ONE SKIN | OS-01 TOPICAL SUPPLEMENT

This product review was originally part of my blog article titled, Super Lightweight Summer Moisturizers SS21 Part 2 – Best Brightening Moisturizer, Best Face Creams for Oily Skin (and All Skin in the Heat!). You can catch the full piece here.

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As I do each summer, I’m publishing my two-part series of what I consider the best lightweight moisturizers of the season. These are the ten or so face creams that I’ve found ideal for the hot, humid days of July and August.

Some are perfect for very oily skin, a few best for very dry skin — and all of them perfectly effective for most skin types in between.

Two weeks ago, I featured five of my favorite warm weather face creams in an article titled, Super Lightweight Summer Moisturizers SS21 Part 1 – Best Brightening Moisturizer, Best Face Creams for Oily Skin (And All Skin in the Heat!).

The initial article featured one of the best face creams for oily skin, the Glossier Priming Moisturizer Balance. And when temps are in the 90s, we’re all oily, making Glossier’s lightest moisturizer perfect for just about everyone with skin.

SUPER LIGHTWEIGHT SUMMER MOISTURIZERS SS21 PART 1 – BEST FACE CREAMS FOR OILY SKIN (AND ALL SKIN IN THE HEAT!)

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On the opposite end of the oily-to-dry skin spectrum is Wander Beauty’s Sight C-er Vitamin C Concentrate. Introduced in the spring, the brand’s new Sight C-er is more of a rich lotion powered by Vitamin C, Niacinamide and Squalane for a veritable cocktail of skin-health goodness. During the colder months, I’ve used it as a layering serum. In summer, it’s the perfect moisturizer for normal and dry skins.

PRODUCT REVIEW: WANDER BEAUTY SIGHT C-ER VITAMIN C CONCENTRATE - BEST BRIGHTENING FACE CREAM VITAMIN C

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Speaking of Vitamin C, I also featured Kat Burki’s Vitamin C Intensive Face Cream — an excellent option for brightening the complexion. In fact, all of the Kat Burki formulas seem ideal for getting a dull complexion glowing. And Kat’s little pot of brightening goodness is a personal fave.

Rounding out those first five were Good Science Beauty’s 004-Br Skin Brightening Cream (an antioxidant powerhouse of Vitamin C, Melatonin and Glutathione) and my favorite summer hack — the Skinfix Redness Recovery+ Antioxidant Redness Treatment Overnight Mask. Even though it’s called a mask, it’s a remarkably effective daily face cream for sensitive skin — and a hidden skincare gem that I wish more people knew about.

PRODUCT REVIEW: SKINFIX REDNESS RECOVERY+ ANTIOXIDANT REDNESS TREATMENT –

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What’s the Difference between Dry Skin and Dehydrated Skin?

Many people confuse the two. They’re not the same thing and it’s helpful to understand the difference in order to advance your skin health. For the answer to that vexing questing, as I most often do, I turned to the experts on the Paula’s Choice Research Team for insights. There’s a superb piece on the Paula’s Choice site titled, What is Dehydrated Skin & How to Choose the Best Products. Here is an excerpt:

Dehydrated skin often looks and feels like dry skin all over your face, but there's a major difference between the two: dehydrated skin is usually a temporary concern (with various surprising causes) and dry skin typically doesn't change over time. If you have dehydrated skin, your skin may also produce a normal or even excessive amount of oil on its surface.
"Dehydrated skin" is something we’re asked about frequently. It seems there’s a lot of confusion about what this skin concern is about. A major part of the confusion is that the term "dehydrated skin" is often used interchangeably with "dry skin" or "combination skin" but they are not the same! Dehydrated skin can occur in all skin types and is not exclusive to those with dry skin or combination skin.
The Difference Between Dry Skin and Dehydrated Skin
Having classically dry skin is easy to recognize. Dry skin frequently feels tight and dry, with no oil anywhere to be seen. This situation rarely fluctuates; skin feels dry all year long. The dryness might get worse depending on the climate, season, or activity, but regardless of those things, without great skin care products, the uncomfortable dry, tight feeling will persist.
As mentioned above, dehydrated skin can look and feel similar, but there’s a major difference: Dehydrated skin tends to come and go, it does not persist.

Today I’m presenting the second part of my SS21 series on lightweight summer face creams. It features one of the best anti-aging face creams yet and a personal go-to, the Paula’s Choice 0.3% Retinol + 2% Bakuchiol Treatment. It’s the rare wrinkle innovation that’s formulated with both Retinol and the Retinol alternative, Bakuchiol. And it’s a genius formulation. Call it what you will, it’s a perfect summer moisturizer!

The collection features a second anti-aging innovation — One Skin’s OS-01 Topical Supplement. Powered by a new, proprietary peptide, the OS-01 Topical Supplement looks like some sort of crazy alien technology. I’m always on the hunt for alien technology I have a nose for it!

One of the best face creams to fix the microbiome, the Layers Immunity Moisturizer is a probiotic-powered formula with a beautiful, silky texture that’s such a pleasure to use. The Layers brand launched in the spring with treatments to help rebalance both the skin and gut microbiomes for a 360 solution for the skin-gut link.

LAYERS PROBIOTIC SKINCARE – BEST LACTIC ACID SERUM, BEST PROBIOTIC MOISTURIZER FOR MICROBIOME HEALTH

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Last is the Skin Alphabet 2% Hyaluronic Moisture Creamserum. If you’re unfamiliar with Skin Alphabet, it’s the latest of the democratically priced brands offering well-formulated skincare at rock-bottom prices. Skin Alphabet’s Hyaluronic Acid-powered moisturizer is just about $11.

Let’s have a look one of my super lightweight summer moisturizer picks for SS21 in part two of my two-part series…

One Skin | OS-01 Topical Supplement

I’m pretty sure what I’ve got here is alien technology. One Skin’s OS-01 Topical Supplement looks like a futuristic device without a user’s manual. One wrong move and I could send myself into an alternate universe — or back in time to that bus stop in on a frigid February day in Connecticut.

One Skin describes their cool innovation as “the first topical supplement of its kind designed to extend your skinspan by improving skin health and skin strength.”

The brand’s proprietary OS-01 peptide (found in the INCI as Decapeptide-52) was developed by a team of four female scientists. (What planet are they from?)

AUGUSTINUS BADER THE CREAM - BEST ANTI-AGING CREAM - WWD'S "THE 100 GREATEST SKINCARE PRODUCTS OF ALL TIME"

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Clinical testing has demonstrated that the OS-01 peptide helps to regenerate the skin, meaning it accelerates what the skin does well on its own when we are young. As we age, our skin grows more sluggish — along with the rest of our bodies. Seriously, some days I barely stay awake past 9 pm.

According to One Skin: “Through our clinical studies, OneSkin discovered its ability to reverse the biological age of one’s skin by reducing the main drivers of inflammation that lead to skin cell malformation and death (i.e. wrinkles, loss of elasticity, and aging skin).”

What Are Peptides and What Are Peptides in Skincare?

Peptides are among the most mysterious of anti-aging skincare actives — and perhaps the least understood. But what are peptides, exactly? Simply, they are protein fragments composed of amino acids and are naturally found in the skin.

There’s an excellent article from the experts on the Paula’s Choice Research Team that goes quite the distance in explaining what peptides are and their multitude of skin benefits titled simply, Peptides for Skin. You can catch the full piece here.

A brief excerpt:

What Are Peptides?
First, we need to start with the science: Peptides are fragments of proteins. On their own, peptides are made up of amino acids. When amino acids are combined in certain formations they create specific peptides (and there are hundreds of peptides), and when peptides are formed in a certain way, they make specific proteins.
Proteins are the fundamental building blocks of skin. Without peptides, skin doesn’t remain intact and the result is loss of firmness, appearance of wrinkles, texture changes, and skin that doesn’t bounce back as it once did.
What’s so fascinating about peptides is that abundant research has clearly shown that each of them works in very specific ways to target an exact skin care need. They also teach skin to do what's required to help revitalize these building blocks, which can help revive aging skin.

Aside from the One Skin formula’s alien peptide, what else is going on in this light, silky lotion?

There are multiple forms of the power humectant Hyaluronic Acid to hydrate the skin. Plus, One Skin included a treasure trove of antioxidant plant oils including Grape Seed Oil and Rosehip Oil.

Curiously, the third ingredient in the INCI is one I’d never seen before: Calycophyllum Spruceanum Bark Oleic Extract (Pau Mulato). I thought I’d discovered more alien technology until I googled it. It’s an extract popular in herbal medicine from the Amazon rainforest and derived from the Amazonian “Tree of Youth”. According to the US National Library of Medicine, it has anti-aging, antioxidant, antimicrobial, emollient, wound healing, hemostatic, contraceptive, stimulant, and anti-diabetic properties.

Beam me up, Scotty. Now how do I work this One Skin device?

SHOP THE BLOG: Purchase the One Skin OS-01 Topical Supplement for $120 here.

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