The Green Beauty Guide: Your Essential Resource to Organic and Natural Skin Care, Hair Care, Makeup, and Fragrances (35 page)

Make sure you wear sunscreen
,
especially in the summer and anytime you have active breakouts. Mineral sunscreen is perfect for acne-prone skin: you can wear it on top of your acne treatment of choice. Skipping sunscreen can result in dark postacne marks that are hard to get rid of.

Making Your Own Acne Zappers

For problem skin, nothing beats tea tree oil. Wou can apply it directly on blemishes, dilute it in your favorite toner, and add a few drops to your masks and scrubs. Here are some quick and easy acne zappers that use the power of this green zit fighter.

Sweet Tea
Balm

1 tablespoon runny honey

1 tablespoon aloe vera juice (bottled or freshly squeezed from the plant)

10 drops tea tree oil

500 mg vitamin C (to act as a preservative)

Yield
:
5 ounces

This all-purpose antibacterial healing concoction is inspired by the award-winning Harley Street Cosmetic Tea Tree Antibacterial Gel, but we won’t be using any synthetic fillers!

Combine all the ingredients in a shallow bowl and blend until smooth. Transfer into an empty lip balm jar. This blend can be stored in the fridge for up to six months and used on all sorts of blemishes and minor cuts.

Tea Tree
Healing Oil

1 teaspoon apricot kernel oil

10 drops pure organic tea tree oil

3 drops chamomile essential oil

2 drops geranium essential oil

Yield:
5 ounces

This is a traditional recipe with an aromatherapeutic twist to it.

Combine all the ingredients in a small pump bottle. Use twice daily on areas affected by acne. Avoid using during the first three months of pregnancy.

Spicy Tea
Poultice

1 organic green tea bag

1 tablespoon fine sea salt

10 drops tea tree oil

5 drops chamomile essential oil

1 drop eucalyptus essential oil

1 elastic bandage, ideally one with a sticky edge all around

1 piece of sterile gauze

Yield
:
4 ounces

A poultice is a soft, moist mass that is spread over an affected area and left to work its magic for an extended period of time. You can leave the poultice on overnight to see a noticeable improvement in your blemish size in the morning. This is a powerful emergency treatment that has to be used in skin crises only!

1. Prepare a cupful of green tea. Remove the tea bag. Open the bag and scoop out the green tea mush. Blend it quickly with salt and essential oils.

2. Apply a dime-sized blob of the blend on the blemish. Cover with the gauze and secure it with a bandage.

3. Be prepared to see temporarily wrinkled skin around the almost invisible blemish in the morning. Wrinkles will go away in 10 minutes at most.

chapter
10

green
sun
protection

a
ll living beings have developed ways to protect themselves from harsh elements. It may be fur, a shell, feathers, or scales. Human skin protects itself by becoming thicker and darker.

The sun makes us look healthier and feel better. Just imagine what summer outdoors would be without the sun shining!As we bare our skin to soak up that sunny goodness, let’s take a look at what is really happening to our skin as we tan.

Our skin has several built-in sun protection mechanisms. When exposed to the sun, the top skin layer thickens within four weeks to the equivalent of a weak sunsceen, approximately sun protection factor (SPF) 4. This type of protection takes time to develop and is too weak to completely shield us from the harmful effects of the sun’s radiation.

Tanning is the skin’s main way of protecting itself. In fact, it’s an alarm signal pulled by our skin. Ultraviolet (UV) radiation stimulates skin cell melanocytes to produce more melanin pigment. Sun radiation causes the melanin to combine with oxygen, which creates the actual tan color in the skin. Melanin protects the body from absorbing an excess of solar radiation, which can be harmful. The more we expose ourselves to the sun, the more pigment is produced.

Apart from developing a nice golden tint, our skin undergoes less attractive changes. The sun’s rays damage skin in several different ways. After sun exposure, our skin becomes thicker, drier, less pliable, and more prone to irritation. On a molecular level, UV radiation from the sun attacks keratin cells and fibroblasts, triggering a variety of molecular changes that cause a breakdown of collagen in the skin and a shutdown of new collagen synthesis. With decades of long sun exposure, the skin starts looking coarse and thick, and deep wrinkles form. In addition, too much exposure to UV radiation suppresses the body’s immune system, triggering a complex cascade of changes on a cellular level, so you may develop increased sensitivity to sunlight and even react differently to immunizations. Scientists from the University of Münster in Germany found that ultraviolet radiation “can function as a complete carcinogen by inducing ‘UV signature’ DNA mutations and by suppressing protective cellular antitumoral immune responses.” They found the precise mechanism by which frequent sun exposure damages skin: first, UV radiation damages skin cells’ DNA, which results in the release of an immune-suppressing chemical called inter-leukin-10 (Beissert, Loser 2008). Even low levels of UV (type B) sun radiation can slow down the immune system of the skin for several weeks. This may explain why people often develop sun allergies and acne while on vacation.

Health Benefits of Tanning

The main source of vitamin D in humans is sun exposure to the skin. Research in Denmark in 2007 indicates that a lack of vitamin D may influence the development of autoimmune diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease, type 2 diabetes, multiple sclerosis, and rheumatoid arthritis (Heller et al. 2007).

Another recent study blames the prevalence of asthma and allergic diseases on a lack of vitamin D in human bodies (Litonjua, Weiss 2007; Shaheen 2008). Scientists from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston hypothesize that as people spend more time indoors, there is less exposure to sunlight, leading to decreased vitamin D production in the skin.
Vitamin D deficiency, particularly in pregnant women, results in more asthma and allergies in children. Vitamin D has been linked to the immune system and lung development in babies, and epidemiologic studies show that higher vitamin D intake by pregnant mothers reduces asthma risk by as much as 40 percent in children (Litonjua,Weiss 2007).

While many studies avoid mentioning sunscreens when discussing lack of sun exposure, one 2007 study directly links heavy use of sunscreens to lack of vitamin D (Alpert, Shaikh 2007). Researchers from the University of Nevada—a state that receives a potent dose of sunshine every day!—aren’t ecstatic about sunscreens. They say that since most sunscreens filter out UVB light, they are inhibiting vitamin D production. In their 2007 report, they note that long-term vitamin D deficiency leads to rickets, osteoporosis, type 1 diabetes, cancer, and multiple sclerosis. What’s more, people with darker complexions have greater difficulty producing vitamin D because melanin acts as an effective natural sunscreen, requiring longer sun exposure to produce an adequate daily allotment of vitamin D.

But what about skin cancers, a dangerous consequence of inadequate sun protection? As we all know, skin cancers are associated with sun exposure—yet the same sunlight, through the production of vitamin D, may protect against some cancers. Scientists from Finland came to a shocking conclusion: patients with skin cancer have a lower risk of developing other cancers. Take a deep breath and please read on.

During a massive study of 416,134 cases of skin cancer and 3,776,501 cases of non-skin cancer as a first cancer, from both sunny countries (Australia, Singapore, and Spain) and less sunny countries (Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Scotland, Slovenia, and Sweden), researchers found that all second solid primary cancers (except skin and lip) after skin melanoma were significantly lower for the sunny countries than in the less sunny countries (Tuohimaa et al. 2007). In sunny countries, the risk of a second primary cancer after nonmelanoma skin cancers was lower for most of the cancers except for lip, mouth, and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Scientists concluded that vitamin D production in the skin seems to decrease the risk of several solid cancers, especially stomach, colorectal, liver and gallbladder, pancreas, lung, female breast, prostate, bladder, and kidney cancers. The apparently protective effect of sun exposure against second primary cancer is more pronounced after nonmelanoma skin cancers than melanoma, which is consistent with earlier reports that nonmelanoma skin cancers reflect lifelong, cumulative sun exposure, whereas melanoma is related more to sunburn.

A smaller Australian study, conducted in 2007, found that recreational but not occupational sun exposure decreased risk, generally by 25 to 40 percent, of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, one of the most mysterious types of cancer (Armstrong, Kricker 2007). Scientists believe that production of vitamin D from sun exposure offers us a protection mechanism against non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. A high dietary intake of vitamin D also reduces the risk of this cancer.

Does it mean we have to ditch sunscreens and embrace the sun in order to stave off the onset of multiple sclerosis and bone mass deficiency? Actually, we don’t have to fry on a sunny beach for hours in order to keep healthy levels of vitamin D in our bodies, and of course we should
not
rely on artificial tanning beds as a source of vitamin D. While agreeing that UVB radiation does boost amounts of vitamin D, a recent article in the
Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology
stresses that therapeutically important changes in vitamin D can be achieved with minimal tanning (Armas et al. 2007). Sunbathing on a beach can generate 10,000 IUs of vitamin D or more in as little as fifteen minutes. Depending on skin pigmentation, valuable increases in vitamin D can be achieved by low doses of sun exposure that are enough to produce only a light tan.

There are other ways of maintaining healthy levels of vitamin D in our bodies. The biologically active vitamin D metabolite, also known as dihy-droxyvitamin D3, is synthesized primarily in human skin, but there are newly available analogues of vitamin D that can also protect the immune system and various tissues against cancer and other diseases, including autoimmune and infectious diseases. A 2007 study suggested that such vitamin D analogues may be effective against acne (Reichrath 2007). Today, UV radiation is used to treat psoriasis and vitiligo.

We Still Need Sun Protection!

It’s impossible—and actually harmful—to avoid the sun completely. A light tan is more than enough to maintain healthy levels of vital vitamin D, but sun protection today is more important than ever. Sunburns are directly linked to a higher risk of developing the most disastrous skin cancer—melanoma—and it’s much easier to get burned today than twenty years ago. When the tan was first made fashionable by Coco Chanel in the 1920s, the protective ozone layer was fairly intact, but the first study linking skin cancer to relentless sun exposure dates back to 1948. Fifty years ago, tanning was relatively safer than today. Now, huge gaps in the ozone layer, especially over large cities, allow more harmful short-wave sun radiation to wreak havoc on our vulnerable skin. Too much careless sun exposure can result in premature aging and uneven pigmentation, weakening of the skin’s immune system, and most important, a higher risk of skin cancer.

Valuable increases in vitamin D can be achieved by low doses of sun exposure.

Sun exposure is indisputably linked to the development of melanoma, and blocking sun exposure is recommended by the American Academy of Dermatology, the Skin Cancer Foundation, the American Cancer Society, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Environmental Protection Agency. Melanoma is a malignant tumor of pigment-producing melanocyte cells; it is a relatively rare but deadly type of skin cancer.