Heliocare 360° is a multi-award winning skincare range that protects the skin from UVA, UVB, visible light, and infrared-A. The range protects not only the skin’s surface, but defends the skin from within by incorporating clinically proven antioxidants and DNA repair enzymes into their formula. This makes the Heliocare 360° range an essential part of anyone’s daily skincare regime.
To understand how you can use Heliocare to protect your client’s skin, it’s important to understand how the range works to protect your client’s skin from the sun.
Click the links below to jump to the relevant section:
- Why is sunlight damaging to the skin?
- Does visible light cause skin damage? How to combat the effects.
- Why do we recommend SPF 50 and upwards?
- Reasons to use SPF daily
- DNA repair enzymes: how they work in skincare
Why is sunlight damaging to the skin?
There are many factors from the sun that can badly affect the skin. This happens all year around – even in the winter time or on a cloudy, rainy day where you can’t necessarily see the sun. Although UVB rays are the strongest in the Summer, UVA rays, visible light and infrared-A are still there and are around throughout the year. These can all damage unprotected skin.
- UVB Rays – These are most harmful during summer and one of the main reasons skin can become sunburnt. They damage the epidermis and can damage the DNA in your skin cells directly. These rays are thought to be the ones which cause most skin cancers.
- UVA Rays – UVA rays are present all year round and can penetrate through clouds and glass. The rays penetrate deep into the skin, reaching the dermis. This damages skin which in turn causes a tan. These are the rays commonly used on sunbeds. Unlike UVB rays which only penetrate the top layer of skin, UVA rays go deeper and can damage the deeper layers of skin which can cause premature ageing.
- Visible Light – Visible light is another factor which is present all year round. You can be exposed to visible light through daylight and blue light from devices like computer screens. This radiation penetrates both the dermis and epidermis, and is the key cause of skin pigmentation.
- Infrared-A – This radiation is also present throughout the year and is what makes your skin feel warm and radiate heat after you have been in the sun/exposed to the rays. This penetrates the dermis and hypodermis and as the radiation is converted into heat, your body can respond with inflammation, dehydration, and loss of collagen and elastin. This can cause premature ageing in your skin by forming more wrinkles. When a person’s skin is exposed to infrared-A and UV together, this can increase the wrinkle production further.
As each of the above are present throughout the year and can do damage to the skin, it is important for your clients to be protected all year around – no matter the weather. Prolonged exposure to the sun and its rays can result in millions of free radicals being released in the skin. This can cause premature ageing and impaired skin health.
It’s important for your clients to protect their skin daily but it is especially important for those who want to treat ageing skin, as sun damage is one of the key factors in premature skin ageing. Protecting skin daily will help to protect the collagen and elastin of the skin and maintain healthy skin functions, promoting youthful skin for longer.
Does visible light cause skin damage? How to combat the effects.
Visible light accounts for around 43% of the solar radiation hitting the skin from the sun. Although this type of radiation is the one of the least damaging out of all the solar radiation, it can be increased by previous UVA damage. This is because UVA damage will open up the skin cells to further damage from other radiations, such as visible light.
The biological effects of visible light on the skin include, not only changes to pigmentation and erythema, but also free radical production. In fact, it’s responsible for 33% of sun-induced free radicals in the skin, and has been shown to induce darker pigmentation than UVA.
Our Heliocare 360° range provides high-level protection against UVA, UVB, infrared-A and visible light. Most ordinary SPF products do not provide protection against visible light, leaving skin exposed to the harmful effects of sunlight, and light from digital devices. However, Heliocare 360° uniquely contains Fernblock which is clinically proven to help protect the skin from within against damage caused by visible light.
Why do we recommend SPF 50 and upwards?
Although most sun care providers recommend SPF 30 and upwards, we advise 50+. No SPF is ever going to be able to offer 100% protection, however 50 and upwards offer around 98% protection from UVB rays. The level of SPF that you get from the product you’re using directly depends on the amount you apply, which should be 2mg per cm2 – approximately two finger lengths of product for the face and neck. Applying less than this hugely affects the SPF protection that you’re getting.
The relationship between the amount of product that you use and the SPF protection isn’t linear – for example, if you use SPF15 but apply half as much as is recommended, the SPF doesn’t just half, it drops to just under 4.
The amount that you’re using is crucial in the level of protection that you’re getting, and by using a higher SPF we’re giving ourselves the best chance of giving our skin a high level of protection.
Even with a high factor SPF applied, it’s important to actively seek shade, wear protective clothing such as hats and UV-blocking sunglasses, and reapplying the SPF when needed. Using a high SPF and performing the above protective measures all year round – but especially when in direct sunlight – will help client’s skin to maintain its natural youthful glow and stay healthier for longer. All our Heliocare 360° products are SPF 50 or above for this reason.
Reasons to use SPF daily
It’s important for your clients to protect their skin every day, no matter the weather. Our skin naturally tries to protect us from harmful radiation caused by the sun and the damaging UV rays it produces. However, on its own, the protection is not enough. Your clients should be helping out their skin by using an SPF 50 or above daily. Applying first thing in the morning, and topping up throughout the day (particularly important when you’re spending more time outdoors) will protect your skin and reduce the risk of damage.
Protecting skin will help to:
- Prevent the signs of ageing.
- Reduce the risk of skin cancer
- Reduce the risk of sunburn
- Prevent skin discolouration from happening
- Reduce redness and painful inflammation
Each of the above can be seriously damaging to skin and its health if left unprotected. Even in the winter it’s important to use SPF. The sun itself may not be visible but its radiation and rays can still penetrate clouds and reach the skin. Having unprotected skin in the winter is just as dangerous as unprotected skin in the summer months. This is especially evident in countries with high snow fall. As snow is a very reflective surface, the UV rays bounce off the snow and onto the skin. This can result in people experiencing sunburn, but from the snow.
DNA repair enzymes: how they work in skincare
Exposure to radiation and/or UV light and rays can cause physical damage to the DNA of a person’s skin. DNA repair enzymes are used to help reverse some of this damage. They work by recognising and correcting the physical damage in the DNA, alleviating the loss of genetic information, and repairing the double strand breaks and DNA cross linkages. These enzymes have been introduced into skincare products to help with damages from prolonged exposure to the sun. The enzymes, once placed onto the skin through the skin care products, will recognise the altered state of the skin from the damage and begin the process of reversing this.
In more basic terms, these DNA repair enzymes can help reduce the damage of sun exposure that has affected the DNA. It can help to reduce the risk of skin cancer and can also help reverse and repair past damage that the skin may have experienced. However, they can not repair all damage and cannot reduce the risk of skin cancer completely. Therefore, it is still recommended to protect your skin with SPF daily. If you are a late starter in protecting your skin, products containing DNA repair enzymes could help to reverse any damage and boost your protection levels with this reversal – just still make sure to wear sunscreen daily!
Our Heliocare 360° products are all SPF50 and above, but also include DNA repair enzymes in their ingredients. This is a great and easy way to protect your skin and repair it all at the same time. These DNA repair enzymes can repair both the nucleus and the mitochondria of the DNA. It can also reduce the free radical damage caused to the mitochondria by 30%, which may seem small, but is actually a great amount.
