Premature Skin Aging

Any actions that produce free radical activities in the skin, will increase the speed of skin aging, as has been explained in the previous pages in this section. Unprotected sun exposure causes damage to the skin’s components and generates free radicals that promote secondary skin damage. Smoking produces free radicals in the body and skin which results in the damage we call aging. Pollution in the air can have a similar affect upon the skin by producing free radicals that cause damage. These are concepts that most people are familiar with.

Some skin care products contain free radicals and the use of products with these ingredients actually promotes skin aging. Many “oxygen creams” contain hydrogen peroxide. While hydrogen peroxide is a free radical, marketers of these products claim the hydrogen peroxide converts to oxygen within the skin. It may convert to a stable oxygen molecule in the skin, but it can only do so by stealing an electron from another molecule, which starts a free radical cascade. The rosy glow in the skin from applying these oxygen creams is the same rosy glow caused by elevated free radical activities following unprotected sun damage as elements of the skin are damaged by free radicals. Application of products to the skin that contain free radicals or generate free radicals, increases the speed of skin damage, or more commonly called skin aging. 

Premature Skin Aging

Benzoyl peroxide is another example of topically applied free radicals. People who have treated chronic acne with benzoyl peroxide frequently learn too late that they have severely aged their skin well beyond its chronological age and may have increased their potential of skin cancer.

The USA is one of a rather small number of countries that allows the use of hydroquinone in skin care products. This ingredient lightens skin pigment. It also produces free radicals causing the skin to age prematurely.

Topical chemicals that are free radicals or generate free radicals can cause DNA damage to skin cells. This opens the door to the possibility of skin cancer. All of the ingredients above are on the FDA’s caution list as possible carcinogens and all of them have been shown to produce cancer in lab animals. BiON does not use any ingredient that may cause skin damage.