When it comes to achieving an enviously glowing, healthy complexion, chirally correct skincare is one beauty trend worth caring about. In this article, discover everything you need to know about how certain chiral molecules can help you enhance your skin like nothing else.
What is Chirally Correct Skincare?
Over the years, pharmaceutical companies have spent billions of dollars on chiral research to manufacture drugs with higher purity. Some of today’s leading skincare brands are harnessing these same discoveries to make their formulas even more effective.
So what exactly is chirally correct skincare? To put it simply, a chiral molecule is the chemical term for a molecule that isn’t symmetrical. The easiest way to understand chirality is the right hand and left hand of a molecule. Here’s why: the same way that hands mirror one another and aren’t identical, molecules also have a mirror image of one another that isn’t superimposable.
In formulas, each chiral molecule (aka the mirror image of a molecule) is given a prefix to its chemical name – either d or l. With vitamin E for example, its chemical name is alpha-tocopherol. Its two chiral molecules are called d-alpha-tocopherol and l-alpha-tocopherol. But even though these mirrored molecules are nearly identical, only one of them can be used by the human body. This is because, even those these molecules might be similar, they often don’t offer the same benefits. In the case of vitamin E, d-alpha-tocopherol is the one that’s accepted by our skin. Keep reading to learn why that matters when it comes to your skincare.
What are the Benefits of Chirally Correct Skincare?
Not all ingredients can be purified to be chirally correct. But the ones that can are able to deliver even more potent results.
Chirally correct skincare contains the correct mirrored molecules of the ingredients in your skincare. When you’re using the more effective molecule, you’re able to get the maximum potential of the active ingredient’s benefits.
Removing the less-effective aspect of the ingredient is removed leaves you with 100% of the more effective side. This is known as chirally correct. Instead of the natural, whole form of vitamin E, for example, a chirally correct skincare product would be sorted so that only the active molecule, d-alpha-tocopherol, is added.
What Happens When Your Skincare Isn’t Chirally Correct
So what happens if your skincare isn’t chirally correct? In short, unsorted skincare is less potent as you’re receiving only 50% of its active molecules. A non-chirally correct ingredient has equal amounts of the l-molecule and d-molecule. So, if your skincare product has 10ml of vitamin E in it, that would mean it only contains 5ml of the active vitamin E molecules that will nourish your skin and 5ml of the molecule that does absolutely nothing, leaving you with skincare that’s half as potent and effective.
The Arcona Difference: Chirally Correct Skincare
Every Arcona skincare project harnesses the benefits of advanced chiral extraction technology so you can get the maximum results from each of our carefully chosen active ingredients.
Here are examples of chirally correct ingredients found in Arcona’s bestselling Youth Serum.
Discover more chirally correct skincare here.
Written by: Chanel Jenae & Keemia Kaboli