'WETTABILITY' OF SKIN A NEW MARKETING GIMMICK

The basic principle of maintaining healthy and shining skin is to keep it moist, and avoid dryness that speeds up emergence of aging signs.   Herbally Radiant always reminds its customers to apply natural formulations, whether lotions or creams, which do not have chemical ingredients.  The formulations with chemical ingredients provide a layer over the skin, but render it dry and remove the natural shine. 

To cash in on this, researchers at the Birmingham State State University are reported to be considering a new way that will be capable of directly controlling the physical property of skin through  chemical interaction between keratin in the skin and the surfactants. The research team is claiming it to be the first such attempt which can alter the physical properties of skin.

Having been in the business of manufacturing beauty care products, without any potentially harmful chemical ingredient, Herbally Radiant has tried to examine this possibility.  Basically, surfactants are amphilic containing hydrophobic and hydrophilic groups. These are of many different compounds that make up a detergent. They are added to remove dirt from skin, clothes and household articles, and are also used extensively in industry. Surfactants function by breaking down the interface between ester and oils and/or dirt. They also hold these oils and dirt in suspension, and so allow their removal. They are able to act in this way because they contain both a hydrophilic (water loving) group, and a hydrophobic (water hating) group, such as an alkyl chain. Molecules of water tend to congregate near the former and molecules of the water-insoluble material congregate near the latter.  

Soaps were the earliest surfactants and are obtained from fats which are known as glycerides because they are esters formed by the trihydric alcohol, propane-1,2,3-triol (glycerol), with long chain carboxylic acids (fatty acids). The glycerides are hydrolyzed by heating with sodium hydroxide solution to form soaps, the sodium salts of the acids, and propane-1,2,3-triol. The process is known as saponification.

Instead of going further into the detailed process of the reaction of the chemical ingredients, suffice it to say that the surfactants play different role, and would not be able to keep the skin moist and shining. The idea of 'wettability' of skin with the help of strong chemicals may not render the skin healthy.