Addendum to hyaluronic acid

Here is a quick note to add something important to my recent post on hyaluronic acid. (This is what happens when you try to write something at the tail end of bad cold.) I mainly said there that I like HA because it makes my skin feel nice and has potential for long term effects. True. But I forgot to add one of the immediate results it provides that I love. HA does an excellent job of combatting flakiness from dry skin or from products that cause it, such as the peeling you can get when you start using a powerful retinol product. Regular moisturizer never really cuts it for me under these conditions, but if I use something with HA after over-exfoliating or overdoing the retinol, it diminishes the flakiness significantly. Enough that I can wear foundation without weirdness caused by my makeup highlighting dryness. So that is something to consider as a more concrete benefit of HA.

I Heart Hyaluronic Acid

Disclosure: Affiliate links. Product provided free for review.
Okay, I'm back for real this time. A massively busy week was capped off with a nasty cold, which I am finally recovering from. The combination of those two things meant I had no brains left over for blogging. My apologies if you have left a comment around here recently and didn't get a response. This is why! Now I have a huge backlog of ideas (and photos), so I hope to get back into the swing of things.

I want to talk about a skincare ingredient that's become one of my favorites in the last couple of years: hyaluronic acid. It's something that occurs naturally in skin tissue, and it has healing properties. It also a extremely effective humectant, meaning that it has the ability to hold moisture. Apparently one gram of HA (hereafter, because I am likely to spell it wrong repeatedly, otherwise) can hold up to six litres of water. It has anti-oxidants and and helps with inflammation. It's basically unicorn magic, okay? I mean, science. Unicorn science. You can read more about it here.

I find it difficult to judge the long term results of skincare products most of the time, partly because I don't know what my skin would look like if I hadn't used them. But this stuff is promising in the long run, and it has short term effects that I really like. HA helps the skin feel smoother and softer. That's my favorite thing about it. When I apply a product with HA in it, my skin feels "really fucking nice," as I've said before.

Because HA is a humectant, that means it draws moisture from the environment. Ideally, it will draw moisture from the air and put it on your skin. But if the environment is so dry that your skin has more moisture in it than the air, it can actually draw moisture out of your skin. This fact probably explains why when I first tried a serum with HA in it, I wasn't impressed. I was living in an apartment where I couldn't control the heat, and it was always cranked all the way up. That winter it was regularly -30 outside, and I still had to crack my windows open in order to be comfortable. SO DRY. It's the same winter I tested the Neutrogena hand cream that is mostly glycerin--another humectant--and wasn't impressed. Yet when I travelled to Seattle for a weekend and used it there, suddenly it was more effective. So if you live in desert-like conditions, your results may not be spectacular. Otherwise, I recommend giving HA a shot.

My current HA is a Vitamin C serum (pictured above) from a company called Maple Holistics, who sent it to me, along with a shampoo and conditioner, for free. This is one of only two times I have ever been sent what could be termed "press samples." Now you know I'm not much for "natural" nonsense when it comes to skincare. Even weirder, Maple Holistics markets some of their beauty products as "homeopathic," which . . . I'm not even going to get into that. What could that even mean? But the proof is in the ingredients, I think. The Maple Holistics Vitamin C Anti-Aging Serum ingredients list looks like this:

Water, Vitamin C (Sodium Ascorbyl Phosphate) 10%, Vegetable Glycerin, Hyaluronic Acid, Aloe Barbadensis Leaf, Vitamin E Acetate, Retinyl Palmitate, Algae Extract, Pullulan Xanthum Gum, Hydroxyethylcellulose, Caprylhydroxamic Acid, Glyceryl Caprylate

Looks good! I actually can't really say much about this stuff as a Vitamin C serum. I've never had much luck with Vit C in skincare. Either it doesn't do anything for me, or I just don't have the issues it's meant to help with (my skin is already "bright," etc.). Plus, the first ingredient is water, and Vitamin C works better in formulas without water. However, ignoring that, this is great as a HA product. I smooth on a few drops in the morning, and my skin feels lovely. You can see from the photo above that I've almost finished my bottle. I've been using it since about September, 4-5 times a week, so I've tested it pretty thoroughly.

At under $12 for an ounce of product, it's not a bad price, either. In fact, you can test it out for free in return for an Amazon review (info here). Amazon is actually a decent source for products with HA in them. There are a lot of smaller companies out there selling stuff like this. The potential downside is that a lot of them trade free product for reviews, and even though they specifically request "honest" reviews, most people seem to be paranoid that a negative review will mean no more free stuff. (I hope you can trust that I am not one of those people, because I have amassed very little free stuff after years of negative reviews here. Which maybe means that concern is not so paranoid . . . ) Anyway, I would advise caution when looking at the options available on Amazon. Maybe assume the ratings are inflated or at least read the reviews with fewer stars.

If you don't want to venture into uncharted (or weirdly-charted) Amazon territory, there are HA options from more mainstream brands. For example, I recently read good things from auxiliary beauty about CeraVe's PM Facial Moisturizing Lotion, which contains HA. It costs about $13 for 3 oz. and contains other good things like niacinamide and ceramides. That seems like a particularly affordable option. If you want something separate from a moisturizer, there's the Paula's Choice Ultra-Light Super Antioxidant Serum (that I reviewed before), which has a bunch of other promising ingredients. Not cheap, though. Or if you have a regimen that you already like and just want to add HA to it, there's Paula's Choice Hyaluronic Acid Booster (damn, I had to spell it again), which allows you just to add some drops to whatever product you're already using. I've tried it and it seemed effective. It's also not cheap, but it should last a long time, since you only use a couple of drops at a time.

Whatever source you get it from, I do recommend giving a product with hyaluronic acid a try. It combines making your skin feel awesome immediately with (probably?) having excellent long term effects.

ADDENDUM: Please see this additional short post about another benefit of HA.

Anyone else a big fan of this stuff? Are there other good (affordable) sources of HA out there that you've tried?

All About Hyaluronic Acid (from The Beauty Brains)

This is interesting and useful. I have a couple of products that contain hyaluronic acid, and I really like them (like the Paula's Choice serum that I reviewed a while back). I like finding a breakdown of how "miracle" ingredients really work and then being able to decide for myself if they're worth the hype. I knew hyaluronic acid was a humectant, but not much else. I have had problems with products that are high in glycerin (another humectant) actually drying out my skin in winter (the Neutrogena hand lotion, for example), but I haven't noticed that with hyaluronic acid, and I used the serum mentioned above all winter. Overall, it seems like a effective ingredient with some promising science behind it.

Review: Paula's Choice Resist Ultra-Light Super Antioxidant Concentrate Serum

I'm not going to blog about all the Black Friday sales, even though they are great for being cheap. First, I don't want to know about all the good deals out there right now, because I am trying to avoid buying more things. If I listed sales here, I would almost certainly have to buy something. Or things. I own too much shit, and I need to stop. Second, it would be redundant, because Nouveau Cheap has you covered.

I am, however, going to take advantage of the 15% off + free shipping deal from Paula's Choice to replace a couple of things that I needed to buy anyway. I always wait for them to offer free shipping before I order anything, and even though 15% off isn't huge, it's a nice bonus. (The free shipping applies to both US and Canadian orders, by the way.) I need some more 2% BHA liquid (review here). I'm also tempted to try the 4% BHA foam, which had been out of stock for a while. It's back and has great reviews. I have a few days to decide, since the sale goes until the end of the week (it's a little unclear exactly how long, but they call it "cyber week"). There's no code. If it's your first time ordering from them, you can also get $10 off by signing up through my invite link (I also get $10). Ebates (referral link) also has 6% cash back, which I will definitely be using (more info on using Ebates here and here).

Paula's Choice Resist Ultra-Light Super Antioxidant Concentrate Serum (empty!)

This seems like a good time for a review of the Paula's Choice Resist Ultra-Light Super Antioxidant Concentrate Serum, since I already had the photos on my phone waiting for me to scrounge up some free time. I have almost a week off! Amazing. I mean, I do have to write up and send out seven job applications and also try to plan the courses I'm teaching next semester, but I get to do most of that from home in while wearing yoga pants.

I just started my second tube of this serum. I've been using it 4-5 times a week in the mornings since September, so I think that's a pretty decent amount of time for it to last, even though the tube is small. I actually started it back in July, when I mentioned it here, but didn't start using it regularly until the fall. Back then I said I wouldn't be buying it again unless it did something "really impressive" . . . and here we are.

I don't actually know how to tell if it's having any long term results. That's true of most (all?) products I use. I guess if my skin stays looking about the same over time, then at least the big bad environment isn't damaging it too much, so maybe it's protected or whatever.

I absolutely love the immediate results that this serum gives me, though. I think the difference is that I'm now using it first thing in the morning, rather than before bed, and so I have a chance to observe its effects on my skin while I'm awake. I still find it moisturizing enough that I don't need an additional moisturizer, even though it's getting wintery and the furnace is running all the time. I use it after washing my face and applying BHA liquid with a glamorous piece of flannel. The antioxidant serum makes my skin feel really fucking nice. I never understood what people meant when they wrote in skin care reviews that their skin felt "plump" after using something. Swollen? Sounded weird to me. But I think this is it! It's softer and more cushiony, but definitely not tight. Like your face is a beauty blender that you ran under water once. Except without swelling. DOES THAT HELP? Sorry. Let me start over.

This shit makes my skin feel significantly smoother and softer after I apply it in the morning. So soft. So fucking soft. The other great thing is that it smoothes out dry, flaky patches. I usually have those on my chin and almost always around my nose. This cures those flakes in a way no moisturizer I've used has ever done, and it means I can put makeup over those parts of my face without it looking gross. It makes my face happy. Oh, and it has a really, um, appetizing appearance. This is about 5 drops, which is what I use on my face and neck each day.

Paula's Choice Resist Ultra-Light Super Antioxidant Concentrate Serum

I'm guessing it's the hyaluronic acid that's responsible for most of the effects I like. If you can find a cheaper product with that ingredient in it, you might want to try that instead. And let me know if it's wonderful? For now, since I really, really like this shit, I am not inclined to experiment and potentially spend even more money buying a bunch of other slightly less expensive stuff that may not work. At around $30 (or more) for 1 oz., I realize that it is definitely not cheap. Even breaking it down to $8-10 or slightly per month is kind of shockingly expensive. But if you're feeling fancy, this might also make your face feel fancy. I just want you to know that. Please don't yell at me. I'm still cheap. I swear.

On the other hand, the Skin Balancing Antioxidant Serum with Retinol is less pleasant. It has that thick, gelatinous-yet-siliconey texture that doesn't feel great to apply and doesn't have many immediately noticeable results. It does mattify, so they suggest that you can use it as a primer. There's that. Maybe it's doing something long term, but maybe my beloved Resist antioxidant serum is also doing something long term, and it's instantly goddamned miraculous.