The skinny on skin care: chirality, chiral purity, and chirally correct should be the new bywords in this multi-billion dollar industry.

AuthorAlbert, Shan
PositionMedicine & Health

NO LONGER content with "hope in a jar lotions and potions that may contain potentially toxic ingredients, more and more consumers are demanding skin care products that are effective and safe. While people are becoming much more ingredient savvy, they are more disillusioned by the elaborate claims companies make about their products. They know that it is a common practice for manufacturers to spend 10 times or more on marketing a skin care product than they ever will spend on the research and development of the newest product they are advertising.

Only a few years ago, most women would not dream of reading the ingredients listed on a jar of moisturizer. Today, though, numerous women not only will read the label, but ask tough questions concerning what the product contains and what the result of its use should be. If left unsatisfied, these women will refuse to purchase the product.

Very often, salons, spas, and even medical establishments are encountering clients who will not purchase a product containing what they perceive to be a suspect ingredient. Fueled by reports of unsafe ingredients from watchdog organizations, consumers are demanding more stringent regulations of cosmetics and skin care formulations. To satisfy those demands, a few manufacturers have taken a pledge to remove controversial chemicals and replace them with what are believed to be safer alternatives.

Others have gone a step further by choosing to formulate with only chirally purified ingredients in order to ensure the effectiveness and safety of their products. These products are advertised as being "chirally correct" and are identified on the label with either an L or a D (denoting which molecule is being used) before the ingredient's name.

You probably are wondering about this strange sounding word chirality, pronounced ki-rul-it-tee. We are dealing with stereochemistry here. To put it simply, all ingredients are composed of molecules that are mirror images of each other, like twins. One of those molecules, the "good twin," produces the results we desire, while the other, the "bad twin." produces results that we want to avoid. When an ingredient is purified chirally, the bad twin is removed. Pharmaceutical research has shown. and continues to prove, that the use of the correct chiral molecule can make all the difference in how effective an ingredient will be and, just as important, what reactions it will create.

The significance of this technology is well known in the...

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