Biocompatible Skin Care Ingredients - Biologically Compatible

BIOBALM is a 100% natural skin care balm and adaptogen for the skin. Great as a night cream. It is also an intensive skin healing balm that relieves very dry skin, eczema, dermatitis, psoriasis, skin rashes and rosacea. Suited for the routine care of sensitive skin prone to allergies and to soothe any parched and thirsty skin. Dissolves damaged and abnormal tissues, triggers skin regeneration and is a powerful antioxidant.

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Natural, All Natural, Pseudo-Natural, or BioCompatible Skin Care Ingredients?

You may have realised that recently everything you look at claims to be 'natural', but what is natural? Does it referrer to everything that the product contains? Is it some of the ingredients in the product that are natural? Or is a single ingredient, which was isolated from an originally natural source, the only thing that is natural about the product?

acne balm

These are just some of the questions that are confusing customers today and in many cases claims by some manufacturers of that their products are natural, are misleading, if not totally false all together.

Biological or Biologically Compatible - Biocompatible Skin Care Ingredients

Let's look at what natural actually is defined to be:

* relating to nature,

* in accordance with the usual course of nature,

* present in or produced by nature, rather than being artificial or created by people,

* not artificially coloured or treated.

That does not really tell us all that much, but let's think about the images that this word, natural, may create in our minds.

Natural - natural scene, nature's playground such as the beach the mountains, virgin woods and forests, beautiful lakes and so on. It also reminds us of natural substances, smells of flowers, the air just after rain, animals in their natural habitat and so on.

When it comes to products, be they for consumption or personal care, we tend to think of 'natural flavours' as opposed to artificial flavouring, natural preservatives versus artificial ones, but what is a natural ingredient and how could we define it better?

Here is where things get a little murky because there are many ways we can think of a substance as being natural or not natural.

For example, let's use my favourite - Aspirin. The active ingredient in Aspirin tables is Salicylic acid. Salicylic acid is naturally found in the bark of the White Willow tree. Thus, salicylic acid is a natural substance and if extracted from the bark, rather than recreated synthetically in a laboratory, you could say this is a natural product. But is it?

Strictly speaking a liquid made from say water and salicylic acid, would be natural and fit the definition of 'as found in nature', but let's look at another way to get the same therapeutic effect from the properties of the White Willow bark.

Herbal medicine uses the whole bark and utilises traditional methods to extract the ingredients from the bark. One of these ingredients is the salicylic acid, but it's just one of the ingredients. There are many more which do not help to numb pain or do very much to help relieve pain, but they do work on balancing the effects of salicylic acid.

willow tree & bark

We know that this acid can and does irritate the lining of the stomach and that is why many of the companies that make Aspirin will put warnings on their labels and make suggestions of taking Aspirin with food and so on. Using the whole extract however, will include the modifying ingredients from the bark, which will protect the stomach's lining and yet the salicylic acid will still work on reducing the pain.

Now, which do you think is the 'natural' product? The one that uses a single naturally derived ingredient in a liquid, or the other one, which uses the more complete set of ingredients found in the White Willow bark?

This point could be debated forever and both these could be called natural, depending on YOUR DEFINITION.

My definition is that the products with the single isolated ingredient, is not natural because it misses many of the naturally contained substances that form part of the bark of the White Willow.

For the purpose of this discussion, let's say that the Aspirin at the Chemist or Drug store, containing salicylic acid, was extracted from the bark; it's not, but let's pretend. In addition, let's pretend that the salicylic acid was in pure water, again, this is not the case, but just pretend with me for a little longer. That would mean, that there are basically two ingredients in the Aspirin, the first is the salicylic acid and the second is pure water. Thus, you could say that this product was 100% natural or all natural, couldn't you? Of course, there is nothing artificial, the ingredients are found in nature, so it's natural.

So what does that make the herbal extract, more natural? Well, it contains more ingredients whose origins are found in nature. Here is the dilemma, both are natural, both have taken all their ingredients from nature, so can we find a way to differentiate between the Aspirin from the Chemist/Drug store (it's 100% natural...) and the Aspirin from the Herbalist (it's 100% natural...)?

A side note: Naturopathic medicine views disease as a sign of change in the way the body naturally heals itself, and emphasizes health restoration rather than disease treatment.

BIOCOMPATIBLE: the capability of coexistence with living tissues or organisms without causing harm. Dictionary.com - The property of being biologically compatible by not producing a toxic, injurious, or immunological response in living tissue. American Heritage Dictionary

We beleive this is a necessary 'new' qualifier: "biocompatible" for skin care ingredients (or bio-compatible"). We propose, that this term describes the type of ingredient that is compatible with living cells and has no harmful effects on cellular structures. It does not produce a toxic, injurious, or immunological response or rejection in living tissues.

That means, "Bio-compatible" would accept the alcohol extraction of all the ingredients, but would not accept the additional step of extracting the salicylic acid out of the alcohol-extracted ingredients because a living organism responds with side effects such as toxic and immunological reaction when it is applied on the skin.

Similarly, essential oils are extracted from their parent plant by a variety of means, including, cold-pressed, steam distillation and others. "Biologically-compatible", would be applicable to essential oils, which have been extracted by the most appropriate form, but would not apply to further isolation, or manipulation of the derived essential oil, for then they cause irritations to the skin.

The reason for providing this 'new' term is to differentiate our "Natural Aspirin" from the Chemist with the Herbal extract of the White Willow bark used by herbalists. Both of products will help reduce pain, but only the latter containing a more complete set of the ingredients from the White Willow's bark will help mitigate the possible irritating side effect of salicylic acid on the lining of the stomach. Thus, the herbalist's version of the product would be "Biocompatible".

Now, the skin and personal care industry is full of claims of 'natural' skin care products, and many manufacturers are abusing the term natural to the extreme. Using an isolated, naturally occurring chemical from a plant or a biological source is, as we've seen, not what natural implies. Let's look at the definition again: Natural means present in or produced by nature... Well, a single ingredient may well be present in and produced by nature, but nature itself does not use it in isolation. Nature uses it in balance with other associated chemicals - biologically.

In the skin care industry, not only do creams and lotions often contain many different ingredients in order to achieve the claims by the manufacturer for a given product, but most of the time, the ingredients are a list of naturally derived, but not "biologically compatible" or biocompatible, ingredients, together with non-natural chemicals that do not have their origin in nature at all. Examples of this would include certain emulsifiers, colours, flavours, preservatives, etc.

Some manufacturers bend the rules even further. Any substance that contains the chemical element Carbon is by definition an 'organic chemical'. That is what 'Organic Chemistry' (Bio-Chemistry) is based on. Now, organic skin care therefore, may well be skin care that contains Carbon-based chemicals that may not occur naturally in nature, but because they contain carbon, they can be termed organic - do you see where I'm going with this?

The term Organic is supposed to indicate that there were no artificial or synthetic products used to grow, say vegetables. Thus, there are no inorganic substances such as inorganic fertiliser, pesticides, herbicides, etc., present in the plant or the soil the plant was grown in.

Many less ethical manufacturers will use the term organic to attract the consumers who are looking for 'organic skin or personal care products', but will actually sell them a product, which is not organic in the true sense of indicating free of in-organic substances, grown using organic farming methods, etc.

Don't misunderstand us, we are not saying that all companies that claim to have organic skin care products are misleading you, far from it, however, there are some that do and it is sometimes difficult to establish which is the one that uses the term organic in the 'biocompatible natural' way.

We at Natural Skin Care Balms believe that biologically compatible, biocompatible or biologically natural skin and personal care products are the only way to go. They are safer, better for you and easier for your body to make use of. The concept of biologically natural, follows the principle of 'the more complete the product and the less processed it is, the better it is for you'.

Biologically compatible also means it supports our body as a beautiful self healing system that always heals itself, only if we enable this with proper, implementation of simple laws of Nature and nutrition of our organs with ingredients and foods that are fully compatible with living cells.

Only then can we benefit from a natural life that is in agreement with the laws of nature and biology: enough sleep, rest, creative work and thinking, breathing fresh air, sunbathing, physical activity, meditation, love, creative jobs and hobbies, and optimal nutrition, which are compatible with our anatomic, physiologic and biologic capabilities of human organism.

You alone have the chance to choose, this means freedom, the highest stage of health. Choose … it is your health, your body, your life at stake.

The Weeping White Willow - A Healing Journey

Many cultures have a history of herbal medicine.

Studying the chemistry of medicinal plants, however, began in the 1800s. It was not an easy task. From the hundreds of chemicals contained in the bark, it was nearly impossible to purify the single chemical capable of relieving pain and fever.

In 1859 German chemist Hermann Kolbe synthesized salicylic acid in his laboratory by heating phenol with carbon dioxide. Unfortunately, salicylic acid is irritating to the stomach so much so that many patients preferred their aches and fever to the severe heartburn caused by the remedy.

So the search was on for a chemical that was similar to salicylic acid but without the side effects.

In 1899, another German named Felix Hoffman suggested acetylsalicylic acid as a good alternative to salicylic acid. He had been searching for a drug that would give his elderly father relief from arthritis, and he stumbled upon acetylsalicylic acid after trying phenyl salicylate and sodium salicylate without success. The new drug was named aspirin. Hoffman was an employee of the Bayer Company, which marketed the new remedy with great success. Today, Americans swallow nearly 50 million tablets a day.

Aspirin can be made by reacting acetic acid with salicylic acid to produce acetylsalicylic acid, the same procedure used by Dr. Hoffman nearly a century ago. When acetylsalicylic acid ages, it may decompose and return to salicylic acid and acetic acid. If you have an old bottle of aspirin around the house, open it and take a sniff. It may smell like vinegar, because vinegar is dilute acetic acid.

The inner bark contains tannins, flavonoids, phenolic glycosides, and anti-inflammatory and fever-reducing salicylates. The high concentration of tannins may be responsible for relieving gastrointestinal disturbances and reducing tumors of the esophagus, stomach, colon, and rectum.

White willow's analgesic effect works to inhibit the production of prostaglandins, a hormone-like chemical that is produced by the body in response to injury and causes aches, pains, and inflammation. Thus, white willow is beneficial in treating acute and chronic pain and inflammation in conditions such as painful menstruation, arthritis, and neuralgia. White willow is best when used over long periods of time and can take days to improve conditions.

The active ingredient in white willow is salicin and along with various compounds are gradually converted to salicylic acid in the intestine and liver. Because of this conversion process, white willow generally takes longer to act than aspirin, but the effects may last for an extended period of time. As a result, white willow is mild on the stomach and usually does not cause bleeding or other gastrointestinal discomfort that often occurs with aspirin usage.

A Lesson From History

The medical uses of aspirin continue to evolve as scientists gain more insight into its molecular action. Today, it occupies a preeminent place in the management of cardiovascular diseases. The story of aspirin underscores the value of scientifically evaluating so-called folk remedies. The wisdom behind many folk remedies rests on the accumulated weight of empiric experience throughout the millennia. Aspirin is neither the first, nor will it be the last folk remedy to be vindicated by science. The story of aspirin illustrates the evolutionary pattern of medical progress. Medicine can benefit from folk wisdom only if the very highest clinical standards are maintained. As Sir William Osler so aptly put it in 1902: “The philosophies of one age become the absurdities of the next, and the foolishness of yesterday has become the wisdom of tomorrow.”

Biocompatibility – refers to the property of being biologically compatible by not producing a toxic, injurious, or immunological response or rejection in living tissues or biological systems.

Biocompatibility of tissue-engineering products
The biocompatibility of a scaffold or matrix for a tissue-engineering products refers to the ability to perform as a substrate that will support the appropriate cellular activity, including the facilitation of molecular and mechanical signalling systems, in order to optimise tissue regeneration, without eliciting any undesirable effects in those cells, or inducing any undesirable local or systemic responses in the eventual host.

Homeostasis - The human body is equipped with interrelated regulation systems. These systems’ purpose is to heal wounds and to protect against intrusion by foreign organisms. This overall regulation is termed “homeostasis”.

An example: when a biomaterial is brought into contact with blood, the first event that occurs is a rapid, almost immediate, adsorption of proteins onto its surface. The performance of the biomaterial is influenced by this film of adsorbed proteins. It can elicit adverse host responses, such activation of plasma enzyme cascades (coagulation, fibrinolytic, kinin and complement systems) and adhesion and activation of platelets and leukocytes. These systems coordinate together in order to eliminate the biomaterial by isolation (fibrin) or degradation (phagocytosis combined with liberation of enzymes and reactive radicals).

Parameters for the evaluation of biocompatibility and cytotoxicity (toxic for cells) for human cells. (If the material or ingredient tested is not biocompatible, the cells will die off.)

Apart of the determination of simple parameters such as vitality and cell morphology, most modern molecular-biological, microscopic and flow cytometric methods can be used, e.g. the
monitoring of the cell proliferation and cell differentiation on protein level:

* Proof of released factors (e.g. mediators of inflammation)

* Hemocompatibility (coagulation, hemolysis, complement activation)

* Cell damage (morphological changes)

* Proliferation and differentiation of cells

* Cell-specific parameters (e.g. enzyme activity)

The in vitro evaluation of biocompatibility

The in vitro evaluation of biocompatibility can be carried out using cultured cells, ideally taken from a source appropriate for the intended site of the biomaterials, represent a powerful tool for the investigation of biocompatibility.

Model tissues are intended to provide safe, reproducible test beds for clinical procedures, and help us gain a more complete understanding of existing treatments. Unlike animal tests, model tissues are usually based on human cells, acquired during patient biopsies. These cells are cultured in a controlled environment to provide material for tests as required.

The effectiveness of these models systems relies on how well they reproduce the tissue of interest. This poses considerable experimental challenges for the assessment of biocompatibility, but fortunately this is an increasing field of work for scientists and currently there are companies that provide services to test biocompatibility of skin care ingredients.

Tissue Engineering

Most of those are the same envolved in developing techniques for taking small numbers of healthy cells from a person ( patient) and growing these in vitro into functional skin, bone and cartilage that can be re-implanted to repair or augment burned, damaged or diseased tissues.

White willow (Salix alba) is a large tree that grows in Central and Southern Europe, Asia, and North America. Also known as European willow or baywillow, this tree prefers to root near streams and rivers and grows to a height of 35-75 ft (11-25 m). In the spring the slender branches first sprout tiny, yellow flowers and then long, thin green leaves.

White willow belongs to the Salicaceae family. There are over 300 species of willow, but only several species are used medicinally: white willow (S. alba), purple willow (S. purpurea), violet willow (S. daphnoides), and crack willow (S. fragilis).

The bark of the stately white willow tree (Salix alba) has been used in China for centuries as a medicine because of its ability to relieve pain and lower fever. Early settlers to America found Native Americans gathering bark from indigenous willow trees for similar purposes.

The active ingredient in white willow is salicin, which the body converts into salicylic acid. The first aspirin(acetylsalicylic acid) was made from a different salicin-containing herb--meadowsweet--but works in essentially the same way.

All aspirin is now chemically synthesized. It's not surprising, then, that white willow bark is often called "herbal aspirin."

White willow bark is the original source of salicin, a weaker forerunner of aspirin. Through the ages, long before the discovery of its constituent salicin, white willow bark was used to combat many painful conditions, including rheumatism, headache, neuralgia, arthritis, gout, and angina.

White willow bark is mentioned in ancient Egyptian, Assyrian, and Greek manuscripts, and was used to treat pain and fever by ancient physicians Galen, Hippocrates, and Dioscorides. Native American Indians used it for headaches, fever, sore muscles, rheumatism, and chills. In the mid-1700's, it was used to treat malaria.

Extracts of the bark were first tested between 1821 and 1829, during which time salicin was isolated and identified, but it wasn't until 1874 it was conclusively shown to reduce the aches and soreness of rheumatism. In 1838, salicylic acid was derived from salicin; this product was demonstrated effective against rheumatic fever.

Independent studies later produced acetylsalicylic acid from salicylic acid. This new product, aspirin, was subsequently proven effective against general pain, as well as the pain of rheumatism, gout, and neuralgia. Other derivatives of salicylic acid have likewise been proven effective.

Salicin, the original component of white willow bark, is converted to salicylic acid within the body. The concentration of salicin in the bark is small, but effective, at least for certain individuals and certain conditions. Used in its raw form, the bark yields other decomposition products of salicin that may enhance the analgesic, antipyretic, disinfectant, and antiseptic properties of white willow bark.

willow bark - salix nigra