I'm back. And what a year it's been!

http://la.cityvoter.com/debbie-dexter-skin-care/biz/597640

The importance of touch

Why 

Feed me or not? Revised

 

Dr. Jessica Wu, is a medical and cosmetic Dermatologist, located in Los Angeles. She has a medical degree from Harvard and USC. That's impressive, right? Did you watch the video? Re-watching it this morning, I had to revise my blog. On second watching, I think she should stick with poking and plumping. The video is disturbing in its vacant claims and her first hand account of wanting to look like a model. When she was young,  she hoped that she would wake up from a dream and be gorgeous and thin.

Seems like a missed opportunity to build confidence in young women, and especially women of different ethnicities. She sounds more like a Kardashian than a scholar.

The book says: younger, smoother skin and a beautiful body in 28 "delicious" days.  It doesn't say anything about injectables, fillers, Botox  or lasers that she's selling in her practice, on her website (and on her face).
Boo.

These are few of my favorite things...

Na-PCA - This super inexpensive spray pulls water out of the air, moisturizing the skin - giving your skin a youthful glow ($8-$10) Whole Foods.

Clarisonic- Sonic facial brush, Used and recommended by spas and Dermatologists - Removes make-up, and penetrates product. Reduces fine lines and leaves your skin smooth!

Satin/silk Pillow Case. (skip the poly blend) Great for your hair and your skin. Once you try one, you will not be able to sleep without it. 

Organic Jojoba - slather this on at night, your face will drink it up. 

Here's to "Life"!  This is a must read.  

  

xx, your skin punk

Obsessed with sleep and a thinner mid-section?

Like watching paint dry. An excerpt from 1963 Andy Warhol's "Sleep", 8 hours of footage watching his friend John Giorno...Sleep. It was said that he originally wanted to film Brigitte Bardot sleeping. That seems slightly more interesting. 

Beauty sleep is not a myth and sleep does lessen the severity of wrinkles in the face and neck, at least temporarily. Part of this is due to a decline in body temperature and a shift in body position. The body cools in anticipation of bed time (about half a degree) and to do so, the circulatory system increases blood flow to the skin. This is why the cheeks often flush at night.

What does it mean to be “radiant”? It generally means the color of the skin moves closer to the color of blood. A radiator in a house or car movers hot liquid around to distribute heat, and so does the circulatory system move warm blood around and skin tone changes to affect body temperature. This is why some people appear more radiant just before bedtime or during sleep.

Early in the nighttime sleep cycle, people typically have a surge in growth hormone. This period of deep sleep, contributes to what people call "beauty sleep" as secretion of growth hormone helps repair and rebuild body tissues like muscle and bone. Many of the body’s cells also show increased production and reduced breakdown of proteins during deep sleep. Since proteins are the building blocks needed for cell growth and for repair of damage from factors like stress and ultraviolet rays, deep sleep may truly be "beauty sleep."

Increased growth hormone release is believed to be linked to the fasting state, which develops in human sleep. There is some evidence that skin cells regenerate faster at night than during the day. Cell division happens throughout the day, but peaks around 2 am. This is literally renewal and rejuvenation during sleep. The peak in cell division happens even if you stay awake at night, while the surge in growth hormone doesn't.

Human nighttime sleep is lengthy in comparison with that of many other mammals. Other animals usually don't have releases of growth hormone during sleep and few other mammals enter a fasting state during sleep. Herbivores continue to digest food throughout their sleep, carnivores gorge themselves on meat, which can take up to a day to digest, and rodents wake up periodically to nibble more food. The human sleep-related growth hormone surge may be a mechanism to protect tissue protein against potentially detrimental effects of this fast, and also to promote the body's mobilization of its fat reserves.

What happens if you don't get your beauty sleep? It is not just lack of sleep that negatively affects body fat percentage and the risk of chronic disease—poor sleep quality does as well. Deep sleep also helps to negate the bad effects of cortisol. Growth hormone naturally decreases with age and also with increased abdominal fat, leading to a vicious cycle of fatigue, excess stress hormone and increased abdominal fat.

Researchers aim to 'print' human skin

Each cell type is placed in a vial, rather than in cartridges. The cells are then "printed" directly on the wound. Scientists used a modified inkjet printer loaded with living cells. "We are engineering human skin," says Dr. Anthony Atala. The project may take another five years of development before it is ready.

By Dana Rosenblatt, CNN

(CNN) -- Researchers are developing a specialized skin "printing" system that could be used in the future to treat soldiers wounded on the battlefield.
Scientists at the Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine were inspired by standard inkjet printers found in many home offices.
"We started out by taking a typical desktop inkjet cartridge. Instead of ink we use cells, which are placed in the cartridge," said Dr. Anthony Atala, director of the institute.
The device could be used to rebuild damaged or burned skin.
The project is in pre-clinical phases and may take another five years of development before it is ready to be used on human burn victims, he said.
Other universities, including Cornell University and the Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, are working on similar projects and will speak on the topic on Sunday at the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference in Washington. These university researchers say organs -- not just skin -- could be printed using similar techniques.
Burn injuries account for 5% to 20% of combat-related injuries, according to the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine. The skin printing project is one of several projects at Wake Forest largely funded by that institute, which is a branch of the U.S. Department of Defense.
Wake Forest will receive approximately $50 million from the Defense Department over the next five years to fund projects, including the skin-creating system.
Researchers developed the skin "bio-printer" by modifying a standard store-bought printer. One modification is the addition of a three-dimensional "elevator" that builds on damaged tissue with fresh layers of healthy skin.
The skin-printing process involves several steps. First, a small piece of skin is taken from the patient. The sample is about half the size of a postage stamp, and it is taken from the patient by using a chemical solution.
Those cells are then separated and replicated on their own in a specialized environment that catalyzes this cell development.
"We expand the cells in large quantities. Once we make those new cells, the next step is to put the cells in the printer, on a cartridge, and print on the patient," Atala said.
The printer is then placed over the wound at a distance so that it doesn't touch the burn victim. "It's like a flat-bed scanner that moves back and forth and put cells on you," said Atala.
Once the new cells have been applied, they mature and form new skin.
Specially designed printer heads in the skin bio-printer use pressurized nozzles -- unlike those found in traditional inkjet printers.
The pressure-based delivery system allows for a safe distance between the printer and the patient and can accommodate a variety of body types, according to a 2010 report from the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine.
The device can fabricate healthy skin in anywhere from minutes to a few hours, depending on the size and type of burn, according to the report.
"You are building up the cells layer after layer after layer," Atala said.
Acquiring an adequate sample can be a challenge in victims with extensive burns, he said, since there is sometimes "not enough (skin) to go around with a patient with large burns," Atala said.
The sample biopsy would be used to grow new cells then placed in the printer cartridge, said Atala.
Researchers said it is difficult to speculate when the skin printer may be brought to the battlefield, because of the stringent regulatory steps for a project of this nature. Once the skin-printing device meets federal regulations, military officials are optimistic it will benefit the general population as well as soldiers.
"We're not making anything military-unique," said Terry Irgens, a program director at the U.S Army Medical Materiel Development Activity.
"We hope it will benefit both soldier and civilian," he said.
In the meantime, researchers said they're pleased with results of preliminary laboratory testing with the skin printer.
Atala said the researchers already have been able to make "healthy skin."

freckles. gift or curse?

This is a subject close to my heart - and probably one of the reasons that I went to school for skin care. As a child I didn't realize that I had freckles - which seems strange to some I guess. I looked in the mirror and just didn't see them. Maybe it was sort of (self love) is blind. ha. My brother, however took no prisoners when it came to nicknames and ridicule. Thankfully, I had a healthy sense of self and came out relatively unscathed from the freckle heckler. And to this day, I still have freckles. Saying that, I have become a bit of an expert on the subject. Are they a gift or a curse? And what the hell are they?
To give a little background, there are really two types (there are more, but these are rare forms that include rare diseases - and I have yet to meet a freckle face who has these). They are ephelides and lentigines. Ephelides are flat red or light-brown spots that typically appear during the sunny months and fade in the winter. These are common on light skinned people and red heads. They are multiple in numbers. Lentigines are small tan, brown, or black spots which tend to be darker than an ephelis-type freckle and which do not fade in the winter. These are also made worse by the sun. These are sometimes called Solar Lentigines.

The sun is not the only factor that induces freckles. Heredity also influences freckling, as witnessed by the striking similarity in the total number of freckles on identical twins. Such similarities are considerably less marked in fraternal twins.

So, what do you do if you have them as an adult? The first thing is to decide whether you care. Personally, I have lasered, bleached and peeled. And they come and go. Oh well. I've noticed that if you have healthy skin (underneath the freckles), and a healthy attitude - the rest shouldn't matter. But, if it does and you want to know what works and what doesn't. Send me a note.
And, don't forget your sunscreen every single day, rain or shine.

These are painted on. Really.

"Some of my friends are like freckles. There's actually no explanation for my affection for them. Who knows of why or what use freckles are; yet, I kind of like mine and would miss them very much if they were gone.”

Owen J. McClain