Doctor’s Advice On How To Get Rid Of Acne

Acne isn’t life-threatening but it can undermine your self-confidence and in a world where appearance is so important it can really kill your social life. Unfortunately there’s really no easy quick fix to get rid of acne – it’s a complex condition with many different causes. There are however things that you can do to minimize acne outbreaks and deal with them effectively when they do crop up. These four steps can help you in getting rid of acne and keeping acne outbreaks at bay.

Cleansing

Aggressive cleansing isn’t necessarily helpful in getting rid of acne. In fact scrubbing your skin and applying harsh soaps and chemicals to it can actually aggravate your acne problems. Instead choose acne products that are designed to clean gently. Yale dermatologist David Leffell recommends washing your face in the morning and at night with warm water and mild soap and gently patting your skin dry.

In between rinse your face with warm water once or twice a day to remove any environmental toxins from your skin. Be gentle to avoid damaging your skin.

Diet

No matter what you’ve heard pizza doesn’t give you pizza-face. Research has shown that while some people may react badly to certain foods in their diet for most people eating one certain food won’t trigger an acne outbreak. On the other hand a healthy diet high in vitamins may help reduce the severity of your acne outbreaks. Fruits vegetables and grains contain nutrients that your body uses to build skin cells and make the chemicals that keep your hormones in check. Hormone imbalances are one possible cause of acne problems. A diet that provides all the nutrients your body needs to balance hormones and build healthy skin cells is an important part of getting rid of acne.

Acne Products

If your acne is stubborn a dermatologist can recommend special acne products to help in getting rid of acne outbreaks. Many of these contain a variant of vitamin A that can help heal skin and prevent further outbreaks. For especially bad cases of acne a dermatologist may prescribe pills for you to take and/or skin creams that contain retinol (vitamin A) and other ingredients that can help you get rid of acne.

Whether you use prescription anti-acne products or over-the-counter acne preparations do make a point of only using concealers and makeup that’s specially formulated for acne-prone skin. They avoid ingredients that may cause allergic reactions and breakouts and may contain nutrients that help your skin heal.

Light Therapy

Some dermatologists use a combination of mild acid and special lights to treat acne. The lights activate the acid to selectively destroy skin cells that produce acne. Dermatologists at several universities are experimenting with both blue light and pulsed laser light to see which is more effective. The procedure has been used successfully for over a decade but the treatments can be expensive. At-home light therapy units that provide full-spectrum red or blue lights can also help reduce the severity of acne outbreaks.

Anti-aging Skin Care Products: The Evolution

During the last 10 years more attention is paid to the anti aging skin care. Developments within this category were influenced by such factors as competition among the major brands introduction of new technologies and new ingredients as well as worldwide increase in demand for the so-called “rejuvenating cosmetics”. People have no intentions of putting up with aging. Today they are turning to alternative therapies and anti aging products; however they will not spend money on products which do not produce the wished results.

First anti aging skin care products appeared during the late 1980s. The first liposome ingredient delivery system was part of first generation anti aging skin care.

David Jago an expert in the market analysis for MINTEL evaluates the changes which have taken place since then: “At present the special properties ingredients and benefits of the products are clearly shown on the label. In the late 1980s it was only said that those products were firming softening the skin reducing lines etc. but their functional ingredients were usually not disclosed. Today’s press often informs us of specific ingredients and their benefits thus contributing to the consumers’ education”. As a result there appeared a category of skin care products intended for specific age groups or needs. Usually women aim at making their aging skin look younger or their young skin – healthier.

In the beginning of 1990s many anti aging skin care ingredients have been studied. The most important of those Alpha Hydroxyl Acids (AHA) became the first ingredients to affect the aging skin. Sally Penford of the International Dermal Institute a postgraduate training school for therapists comments: “It stimulated women to start considering cosmetic surgery glycolic acid peels and laser skin treatments”.

Another “great revolution” in anti aging skin care has been in the use of A C and E vitamins as well as group B vitamins and main fatty acids – they all have a special role of agents preventing premature aging. Of course they do not make miracles but can support the good condition of the skin. As skin ages and is repeatedly exposed to harmful UV rays the level of vitamin A produced in the body constantly decreases. The skin renewal processes slow down and the epidermal layer becomes progressively thinner. Some of the research of the ingredients such as vitamin C was held in 1990s. Further scientists identified two key chemical “helpers” to assist in the delivery of vitamin C through the skin.

The formulations derived from it led to the development of anti aging skin care products containing vitamin C and products which contained a combination of vitamin C and pure Retinol (until recently it has been extremely hard to combine both Retinol and vitamin C together in a stable formulation as both ingredients are easily oxidized when exposed to the air and become inactive). In 1990s this type of skin care was already produced all over the world.

Further on a great deal of interest in the anti-oxidants has been shown. A lot of studies have been done which show that protecting the skin can delay the onset of aging. The SUVIMAX studies in France showed that the use of anti-oxidants on the skin slows down the aging process. It is also possible to reduce lines and improve skin firmness.

Benefits of anti-oxidants were detected in grape seeds extracts.

After that cosmetic companies started using these benefits in their skin care products. Grape polyphenols are natural compounds derived from green grape seed extract which have been shown to have a powerful anti-oxidant effect. They shield the skin from the aggression of a wide range of free radicals and are known to help maintain the skin’s moisture levels.

In the middle of 1990s Estee Lauder has completed research into understanding more about skin cells losing energy. Dr. Maes Vice-President Research and Development Estee Lauder Worldwide explains: “We cannot make the skin look like when it was in youth. Technologies can decrease the lines by 50% but we will never decrease them by 100%. We have studied skin samples and found that its thickness is already decreasing from the age of 20. In biological terms if the cells are losing energy they will also lose their ability to protect themselves against the environment.”

He compares this loss of energy to that of a battery running low which needs to be recharged. Thus to slow down aging and protect the skin cells manufacturers started using anti-oxidants sunscreens and skin energizing technologies to “recharge” cells. They are described as a next generation skin nourishers that enable skin to tap into a fuel source of bio-available micro-nutrients.

The scientists have studied different types of skin aging and it means that they are capable of developing skin care which will effectively abate aging.

Soil Moisture Sensors Made Simple

Measuring and controlling soil moisture is critical to growing and maintaining healthy plants. To a novice many of the terms regarding soil moisture can be confusing. In this primer we attempt to define and relate the various technical terms related to soil moisture and to describe state of the art soil moisture sensors.

The best way to think of soil is to use the analogy of a sponge. When you dip a dry sponge into water it will absorb water slowly until it is completely saturated. When you pull it out of the water water will gush out quickly because of the effect of gravity and after a few minutes the water will drip out of it at an increasingly slower rate until it stops dripping. The point at which the sponge is full of water yet gravity can no longer pull water out of it is analogous to the measurement we call field capacity. When the soil has been saturated and any excess water has been removed by gravity the soil is at field capacity. This is also referred to water holding capacity (WHC).

Now suppose you take a vacuum cleaner and place its hose on the sponge. If powerful enough the suction of the vacuum cleaner will pull water out of the sponge until most of the water is removed. Note that regardless of how strong the vacuum is a little bit of water will remain in the sponge and it will appear moist. To drive out all of the water from the sponge you would have to heat it. We compare this to soil where the vacuum represents the roots of a plant. The roots suck water out of the soil with a pressure determined by capillary action. The plant will be able to suck excess water out of the soil until the capillary pressure can no longer overcome the soil’s tension to retain the water. This point at which a plant’s root can no longer extract water is called the “willing point” which as you can imagine is a critical parameter.

One more important term is the “plant available water”.

This is the available amount of water in soil that can actually be used by the plant. Just because soil may have water in it doesn’t mean that the plant has enough “suck” to pull it out. So the definition of plant available water is the holding capacity minus the wilting point. Good soils have large plant available water meaning they have high holding capacity and low wilting points so that water is available and easy for the plant to extract.

As soil varies in composition so do these parameters. Soil types are defined by their particle size. Sand is coarse – of course and clay is made up of very fine particles while silt is a medium particle size. Because clay soil has very fine particles it tends to hold moisture well but it also holds on to it so the wiling point of clay is quite high making it difficult for plants to extract the moisture. Sandy soil is very porous and so water flows out easily and a result it has low holding capacity. The perfect soil has high holding capacity and a low wilting point. To achieve this perfect soil soils of different particle size are mixed together with organic matter such as humus.

Now that we have discussed how soil holds water we can discuss how to measure soil moisture. Since the purpose of measuring soil moisture is to know if plants are getting enough water we would want to measure the water that is available to their roots. Ideally we would measure the water with an “artificial” root. One very accurate method of doing this is with a tensiometer which measures the water as a function of pressure. Since it measures pressure or tension its units are also in terms of pressure.

The tensiometer doesn’t tell you what the absolute moisture content of the soil is but hearkening back to our soil moisture analogy tells you how much pressure it takes to suck water out of the soil.

Many technical articles describe results from tensiometers and give units in pressure such as bars etc. Now if you happen to know what sort of soil the tensiometer is measuring then you can compute the absolute soil moisture or at least get an estimate of it. A clay soil may have high moisture content and at the same time have a high pressure rendering the moisture useless to the plant. While tensiometers are accurate and provide useful information they are delicate and expensive scientific instruments that require specialized knowledge to operate and interpret. They are also slow in the sense that they have to come into equilibrium with the surrounding soil before a measurement can be made so they are not ideal for use in making quick measurements.

Another similar approach to the tensiometer is the gypsum block.

This is essentially 2 stainless steel electrodes that are encased in plaster. As moisture absorbs into the gypsum resistivity decreases. The gypsum serves as a salt barrier. Many cheap soil moisture sensors consist of two stainless steel rods that insert into the soil. This approach is highly inaccurate due to salts in the soil which can wildly change the resistance of the soil and thus give inaccurate readings of moisture content.

The gypsum block sensor partially overcomes salinity issues with the gypsum barrier. The main disadvantages with gypsum blocks is that they are typically slow and bulky. After a block is placed in the soil there is a lag before the gypsum comes to the same moisture level as the surrounding soil. Because they are large and obtrusive they can’t be used in potted plants. The output of a gypsum block is an electrical resistance this is in turn related to moisture in the units of pressure with the use of look up tables.

Modern soil moisture sensors use electronics to measure the dielectric constant of the surrounding material which happens to be related to moisture content. These sensors are also known as capacitive soil moisture sensors or TDR soil moisture sensors. These sensors are small and unobtrusive so they can be used with potted plants provide instant readings are simple to use are very affordable and many are low power. Because of their low cost and low power requirements these sorts of sensors are being massively deployed in irrigation systems in wireless mesh networks such as Zig bee networks.

These sorts of electronic probes measure the soil moisture in absolute terms namely the volume of water to the volume of soil also know as VWC. Another related soil moisture measurement unit is GWC or gravimetric water content which is defined as the mass of water to the mass of soil. VWC and GWC are related by the bulk density of the soil so if you know the density of the soil you can convert from one to the other. VWC is more commonly used. VWC is also related to pressure to convert from one to the other the type of soil must be known. As was mentioned a clay soil may have a high VWC but a plant may have a hard time extracting water from it.

Accurate measurement and interpretation of soil moisture data can allow individuals or computerized systems make decisions about water usage saving valuable water resources and promoting healthy plants.