. Some people will argue that plastic surgery is the only proven way to change the way we look forever. Boy, are they wrong.

There are many ways to look at skin care ingredients and make judgments. Sure, there are many, many ingredients out there to analyze, investigate, and look for clinical data on. But, do you really want to do that? In this article, I'll break down three types of ingredients and talk about their strengths, perhaps it will provide a small yet effective education on the topic of ingredients that are used in today's skin care products.

Let's start with things that go way back in time. I'm sure this goes back to the days the dinosaurs roamed the earth, stomping around with no end in sight. I'm not talking about tree bark, I'm talking about gold. Yes, the same gold people wear around their necks and put in their body as a sign of wealth and prestige. Gold has the acute ability to bring more blood circulation to the skin's surface, and it helps detoxify and is a great antioxidant. Under the presence of gold, the skin can effectively exfoliate naturally. Of course, this dates back to the days of Cleopatra, who used gold in her facial treatments. It's used today in luxury skin products.

Another natural ingredient group is that of extracts. I'm talking about more antioxidant rich extracts, such as blueberry, acai, and of course resveratrol, which is derived from red wine. After that, you have the natural tea extracts, red and green. These are used in MANY spa treatments, and of course, are a soothing, natural way to treat the skin from the harmful elements out there such as the sun and wind. When you compare these natural ingredients to others, most people can't tell a difference. You will also find that the price of natural ingredients in formulas is usually lower as it's readily available. Other sources of natural ingredients are seaweed, kelp, and algae.

When you look at the stuff that man put together, crafted, and perfected, you are usually looking at something with a great deal of testing behind it. That is, you can't really tout an ingredient that was just made up in some lab without any tests, right? So, what we have today is called cosmeceuticals, basically a blend of cosmetics and pharmacology. The end result is usually a great blend of copper peptides that end up having terrific results on the skin.

So, which one is better? There are dissenting opinions, but both work very well to treat the skin on a cellular level. You may want to try something natural for say, dark circles, and use something with the cosmeceutical approach for wrinkles. Many of the top wrinkle creams use cosmeceuticals like Matrixyl 3000.

Hopefully now you have a better understanding of skin care ingredients, and how they can help you get beautiful, glowing skin.