Issue link: https://www.ascpskindeepdigital.com/i/1537409
Protection. Education. Connection. There's an app for that at ascpskincare.com/app 79 STOCKSY potency, stability, and performance, which collectively determine a product's ability to penetrate the skin barrier and safely effect meaningful biological change. 3 Potency Potency means using active ingredients at therapeutic levels that the skin can absorb and use. Each drop is designed to stimulate real change, like collagen production and cell renewal. Most mass-market formulas feature popular ingredients at concentrations too low to penetrate the skin's defenses or drive results, offering little more than temporary surface hydration or glow. Stability The effectiveness of a product not only depends on its ingredients but also on how well those ingredients are preserved over time. Vitamin C is difficult to stabilize and is sensitive to oxidation. Professional skin care formulations use advanced formulation and stabilization techniques and protective packaging to safeguard actives throughout the product's lifespan. Without this attention to stability, even the most promising ingredients can degrade long before they deliver therapeutic benefits to the skin. Performance Actual results depend on getting actives where they matter: deep in the skin. Professional formulations often incorporate advanced delivery systems, such as encapsulation, liposomes, or other technologies, to protect and transport actives past the surface layers and into the deeper epidermis or dermis. Without these technologies, ingredients may evaporate, oxidize on the surface, or fail to penetrate deep enough to make a clinical difference. ELEVATING INGREDIENTS: THE POWER OF ENCAPSULATION Professional skin care boosts potency with advanced formulations. One standout formulation innovation is encapsulation, a method in which active ingredients such as vitamins, peptides, and antioxidants are enclosed within microscopic carrier systems. This protective technology shields actives from environmental degradation—specifically air, light, and heat—preserving their potency until they reach deeper layers of the skin where correction occurs. Encapsulated actives are released strategically, allowing controlled delivery to targeted skin structures at optimal concentrations. 4 Encapsulation turns good ingredients into powerful, results-driven treatments. It gives professional skin care an edge by delivering firmer skin, deeper hydration, and longer- lasting results than mass-market products. KERATINOCYTE TURNOVER: A CRITICAL PROCESS FOR SKIN RENEWAL Professional-grade skin care is also designed to support keratinocyte turnover, the natural process of generating new skin cells in the basal layer and migrating upward to form the protective outermost layer of skin. In adult skin, this cycle typically takes about 40–56 days. However, with aging, inflammation, and environmental stress, the turnover rate slows significantly, leading to dullness, roughness, hyperpigmentation, and compromised barrier function. 5 Professional-grade ingredients like retinoids, AHAs, and peptides help retrain the skin to accelerate this cycle, restoring luminosity, smoothness, and resilience. Drugstore and homemade formulations, often lacking potency,