hey guys dr Davin Lim board certified dermatologist today we'll be talking about
diy skin care there's a couple of new players in the market uh the ordinary is just about
to release their um compounded we'll actually not come out they're pure niacinamide tomorrow that's
tomorrow fourth of august uh this is not the new concept um in fact the ordinary first came out
with this with the l ascorbic acid 100 in the context of skin care and what dermatologists do
this is actually quite a old-fashioned way of prescribing um skincare actives because
what we do is um when we see patients generally speaking we prescribe when it comes to compounded
solutions we prescribe compounded topicals and actives according to the patient so for example
if we use salicylic acid we may range it from two percent four percent five percent all the way up
to twenty percent for certain skin conditions so compounded bespoke preparations are new
but i think the way the ordinary uh has commercialized it um i think um it's pretty
smart of them uh and once again i think there's a there's a i guess a role in the market for this so
they first started with ascorbic acid yeah and ascorpic acid as you know is vitamin c
there's pros and cons to this because vitamin c is very unstable it's hard to formulate you need to
formulate it in something with with a very low ph somewhere about 2.5 to 3.5 and most importantly it
is uh photo label in other words light and heat but most important light can cause oxidation of
ascorbic acid so at best most compounded solutions as in diy you probably get a week or two maximum
now um do you have the flip side with ascorbic acid is that look in the scheme of things it's
pretty powerful yeah and i think a lot of people can run into problems with ascorbic acid because
if you've got sensitive skin and if you're using low formulations a lot of ph formulations uh
and upwards of you know 5 10 15 20 even up to 30 percent you're going to run in trouble especially
for patients with sensitive skin and rosacea so look they're they're i guess pretty active in the
market um and it's a new concept so where i think they've done really well is the release of this
tomorrow which is uh nice cinematic nice amount as you guys know is vitamin b3
and i think it's much more safe and much more sensible so as a dermatologist what do i think
is probably safe to compound at home or mix at home for your diy skincare definitely vitamin b3
um nice and normal the other thing is hyaluronic acid so hyaluronic acid you can buy it's a powder
it's um hyaluronic acid doesn't penetrate into your deep dermis it acts as a humectant
and the moisturizer so i think when you when it comes to something banal something which does very
little in the way of damage uh probably hyaluronic acid is the way to go for compounded stuff at home
now with this release tomorrow um i'll read it out to you it's 100 nice in my powder nothing added so
no no parabens no preservatives no talc uh they're vegan vegan friendly and animal cruelty free so
you can't get better than this the flip side is this look at the end of the day you're only paying
about i think in the us it's about 498 yeah that's four bucks 98 which is basically what two cups of
bad starbucks coffee in australia you're paying about 10 bucks which is basically uh yeah about
two to two starbucks coffee and that's it so in the scheme of things you can buy niacinamide for
a lot cheaper than this if you look at it per kilo nice invite probably goes for somewhere around uh
between five dollars all the way up to 50 per kilo so with this when they're giving you 20 grams and
they're selling it for 10 bucks um yeah i mean the profit the profit is still there so they have to
sell a lot so they're actually looking at volume sales but in the scheme of things you probably go
through 20 grams in about a year or even a year and a half depending on your formulations so when
it comes to costs yes when you look at the raw ingredients this costs a lot more but you get it
in a nice package it's convenient uh and you get a little scoop with it so you can measure stuff
um so i wouldn't worry about the cost in the scheme of things yes you can buy cheaper
uh but look what are you gonna do with two kilos of um you know of nice and mud powder i mean you
can't snort it um you know it's practically yeah okay so this is it this is the formulation itself
that's the powder in fact most pharmacies most pharmacists when they compound things they get
powder right so for example when we talk about kojic acid hyaluronic acid uh when it comes to
arbutin a lot of the compounded formulations are in the powder form and they have to
measure and they have to dispense accordingly and they're very exact yeah so compounded pharmacies
totally different yeah it's an exact science because i've seen them i've watched them
uh and they formulate down to the point zero zero one of a gram yeah what's this it's a
little bit hit and miss so they go a scoop like this um it's a full scoop yeah so that that's it
but what they say you've got to actually use a quarter of a scoop so a quarter of a scoop into
your uh i guess into your topical of choice right so that could be anything that's non-oil-based so
anything like a cream or something like a serum with the acidity that's higher than uh ph5 so
you can't use stuff like ascorbic acid and mix it because the ph of that would would just it's
just it's not compatible so anywhere between the ph of 5 all the way up to ph seven now they've
suggested a few things and i think a lot of themselves understand that things like hyaluronic
acid peptides and a lot of other banal stuff um like your serums your moisturizers most of them
have ph somewhere around neutral or so so that's compatible with that hearing loss a problem right
so when when you've got this and you you want to make a beast boat concentration for yourself
so they've given you a guide one quarter of a uh scoop into excuse me into uh a palm size uh serum
or cream right so one quarter scoop into a thumb size application four drops they say that will
get you somewhere between five to ten percent nice and remote so look at this scoop for example here
look how look how small it is so you're supposed to get one quarter of that even if you're exact uh
you're somewhere between five to ten percent nice and mud for the average punter that's fine yeah um
if you try to deliver that i guess every night and try to replicate that especially
when you're measuring such a small amount you may have variation more than likely you will
have variation from night to night unless you buy yourself a set of really good scales yeah
and that way you can measure stuff to 0.001 for gram and you get a much more accurate indication
so with this formulation some nights i reckon you'd be getting what four percent other nights
when you're not paying attention you might put a little bit too much you might be getting 14 15 so
the variation's huge because we're talking about small amounts of nice and light one quarter of
that to give you between uh a five to ten percent five to ten percent that's huge that's a hundred
percent variation yeah now this is where i guess things get interesting because i think there's a
market out there for patients or i guess consumers to want bespoke diy uh i'm a diy guy i like diying
so everything from fertilizer to to lots of other stuff which i just um either make or compound or
assemble the reason why is because it just feels good yeah you can go to a shop that you can buy it
or you can make it yourself and i think it's part of human nature that when we make something we go
wow we're pretty proud of that whether it be like i said whether it be a cake whether you're cooking
or whether it be gardening within whether you your own fertilizer
there is it makes you feel good yeah and i think this is where i guess the proactive companies
can probably see a hole in the market and go cool how about we give this to the consumer i
think they missed the shot with uh l-ascorbic acid yeah because like i said it's it's acidic
compounding is difficult stability is an issue uh and certainly um the main thing is sensitization
not sensitization as an irritant dermatitis especially for rosacea and sensitive skin
in this preparation i think they've got the market probably good yeah because the chance of nice
cinematic causing problems is very slim so let's go back to nice and not why nice in mind nice in
mind i think is when you're looking at the most banal of the actives yeah in other words the ones
that causes you least amount of urgent contact dermatitis sensitization photosensitivity um
you know burning stinging uh flakiness etc it is vitamin d vitamin b is the best of all of
that because the irritation potential is very very low so niacinamide is best as an anti-inflammatory
that's why we can use that for treating for example rosacea rosacea pain and skin acne so one
of the arrangement includes a zinc base together with niacinamide b3 so that's acne prone skin
but that is mainly it yeah the anti-inflammatory effects uh if you go to the ordinary website
they'll list a whole heap of other stuff there like you know it's great for pigment which look
i think in the scheme of things they're much much better things there for pigment yeah like your
ascorbic acids and your hydroquinones and your botanicals uh and they say it can reduce pores
as well uh modulate not only inflammation but modulate barrier function as well so patients with
atopic eczema or any uh conditions where the barrier function is impaired vitamin b is the
way to go and i know there's some studies coming out of sydney australia my colleagues over there
have done a lot of research in the context of violent d3 in um the sun yes a decrease of um
skin cancer rates with vitamin d3 so i think it's it's it's uh it's certainly the
uh if you're gonna pick a skincare active to to muck around with it's probably much safer
than um uh than ascorbic acid and definitely safer than something like retinol or even
all these skincare acids maybe that's what's on the agenda next you can buy yourself a
super strong what fifty percent glycolic acid and then dilute it to what five percent temperature
i think if that comes out uh they'll probably be disastrous it'll probably be very very dangerous
yeah i think there's a market for it i'm sure if someone come out with something like a
you know 70 80 90 glycolic acid which you can buy over the count they'll buy cheaply online
it's going to go bananas but once again the amount of patients out there who would suffer
burns who would suffer i guess skin irritation and post inflammatory hyperpigmentation probably
not a good idea to muck around with um uh skincare acids so with this let's let's start off with the
with this so that's a quarter of a scoop right palm here now what i'm going to do i'm going to
use this is sacrilege i'm going to use um another company's serum right so this is by inky list
now i'm going to mix it right and this is my first time mixing it because like i said this
was delivered to me last week the release is in two or three days time so i've run this through
with a few of my colleagues if you know michelle wong lab muffin skincare science
so science couldn't care she's awesome yeah i ran this through her with with in regards to
her thoughts as well we're both on the same page if you're going to use something um
better use niacinamide than illoscopic acid she's done a really good diy ascorbic acid um
video plus i think she's done a write up and i'll link it in the description down below so michelle
wong if you're not following follow her okay so here we go we uh well this is actually pretty good
initially on reservations i thought it's going to be really gritty it's not
it's just in two or three it's just dissolved completely so look um top maps were there um
for the way they've actually uh made the powder so that's great so that's in more for serum
now i'm going to flip my hand over i'm going to use something else once again look
life would not be good and i guess it's not fair if i keep going on with the ordinary so i've got
some murad yeah some murad's okay let's look at the base of this this base is actually cream
so now i'm doing i'm flipping out my hands i'm putting on the
dorsum of my hand one quarter of the scoop let's see how well this gels in with the um with the
cream so i've got the cream over here um and i'm just putting a little bit more with the cream here
and that's it so i think they've got the formulation spot on because this is the
this is integrated really well so all hats off to um to dice them for
actually with with their formulations i haven't tested other niacinamide powders
probably for a fair i guess assessment we probably should look at realistically five or six different
types of uh formulations and go from there but look it's a good i think it's a it's probably
has legs yeah um and for those who are into diy skincare i think this is the future um looking
out for a lot more products possibly from uh dysum but possibly from other companies i i do see that
this is going to be a big hole in the market that probably the skincare companies can fill
over the next couple of years like i said diy it's fun but most importantly guys most
importantly keep things safe i hope you liked that video please comment share subscribe if
you haven't turned on your notifications bell by all means please do so because the next video
will be out possibly in the next seven days but seven to ten days catch you guys then bye for now