IV Skin Treatments | Plastic Surgery Procedures | Forum

It's different than botox! Not a filler, but an intravenous injection of some kind of vitamin complex that helps clear up skin. Sorry if my post was a bit confusing 

I'm a skin care nerd I'm sorry -_-;

dnice said

oribi said

dnice said

oribi said

Isis King said
That's so cool! Pity you have to keep up injections, I doubt I could afford that constantly. But on a similar note, does anybody know about less expensive whitening options like whitening soaps? There's a lot of brands and they all claim the same thing, it's so hard to choose one.

I'm sorry to say this but none of them really work... the most famous soaps like that on the market are basically just harsh exfoliants. There are two major "whitening" ingredients included in cosmetics (arbutin and kojic acid) but they work best in combination with exfoliant and are usually only effective on dark marks on the skin like sun spots. Many people don't find them effective at all. Also, the concentration of these ingredients in cosmetics is often not enough to see results, especially considering the short amount of time that soap sits on the skin.

I would say just exfoliate the face and body regularly.

Hydroquinone is also a popular whitening agent. In America, the clinical dose of it is 4%, which must be prescribed by a doctor (i.e. dermatologist/psurgeon) and is commonly used to treat melasma, for example. Some skincare products sold in beauty stores may have 2% concentrations of it. I know Murad has a line with 2% hydroquinone designed to lighten the skin, although most people probably use it for spot treatments. 

That's true. But hydroquinone is difficult because a too high of a dose or bad reaction can leave you with more hyperpigmentation or vitiligo. It also makes the skin SUPER photosensitive. It is also difficult to formulate hydroquinone cosmetics with a stable formula; that is, often the product will be rendered ineffective soon after opening the packaging. Arbutin is marketed as a "natural" mad "safer" form of hydroqinone which is why it's so popular in cosmetics. It's certainly more easy to stabilize, but again, you can't guarantee the concentration or how your skin will react to the product.

Doesn't arbutin hydrolyse into hydroquinone under certain conditions since it's just glycosylated hydroquinone? But yeah, I've also heard of hydroquinone having harsh effects on skin, which is why the legal max OTC concentration is 2%. I've also read somewhere that arbutin is safer at similar concentrations because it controls the timing by which hydroquinone is formed and released through hydrolysis. 

About arbutin, that is true!

I have heard about the "time release" effect of arbutin but doubt that it's actually effective/that skincare makers have been able to formulate the product to such an extent that they can ensure anything of the sort (I mean, the product is highly air-sensitive as well so who knows how effective it is).

Some good info on the ingredient I took from PaulasChoice.com:

"Hydroquinone derivative isolated from the leaves of the bearberry shrub, cranberry, blueberry, some mushrooms, and most types of pears. Because of arbutin’s hydroquinone content, it can have melanin-inhibiting properties. Although the research describing arbutin’s effectiveness is persuasive (even though most of the research has been performed on animals or in vitro), concentration protocols have not been established. That means we just don’t know how much arbutin it takes to have an effect in lightening the skin. Many cosmetics companies use plant extracts that contain arbutin, such as bearberry and mulberry leaf extract, but again, there is limited research, mostly animal studies or in vitro, showing that the arbutin-containing plant extracts used in skin-care products have any impact on skin. Whether or not these extracts are effective in the small amounts present in cosmetics has not been established"