Dry skin is caused by two factors:

(I) One is the damage to the skin’s protective barrier and thus excessive water loss through the skin, and

(II) A reduction in the concentration of the skin’s water-holding sugar and protein molecules, the complex proteoglycans and glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) or carbohydrate molecular chains.

The major organic (i.e. carbon-containing) components of human cells are proteins, lipids, various carbohydrates and carbohydrate-containing molecules, and the nucleic acids (DNA and RNA). The carbohydrate-containing molecules can be quite complex polysaccharides; those in which carbohydrates are attached to proteins or lipids are called glycoconjugates. There are three major classes of glycoconjugates: glycoproteins, proteoglycans, and glycolipids.

Glyco means “sweet” and refers to monosaccharides, polysaccharides or sugars. The role of carbohydrates (sugars) in energy production has been long understood. However, their additional, crucial role in orchestrating the healthy structure and function of the body is a relatively new discovery that is the subject of a new bourgeoning field of science called the “sweet science of glycobiology”.

The polysaccharide content of the skin is responsible for skin hydration and water binding within the skin as well as for skin repair and skin renewal.

Many skin moisturizers and emollient products sold by cosmetic and skin care companies delay the healing of irritated and damaged skin and make the situation worse by inhibiting natural skin repair and increasing skin damage in ways similar to skin irritants. Occluding creams or moisturizing creams and dry skin products such as those containing petrolatum and lanolin to block water loss do not make things better either.

How to Treat Excessive Dry Skin?

What helps is to protect the skin surface and to help the skin heal from within, by providing at the site of lesions or skin damage ingredients that help the skin repair itself thoroughly.

Most if not all the popular moisturizers and emollients currently sold by the major skin care brands contain high concentrations of detergents and detergent-like chemicals that have the effect of stripping the skin of its natural lipids, despite many years of sound evidence that such detergents degrade the skin’s natural protective function and damage the skin. Also, many of the dyes and optical diffusers used to give the appearance of healthy skin are damaging to the skin.

Lipids and fats in the skin provide the epidermal barrier to transcutaneous water loss. These lipids in the upper skin area called the stratum corneum are arranged in layers called lamellae. The lower skin layers contain more typical fats such as triglycerides and phospholipids while the upper layers have more ceramides, cholesterol and free fatty acids.

Waxes and oils placed on the skin seal the skin’s surface and prevent excess water loss. Cosmetic moisturizers loosen the skin’s protective barrier and hydrate (wet) the skin proteins but have the long-term effect of damaging the skin.

How to Heal Dry Skin on Face, Chin, Cracked Hells, Body… ? — Best Natural Face Moisturizer for Dry Skin Relief and Healing of Cracked Skin

Skin-care products are only as good as what they contain and how their ingredients help your skin function better. In fact, moisturizers (or any skin-care product claiming to have an effect on SKIN REPAIR, wrinkles or sagging skin) should absolutely contain a mix of antioxidants, cell-communicating ingredients, and intercellular substances as those are the ingredients that help skin keep a normal level of hydration, build collagen and prevent cellular damage.

Not the popular dry skin creams that have been in the market since the 1920′s, when the cosmetic industry begun to promote oil/water/detergent creams for moisturizing instead of the vegetable oils that had been used for thousands of years. This was similar to the fallacious campaigns, we may all remember, that aimed to stop women from breast feeding their babies and promoted their replacement with synthetic infant formulas sold for profit.

So next time you see a list of ingredients, think twice, and prefer products with biological skin care ingredients and not those with a list like this one: Water, Mineral Oil, Isopropyl Palmitate, Petrolatum, Stearic Acid, Ceresin, Glycerin, Glyceryl Stearate, Cetyl Alcohol, Candelilla Wax, Sorbitan Oleate, Triethanolamine, Laureth-23, Carbomer, Trisodium EDTA, DMDM Hydantoin.

Those are some of the ingredients in Pond’s Dry Skin Cream. Not an exception though, for companies such as Lancome, Mary Kay, Oil of Olay, Clinique, Este Lauder, Glycel and NU Skin, to mention just a few, include mineral oil and chemical thickners, emulsifiers and detergents in their formulations.

Best Moisturizer – All Natural Skin Moisturizers for Skin Dryness – Natural Ways to Heal Infants Dry Skin – Chemical Free Moisturizers

Examples of biological dry skin treatment ingredients are: rose hip oil, squalene and other olive oil derivatives; proteoglycans and glycosaminoglycans and hyaluronic acid a glycosaminoglycan present in the intercellular matrix of skin where it has a protective, structure stabilizing and shock-absorbing role and plays an important role in tissue hydration, lubrication and cellular function, and is able to hold more water than any other natural substance.

Proteoglycans and Glycosaminoglycans are active regulators of cell function, participate in cell-matrix interactions and play an important biological role in fibroblasts proliferation, differentiation and migration by effectively modulating the cellular phenotype.

Proteoglycans (PGs) are complex macromolecules consisting of a core protein and one or more covalently attached glycosaminoglycan chain. The biological functions of proteoglycans results primarily from the structurally dominant glycosaminoglycans emanating from the protein core of the molecule.

Glycosaminoglycans modulate the activity of fibroblast growth factor (FGF) signaling which is crucial in a wide range of important biological activities with differential effects in various cell types. They affect FGF signaling by interacting with both the growth factor and the FGF receptor.

These two types of molecules (GAGs and PGs) are vital intercellular substances that are always present in our skin in abundant quantity when it is in a healthy state. These substances may be present also in skin care products that aim to restore the capacity of the skin to hold in water (e.g. hyaluronic acid, glycoconjugates, polysaccarides) and they are quite effective natural moisturizers but they only become the best facial quencher for thirsty skin when their production within the skin matrix is triggered by those or other appropiate cosmetic ingredients.

GAGs are usually found in the extracellular matrix of vertebrate and invertebrate tissues. A large number of animal species contain GAGs and mollusks are a particularly rich source of these polysaccharides. A structural investigation revealed that GAGs in invertebrate species often contain unusual variations of sulfate distribution and uronic acids and play important biological functions as promoters of the proliferation of those same molecules in the skin matrix. More GAGs in the skin means a moisture-rich state, with much better moisture retention, tighter skin and strengthenning of fragile and flay skin.

Also as we age, we experience a reduction of the polysaccharide content of the dermis that is responsible for hydration of the skin… a reduction of the water-binding capacity of the skin. This may lead to the appearacne of premature lines and wrinkles that are otherwise concealed by healthy, “plump” skin.

Fibroblast Growth Factors are polypeptides (proteins) that bind to receptors on the cell surface, with the primary result of activating cellular proliferation and/or differentiation. Many growth factors are quite versatile, stimulating cellular division in numerous different cell types; while others are specific to a particular cell-type. There are at least 21 distinct members of the FGF family of growth factors.

Fibroblast growth factors act specifically on various types of epithelial cells including keratinocytes of the skin, intestinal epithelial cells and hepatocytes. In addition, some types of Fibroblast Growth Factor have been shown to be more than growth factors: they can protect epithelial cells from damaging effects induced, for example, by radiation and oxidative stress.

The main function of fibroblasts is to maintain the structural integrity of connective tissue by continuously secreting precursors of the extracellular matrix. Fibroblasts and the glycoconjugates mentioned are critical in wound healing as such dynamic process is interactive and depends on proper regulation of fibroblasts, the cells in the basal layer of the skin that give rise to all the structural elements in a healthy skin matrix (also known as the extracellular matrix).

These structural elements comprise collagen and elastin connective tissues and glycosaminoglycans and proteoglycans. Without proper regulation of fibroblast activity excessive scarring results and is a feature of impaired healing (keloid and hypertrophic scars, specially in people with highly pigmented skin), a serious health problem that most of the time affects people’s quality of life for the treatment cost of such lesions is high, and often, the results are unsatisfactory.

Also as we age, the total collagen content of skin and elastin fiber content decreases, leading to a potential decrease in skin firmness. The stimulation of collagen production is necessary in aged individuals in order to maintain firm and healthy skin.

Tissue damage stimulates fibrocytes and induces migration and readily proliferation of fibroblasts in multiple stages of tissue repair including wound contraction. Fibroblasts can give rise to other cells, such as bone cells, fat cells, and smooth muscle cells. All those are cells of mesodermal origin, which means a layer from which the organs and tissues of the body develop through further differentiation.

Dry Skin Treatment – How to Heal Dry Skin Without Breaking Out – Skin Firming Cream

BIOSKINMOISTURIZER is a natural skin care cream that restores skin moisture and skin firmness and keeps skin hydrated. It is made with a natural skin care serum secreted by snails of the species Crystomphalus Aspersa or Helix Aspersa Müller which include Proteoglycans and Glycosaminoglycans as well as enzymes and other components that show Fibroblast Growth Factor activity that triggers the proliferation of those same water holding substances, new skin cells and new collagen and elastin connective tissues.

The molecular basis for the regenerative properties of the serum have been established after screening and clinical trials by scientists from some of the most prestigious dermatology research centers in the world.

Rather than take our word for it, read the actual study in its entirety on the website of the Journal of Skin Pharmacology and Physiology; click: Regenerative Properties of Mollusk Secretion

The secretion is the same these little creatures use to protect and repair the collagen and elastin in their skin when damaged. A substance packed with glycoconjugates that enhance the skin’s ability to produce collagen, elastin, glycosaminoglycans and proteoglycans and always keep skin moisturized.

These molecules are always present in the dermis and have a large water holding capacity -true moisturizing- and thus provide support and skin strength, helping skin retain moisture and elasticity and able to preserve skin’s integrity and withstand stretching, tension and compression forces without tearing. They also helps to firm the skin and avoid sagging and wrinkles.

Elastin, the structural protein which allows our skin to stretch, also deteriorates as we age, primarily due to the long term effect of inflammation. Inflammatory responses cause the release of degradative enzymes including Human Leucocyte Elastace (HLE). This enzyme not only destroys the elastin content of the dermis, it can be responsible for the degradation of other valued components as well. Loss of elastin may lead to sagging of the skin. Enzymes in the ingredients within BIOSKINMOISTURIZER have the ability to effectively inhibit (HLE).

BIOSKINMOISTURIZER is also antimicrobial and recommended to control acne, avoid breakouts and heal skin dryness due to Accutane (drug used to impair the sebum glands and thus reduce sebum output) or radiodermatitis (such as it affects people going through radiotherapy for cancer).

Moisturize Your Skin When your skin is tight, it’s crying out for moisture. A basic law of beauty is that everyone, no matter her/his skin type, should moisturize. Even if your skin is oily or with acne, it will benefit from moisturizing. But not just one that seals moisture into your skin, but our BIOSKINMOISTURIZER cream which helps your body to produce the water holding molecules in healthy skin. Those are the carbohydrates, and as their name carries it, they hydrate your skin from within. These molecules are known as glycosaminoglycans and proteoglycans, and are complex molecules made of sugars or carbon atoms bound to oxygen and hydrogen. Some of them are able to hold in as much as 1000 times their weight in water. Such is the case with hyaluronic acid contained naturally in the biological ingredient in BIOSKINMOISTURIZER (for dry skin) or BIOSKINCARE (for combination skin) and also added to the formulation for a higher concentration for those of you in often dire need of facial hydrating skin relief.

One a week: Gently steam your face once a week for five to ten minutes as part of your deep-cleansing ritual. Place a handful of chamomile in a pot of water and bring to a boil. Turn the flame off and let the mixture “brew” and cool. When it’s cooled enough so the steam doesn’t burn you, place a towel over your head for a tent-like effect and expose your face to the vapor. However tempting it may be, do not squeeze or pick any blemishes after you have steamed.