After you've thoroughly cleansed and moisturized your delicate facial skin, nourish and protect it with Aestival's Protective Moisture Creme. Fortified with essential oils and antioxidant vitamins, Protective Moisture Creme is designed to guard your skin from environmental effects and to help rehydrate, retexturize and restore your skin for a smoother, younger-looking appearance.

Protective Moisture Creme features the GlycoActive® System, antioxidant vitamins and a water-based, nongreasy formula. No artificial dyes. Aestival products are never tested on animals.

Facial Care Strategy:
Think you don't need a deep-penetrating moisturizer? Think again. Wrinkles form deep below your skin's surface long before they're visible. By properly cleansing, nourishing and moisturizing all layers of your skin - including those that are not visible - you'll help reduce wrinkles and other signs of aging where they start. In addition, natural lubricants in our skin decline with age, and skin becomes thinner and more permeable. To compensate for the loss of natural moisture and help protect your more fragile skin, keep it well moisturized.

Directions for Use:
Using fingertips, apply a small amount of the Protective Moisture Creme to the face and neck areas and gently massage in upward, circular motions until creme completely disappears into the skin. When using products around the eyes, be careful not to make contact with the eyes. If contact occurs, rinse with cool water.

RESEARCH BRIEF

Skin is the largest organ in the body, both by weight and surface area. In adults, the weight of your skin accounts for about 16% of your total body weight. The skin separates the internal environment from the external. The skin serves as a barrier to the environment, protects us from water loss, protects us from UV rays of the sun, produces vitamin D, helps regulate body temperature, helps regulate metabolism and has aesthetic qualities. However, skin diseases and infections can compromise that barrier.

The skin is composed of several layers. The lowest layer is called the dermis. This layer is composed of a connective tissue, blood vessels, nerve endings, hair follicles, and sweat and oil glands. The outermost or top layer of skin is called the epidermis. This is the layer of skin we see. This layer rests on top of the dermis. The thickness of the epidermis varies with your age, your sex, and the location on the body of the skin. For example, the epidermis on the underside of the forearm is about five cell-layers thick. On the sole of the foot, the epidermis might be 30 cell-layers thick. The epidermis is, for the most part, impermeable to water.

The epidermis consists of many layers:

The stratum corneum, or outer layer. This layer is made of flattened epithelial cells in multiple layers. These layers are called keratinized layers because of the buildup of the protein keratin in those cells. Keratin is a strong protein that is specific to the skin, hair and nails. This layer of skin is, for the most part, dead. It is composed of cells that are almost pure protein.

The translucent, or transitional layer. This is a translucent, thin layer of cells. This layer is sometimes visible in thick skin; however, nuclei and other organelles are not visible. The cytoplasm (the amorphous area between the nucleus and the outer membrane of the cell) is mostly made of keratin filaments.

The suprabasal layers. This is three to five layers of flattened polygonal cells that have granules in the cytoplasm. Below them is a layer of cube-shaped cells that also contain bundles of keratin filaments.

The basal or cell-division layer. This layer is just above the basement membrane and the dermis. It is a single layer of cells that undergo cell division to renew the upper layers of the epidermis.

The human epidermis is renewed every 15-30 days. Proper surface nutrition feeds the cells of the basal layer. Exfoliation will remove dry or damaged skin of the outer layer to allow newer cells to be visible.

Q. If I suffer from oily skin, will the Protective Moisture Creme add too much moisture to my face?
A. The Aestival Protective Moisture Creme is nongreasy and water-based, and the creme only contains oils that are essential to the health of all skin, whether it's prone to oiliness or not. You should not experience any additional oiliness from using this product; however, if you do, cut back on the amount applied during each usage.