Taking optimal care of skin is vital for overall health and wellbeing. In fact, keeping skin intact and healthy is critical for maintaining homeostasis including proper body temperature and hydration. Skin also provides a barrier to pathogens and chemicals that could cause systemic disease and/or damage. When skin is exposed to irritants, it often becomes inflamed and itchy, and it’s difficult not to scratch.  Unfortunately, scratching can result in wounds. Various factors are important for a well functioning skin barrier including proper skin pH, balanced lipids and healthy microbial flora (microbiome). Factors that can disturb barrier function include stress (including...

The average age of our population is still rising.  Because individuals are living longer, the need for optimal care of aging skin is increasingly recognized.  Aging results in visible consequences that become obvious with time including wrinkling and sagging skin.  Aging skin is generally more fragile and can also be associated with undesirable skin issues including fragile skin bruising (senile purpura), skin tears, xerosis (abnormally dry skin), and pruritus (itching) that can have a significant impact on an individual’s quality of life.  In addition, vascular changes in the skin, such as thinning capillaries and slowing microcirculation is evident in aging...

Scars are areas of dermal fibrosis that replace normal tissue after injury and during wound healing. There are several types of dermal scars including: 1. Atrophic scars that appear as sunken or pitted areas of skin 2. Hypertrophic scars that are characterized by raised areas of skin 3. Keloid scars characterized by growth outside the original wound area 4. Striae distensae (stretch marks) characterized by linear bands of atrophic-appearing skin. Wound healing involves 4 critical phases that overlap: the coagulation phase, the inflammatory phase, the migration-proliferation phase (development of granulation tissue), and the remodeling-regeneration phase that includes maturation, scar formation...

Air pollution is becoming an increasing health problem worldwide. It’s an environmental threat to which millions of people are exposed, and is currently the world’s largest single environmental health risk.  It’s well known that air pollution is bad for lungs, but scientist are just beginning to discover how damaging air pollution is to the skin.  Viniferamine® skin and wound care products were designed to protect skin from irritants, and help restore skin cells naturally back to health.  Not only is outdoor air pollution a risk to skin health, but indoor air pollution can also be harmful.  Indoor risks include exposure...

Fragile, thinning skin and skin tears are common issues among older individuals.  A skin tear is a wound caused by shear, friction, and/or blunt force resulting in the separation of skin layers.  Skin tears can be either partial thickness (separation of the epidermis from the dermis) or full thickness (separation of both the epidermis and the dermis from the subcutaneous tissue).  Loss of cohesion between the skin layers allows the skin to move independently, resulting in tears with even minor forces including tape removal from skin. Skin tears may be considered by some as minor injuries, but in fact, they...

It’s easy to forget how important it is to sweat in order to cool your body off when it’s really hot outside.  During intense physical exercise, you may not even notice when you’re not sweating properly.  This could lead to problems that could rapidly become serious including severe heat rash or worse, heat illnesses like heat exhaustion or heat stroke. Heat rash or miliaria (not to be confused with malaria) occurs when sweat ducts become clogged.  Heat rash results from heat accumulation in the skin due to high temperatures and humidity, intense exercise, fevers, certain medications or certain medical conditions. ...

The sun is a powerful source of energy and radiation that can be both beneficial and harmful.  It feels great to get out in the sun, especially after a cold, rainy day, but the effects of too much sun can be incredibly damaging to skin health.  The sunlight’s cellular and molecular effects depend on the radiation energy and penetration.  The spectrum of solar radiation ranges from the shorter wavelengths of UVB and UVA to the longer wavelengths of visible radiation (VIS), near-infrared radiation (NIR) and infrared radiation (IR).  UV radiation has more energy and is more penetrating.  UVB radiation has...

Hyaluronic Acid (HA), also known as hyaluronan, HA is one of the most ubiquitous linear polysaccharides found in nature.  It is found in almost every part of the body including skin. It’s an important component of the extracellular matrix (ECM), a complex interlocking meshwork found outside of skin cells (and other cells) that includes fibrous proteins such as collagens, elastin and fibronectin.  Connective tissues including skin and cartilage are especially rich in ECM.  As an integral part of the ECM, HA provides a structural role, as well as many other crucial roles.  Amazingly, approximately half of the body’s total HA...

The Importance of Skin Lipids The stratum corneum or uppermost layer of the epidermis has been described of as consisting of bricks and mortar.  Long thought of as an inactive layer of dead skin cells, in contrast, the stratum corneum is highly dynamic.  The bricks are the corneocytes or differentiated keratinocytes that are tightly connected by links called corneodesmosomes and the mortar is the extracellular space composed of highly ordered lamellar lipids that form membranes.  The lipids within the extracellular spaces help provide a barrier to moisture and electrolyte loss from the skin that is absolutely required for survival.  These...

Exposure to the sun can cause UV-induced damage to DNA in skin cells resulting in inflammation known as sunburn. Skin contains molecules that absorb UV radiation such as DNA and other chromophores. The absorbed energy is then re-emitted as harmless, longer wavelength radiation or cell-damaging thermochemical reactions involving free-radical reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation and oxidative stress. Viniferamine® skincare products, including Renewal Moisturizer, contain ingredients that counteract oxidative stress such as oleuropein, resveratrol, EGCG, melatonin, and L-glutathione. Oxidative stress typically results in inflammation; various ingredients found in Viniferamine® skincare products decrease inflammation including the beneficial polyphenols oleuropein, resveratrol, and epigallocatechin-3-gallate...