A Cosmeceutical and Lifestyle Approach

Beyond Botox: 7 Strategies for Sexy, Ageless Skin Without Needles or Surgery
by Ben Kaminsky, Howard Kaminsky

(Page 3 of 3)

Quality Control and My Own Family

In addition to being fervent about my profession, I am devoted to my family and absolutely in love with my wife, children, and grandchildren. Like most of you, I constantly worry about my family's health, particularly their skin problems. I want to make sure my children and grandchildren are using products without harsh ingredients that can wreak havoc on delicate skin and with adequate protection against the sun's ultraviolet (UV) rays.

For years prior to starting the B. Kamins line of cosmeceuticals, I had been formulating topical preparations for the needs of my young family. I started with diaper rash ointments when our children were newborns and moved into personalized poison ivy lotions, shampoos, hair conditioners, and even fragrance-free body lotions for my wife and daughter. I formulated outstanding and gentle acne gels for my teenagers that did not leave their skin inflamed as the popular gels did, and I prepared a variety of sunscreens for my kids' sensitive skin.

But for my family - as well as in my professional career - I am extremely conservative about recommending treatment unless there is scientific proof that it is necessary. As an example, our first child, Howard, was a fair-skinned, hazel-eyed, redheaded baby. As a young, inexperienced parent in the early 1960s, my lovely wife, Mildred, kept Howard sleeping in the sun for a period of time each day, which resulted in unintended skin reddening. My wife's phone call to our competent, friendly pediatrician resulted in a scolding and a prescription for a sunscreening lotion containing para-aminobenzoic acid (PABA). Quite distraught, Mildred immediately called me at the lab to tell me about the scolding. She also mentioned the prescription for a PABA sunscreen, which was being used extensively in North America at the time.

In my lab, I had myself been working on topical preparations to protect the skin from heightened sensitivity to the sun's ultraviolet radiation for patients who were taking various categories of medications including antidepressants, tranquilizers, diabetic medications, anticonception drugs, and antibiotics. After reviewing some adverse clinical findings regarding PABA, I had chosen not to include this ingredient in my own sunscreen formulations. I remember telling Mildred to hold off filling the PABA sunscreen prescription.

That evening, I brought home a preparation I had been working on in the lab. My sunscreen preparation contained a safe formulation of titanium dioxide and an octyl salicylate complex. Both these ingredients had been proven safe, nonirritating, and effective sunscreens when used in well-formulated preparations. At that time, few chemists were testing the sun protection factor (SPF) in topical sunscreens, but I believed that the SPF in my preparation was approximately 15, which gives a few (two to three) hours of protection against ultraviolet sun rays.

Later that evening, I called our pediatrician and questioned the use of PABA preparations. I received a standard answer from our kind doctor - that the medical review boards had approved the product, and who was he (or I, for that matter!) to question their wisdom. Despite his advice, we didn't use the PABA-based sunscreen and instead used my formulation. I learned early on in my career as a pharmaceutical chemist that it takes time and sometimes repeated bad experiences for doctors' prescribing habits to change. Often, topical therapies worsen skin conditions until there are enough complaints and the review boards halt the product and call for change. Today we know that PABA causes both sensory and visual skin problems, including rashes, itching, tingling, and redness. Nowadays, sunscreens do not usually contain this ingredient.

The point is this: even though we call on our medical doctors seeking treatment for symptoms, and despite their best intentions, they don't always get it right. What they do know is that patients expect something from them; they are often hard-pressed to prescribe medications, which is why antibiotics, procedures, and products are often overprescribed and misused.

A Cosmeceutical and Lifestyle Approach

Over the years, as I created more and more cosmeceuticals for our family's needs and even therapies for friends and colleagues, I began to realize that these topical treatments could offer tremendous benefit to others too. In 1997, my son Howard and I cofounded B. Kamins, Chemist, an innovative skin care collection and a pioneer in the cosmeceutical industry. Howard has a business degree from McGill University, a law degree (LLB) from the University of Sherbrooke (Canada), and an LLM from Notre Dame Law School (Indiana). Apart from being an attorney turned entrepreneur- marketing executive, Howard is a very devoted husband to Laurie and father of three-year-old Isabelle (and a new one on the way).

While I toiled in the lab, Howard made it his goal to build the B. Kamins brand with a personal touch. He went door-to-door to spas and specialty stores throughout the Northeast and educated anyone who would listen about responsible skin care. Today, as CEO of B. Kamins, Chemist, Howard manages the multimillion-dollar corporation from our offices in New York City and spends what little downtime he has with his family.

Whether lecturing to professional societies or cosmeceutical and skin care organizations, or talking with the personnel at day spas, medical spas, or resort spas, Howard and I continually remind professionals and consumers that there is no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to dealing sensibly with skin care problems. What might work to resolve your colleague's skin problem may cause a rash or sudden outbreak of pimples on your skin.

No matter how much you hydrate or exfoliate, skin does age - and sometimes well before its time. That's why we promote a combined cosmeceutical and lifestyle approach to having sexy, ageless skin. No doubt, the sun caused most of the skin damage you see on your skin right now. But smoking cigarettes, drinking too much alcohol, extreme temperatures, and a host of noxious chemicals and pollutants in the air outside can also damage skin. Chronic stress is another known skin irritant that can make your skin highly reactive and result in outbreaks of pimples, acne, or rosacea at most inappropriate times. Lack of sleep makes your skin puffy, ashen, and pale, and accentuates the deep reddish blue of under-eye circles. A poor diet lacking in immune-boosting nutrients can make your skin appear sallow, overly dry, or even too oily. And exercise obsession can result in hormone imbalance even in college-age women, which can lead to osteopenia (pre-osteoporosis), with thin bones that fracture easily. Strong bones are essential to stretch your skin and keep it taut through the years, and tight skin is younger-looking skin.

So where do you begin? A reasonable approach to understanding and treating skin in each stage of the life cycle is critical. And finding that proper balance - a responsible, noninvasive program that you can adapt to your unique skin care problems and that also empowers you to play an active role in improving and protecting your health - is the purpose of Beyond Botox.

How Beyond Botox Can Help You Right Now

Unlike other books on aging skin, this book places you, the reader, center stage by focusing on where you are in your life cycle and identifying your risks for particular skin problems. For example, pregnant women can have darkened pigmentation on the face and bright red spider veins, while women in the perimenopause years (the two to eight years preceding menopause) may have the beginnings of fine lines and wrinkles and under-eye bags. Women in menopause (around age fifty-one) contend with blotchy, thinning, and transparent skin, as well as added dryness, flaking, and dark age spots on the face, arms, and hands. Still, no matter what your life stage or skin problem, there are noninvasive answers in this book.

As you read the book, you will see that it quickly moves beyond a discussion of skin basics and how I formulate cosmeceuticals in my Montreal-based lab to page after page of skin-saving strategies that you can use right now to have sexy, ageless skin.

In chapter 2, "What's Your Skin's Real Age?," we discuss the skin and how it represents a unique "fingerprint" of what goes on inside (and outside) your body. We will explain what occurs when skin ages and what you can do to stop it. You'll learn how specific risk factors (such as sun exposure and even the way you sleep at night) predispose you to visible signs of premature skin aging. And at the end of the chapter, you'll take a "Real Skin Age Quiz" to find out your skin's true age and determine which risk factors you can change right now to slow or even reverse your skin's aging.

Chapter 3, "What's in Your Medicine Cabinet?," is a most crucial chapter. I'll take you into my lab and introduce you to my passion: understanding how to best treat women's skin. I believe that cosmeceuticals, when properly formulated and properly used, are the future of skin care. Here I will help you appraise the various ingredients used in your own creams and lotions and let you know if a product has merit or is nothing but marketing hype. You'll learn how to go to the drugstore or cosmetics counter and shop for the perfect products that will complement your skin type and lifestyle ... and you'll also discover what ingredients to avoid at any cost. After all, why pay money for a product that has no curative value - or may even damage your skin - just because it comes wrapped in a shiny package with a celebrity endorsement? I'll tell you what I tell my children: always know what you are applying to your skin!

In Part II, "The Beyond Botox 7-Step Program," Howard and I will explain our renowned, scientifically based lifestyle program, which will help you meet your individual skin care needs with the following strategies:

1. Nourish: Feed your skin from the inside out

2. Move: Exercise regularly but don't go for the burn

3. Rest: Get quality sleep to rejuvenate skin

4. Relax: De-stress to boost skin healing

5. Super-Saturate: Moisturize properly to quench your skin's thirst

6. Pamper: Become spa savvy for wellness and balance

7. Radiate: Combat specific skin problems ... at any age

To Sexy, Ageless Skin!

I believe that women today are left in a terribly difficult position - with serious questions about how to handle the myriad skin problems they may face. While women know they will get older, they do not want to look old. Yet without a responsible skin care game plan, including a full understanding of invasive procedures such as Botox, women are putting their skin health in jeopardy and may have to live with less than acceptable results the rest of their lives.

Throughout this book, I will only suggest products that I believe are safe and effective for you and your family members. In that regard, whether you are in your thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, or beyond, I want to give you responsible, stage-specific guidance to help you assess your skin right now and stop - even reverse - the specific problems that keep you from looking youthful and sexy. I believe that everyone must make a personal and lifelong commitment to be the ultimate guardian of his or her skin, focusing on the skin care regimen that fits his or her life stage, lifestyle habits, and skin problems. To that end, this book will provide you with the information and tools you need to determine a balanced skin care approach that works for you and your family.

Together we can do it. Let's get started!

Copyright © 2006 by Ben Kaminsky and Howard Kaminsky

About the Author

Ben Kaminsky, a graduate of the Faculte de Pharmacie de Universite de Montreal, is a preeminent pharmaceutical and dermatological chemist who has developed medicines for physicians and dermatologists all across North America for more than 30 years. He is a member of numerous professional pharmaceutical societies. He resides in Montreal.

Howard Kaminsky was the president and publisher of three major publishing houses: Warner Books, Random House, and William Morrow/Avon. Also the author of several screenplays, four novels (cowritten with his wife, Susan), and numerous magazine articles, he lives in New York City and Connecticut.