Hope y’all had a great weekend - back to work here on this lovely, fall Monday. That’s right it feels like fall has trickled down to Texas
Even though the heat of the summer is slowly giving way to cool fall nights, sunscreen is essential all year round. In the natural body care industry it can be difficult to find natural ingredients and formulations that can do the same thing as their man-made counterparts.
Well chalk another one up for nature, sunscreen may be able to be formulated with completely natural or naturally occurring ingredients now.
In a study published this month, scientists from the Harvard Medical School discovered a bacteria that may hold the key to developing a new generation of truly organic sunscreen.
What you might ask could naturally protect us from those cancer-causing rays? Its is more common than you think – Cyanobacteria, an ancient fresh water bacteria found in thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of lakes throughout the world.
The Harvard team discovered that this bacteria has evolved over billions of years to produce its own filtering and protection from damaging UV rays.
This protection has evolved to combat both UVA and UVB exposure by producing small amounts of small-molecule sunscreens called mycosporines and mycosporine which absorb harmful rays.
Not only does cyanobacteria have a natural sunscreen filter, it contains a number of B vitamins, beta-carotene, vitamin A, lipids and essential amino acids.
According to the scientists, the extract has the petrochemical properties needed to make a protective sunscreen but has not been formulated by any skin care company for that specific reason. Although the extract has been used for years in an anti-aging skin care product manufactured by a Swiss company and in an eye gel sold in the U.S it has yet to be developed as a sunscreen ingredient.
Would you use a sunscreen made from bacteria?
Tags: Cyanobacteria, sunscreen
