Can dairy products soothe skin?

Tiffany tells us…“They” recommend milk and yogurt to soothe skin. How does dairy soothe skin? The Beauty Brains respond: While dairy products for skin sound good there’s really not much to it. Milk dud Everyone’s heard the stories about Cleopatra bathing in milk to beautify her complexion. Supposedly milk baths work because they contain lactic acid that’s a natural exfolliant, blah blah blah. While milk does contain lactic acid it’s actually in the form of the lactate salt due to the alkaline pH. (Lactic acid needs to be at a low, acid pH to exfoliate skin.) The lactate can be converted to lactic acid by allowing the milk to sour but initially sour milk contains only about 0.01% lactic acid which is far too little to have an effect on your skin. (Lactic acid creams contain 5% or so.) After 48 hours of fermenting the percentage of lactic acid increases to about 22% which could be effective but seriously, are you going to smear 2 day old sour milk all over your body? (Reference: http://www.jbc.org/content/35/1/147.full.pdf) Yummy yogurt Yogurt is supposdely good for skin because of the probiotic bacteria. Researchers have found that one probiotic in particular, Lactobacillus plantarum, when used a concentration of 5%, reduces skin redness, locks in moisture, and decreases skin bacteria that lead to acne. Unfortunately, yogurt contains a different Lactobacillus which doesn’t have the same properties. (Reference: http://thebeautyb...
Source: thebeautybrains.com - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Questions Source Type: blogs