Sun damage: Licorice Extract

No. Plus, look at the lady on the box. Crazy eyes.

A friend asked if I knew how to get rid of sun damage on the face. I've had freckles my whole life. I hated them. When I was about 10 I heard someone say something about "skin bleaching" so I dabbed cotton balls in Clorox and wiped it on my face one morning. DON'T TRY IT! NO GOOD!!! Plus it didn't even PRETEND to lighten my freckles. I was sad.

Read this! This is sad to me!

They bothered me less and less as I grew up even though they never went away. I've used sunscreen, which helps. Now they're less "freckles" than "amorphous brownish shapes." When I was younger I used every kind of bleaching product you can imagine. The most effective ones were Obaji and Civant, both awesome products. I've tried to make my own, with essential oils, fruit juices, yoghurt, horseradish, milk. Then I tried active ingredients like kojic acid and licorice extract. I think for something to work you have to be really patient. It would take years for yoghurt to bleach your face, for instance.

The active ingredient recipes I've put together have the best chance of working, but I thought it was more important to solve my clogged pores issue, and so had to delete all "non-essential" ingredients while I cleared that  up. I'm pretty convinced that some of those active ingredients were actually clogging my pores... or at least not helping the situation.

So now that I'm down to a very very basic regimen for my closed comedone (cloggy pores!) acne, I'm ready to try the lightening ingredients again. I'm going to start with adding licorice extract to the mask and toner I already use.

Hyperpigmentation

Okay, so what we call "sun damage" is actually the body's attempt to protect itself. When the skin is exposed to excess sun, it boosts the production of melanin in order to prevent burning. Excess melanin production produces hyperpigmentation of skin. Melanocytes produce melanin in the basal layer of the epidermis. Melanocytes then mature to form long protuberances or tendrils (dendrites), which grow through and into and around the neighboring keratinocytes, filling them with the brown pigment grains.

The production of melanin is regulated by tyrosinase, an enzyme present in the melanocytes. It converts an amino acid called tyrosine into dopaquinone. This in turn is convered to melanin granules. In order to prevent hyperpigmentation, tyrosinase action can be disrupted.

The transfer of melanin from the melanocytes to the keratinocytes is regulated by the cleavage of PAR-2 (protease-activated receptor). Soybean trypsin inhibitor (STI) and Bowman-Birk inhibitor (BBI), both proteins found in soy, and niacinamide, a vitamin B3 derivative, have all been found to inhibit the cleavage of PAR-2.

So in order to be an effective lightener, the formula should contain:

• A tyrosinase inhibitor to decrease melanin production (it can't be stopped completely);
• A PAR-2 cleavage inhibitor to disrupt the transfer of any melanin to the skin surface;
• An exfoliant to remove any cells with excess melanin that do manage to make it to the top.

Licorice! From the Philippine Medicinal Plants site.

Licorice Extract

Licorice (Glycyrrhiza glabra) root extract contains Glabridin, which is a tyrosinase inhibitor. I find no evidence that licorice is comedogenic. It doesn't smell like licorice, which, to me, is bad. I LIKE the smell of licorice!

Licorice has benefits beyond just lightening. According to The National Institutes of Health, topical licorice extract gel has been shown to be effective in the treatment of atopic dermatitis in preliminary human study and is sometimes used to help decrease inflammation because of its effect on steroid metabolism. However, both of these benefits need more research. The extract contains glycyrrhetic acid and flavinoids, which are anti-inflammatory, regenerative, and act as antioxidants. So it seems like a good choice for us!

Here are recipes for a licorice and salicylic acid toner and a salicylic acid masque.

MIRI