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Babies: a daily bath?
Newborns are vulnerable, yet are often stronger than they look. Adults instinctively feel the need to protect them and this sometimes means excessive care that is counterproductive. Keeping a baby’s skin clean and healthy, for example, is not complicated.
Newbie parents are often assailed by doubts about the abundance of skin care products and tips regarding babies’ skin. Everyone naturally wants the best for their newborn baby, so paediatricians at the Mayo Clinic recently issued some recommendations in the International Journal of Dermatology. The most surprising recommendation is to forego the widespread custom of daily bathing and bathe the baby only every second day. On non-bathing days the body and face (including the eyes and eyelids) can be cleaned with just a water-dampened washcloth. As for the bath, tap water is fine and products, if used, should be gentle, dye- and fragrance-free and with a pH between 4.7 and 5.5. After changing nappies, the baby can be cleaned up using a little water and the naked skin should then be allowed to breathe for a while. Baby wipes should be hypoallergenic and without lanolin or alcohol. For nappy rash, a zinc oxide-based product can be used.
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Núria Estapé, science journalist
Men: the weaker sex (in their skin at least)
Contrary to popular belief, men's skin is more fragile than women’s skin. Dry skin, ingrown hair and persistent redness are some of the problems faced by men who shave. But there’s much more. Men's skin is more sensitive to the harmful effects of the sun and is more susceptible to cancer.
We can distinguish the sex of a young person just by observing and touching a square centimetre of skin. Men’s and women’s skin react in specific ways to internal aggression (infections, hormonal changes) and external agression (temperature and humidity changes, shaving, cosmetics). The differences are in part due to steroid hormones that travel through the blood to bind to proteins in the skin, where they act. However, we now also know that lifestyle and approach to skin care have a bearing on the health and appearance of our skin. Read more
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Better quality of life thanks to cosmetics
A large study sponsored by a major cosmetics firm shows that body and skin care and the use of cosmetics contribute significantly to a positive outlook on life. A specific questionnaire has been created as the basis for future research in this area.
Our appearance is important to us and may be a key factor in perceptions of our physical and psychological wellbeing, in other words, of our quality of life (QoL). A questionnaire developed for this above-mentioned study, called BeautyQoL, consists of 42 questions covering five areas: social life, self-confidence, mood, energy and attractiveness. A total of 3,231 adults, recruited from 13 countries in Europe, Asia, America and Africa, participated in the study, in which subjects also completed other standard QoL questionnaires used by researchers in this field. The results scientifically demonstrate that people who care about their appearance – in most cases by using cosmetic products – have a better quality of life than those who do not.
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Alcohol in cosmetics: yes or no?
New European cosmetic legislation attaches great importance to consumer safety. The toxicological profiles of many raw materials, including ethyl alcohol, have been thoroughly studied. Would cosmetics be possible if alcohol were banned?
Ethyl alcohol (or ethanol) is listed on the labels of cosmetic products as Alcohol Denat, the official International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients (INCI) denomination for “denatured alcohol”. Alcohol has been used for macerations, extractions and solutions since cosmetics were invented. Pure alcohol is no longer used in the cosmetics sector nowadays, but is mixed with bitter-tasting denaturing agents to prevent it being consumed as an alcoholic beverage. Read more
Authors
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Andrés Martínez,
science journalistLaura Chaparro,
science journalistNúria Estapé,
science journalistRosa Taberner,
dermatologist
