Are Cannabis Beauty Products The Secret To Anti-Aging?
The cannabis plant has a lot to achieve. People praise it for a variety of health benefits, including treating chronic pain, reducing opioid addiction, improving mental health conditions like anxiety and depression, and supporting PTSD therapies.
Aside from healthcare, many other industries have shown interest in the plant since legalization. One of them is the beauty sector.
Skincare, beauty and anti-aging is a beast of a sector worth $8.3 billion — nearly CA$10.5 billion — in 2022. Unsurprisingly, the skincare industry is keen to keep up with the sweet Lady Jane going to bed. After years of dabbling with hemp seed oil and looking for more weed water.
“We know that oxidative stress is the main cause of skin aging, so it makes perfect sense to apply cannabinoids topically to reduce the oxidation processes in the skin.”
dr AS Sana-Ara Ahmed, Medical Director of Genuvis Health
CBD and Anti-Aging: Hype or Science?
It seems to be a mixture of both.
The possibilities are plentiful, it seems, with batches of new cannabis-infused beauty products popping up every month. Beauty brands often promise wrinkle-free skin fast (and it’s always wise to be specific with new “miracle” products as to whether or not they contain cannabis).
dr Sana-Ara Ahmed founded and is currently Medical Director of Genuvis Health, a multifaceted beauty clinic in Calgary. She has specialized training in cannabinoid medicine and experience in therapeutic issues.
Through her dual practice, she has been observing for years how the gap between the two industries is shrinking. dr Ahmed, an expert in cannabinoids and skincare (both cosmetic and healing topical compounds), tells Leafly she’s cautiously optimistic about the possibility of combining cannabis and skincare.
Stress, genetics and the elements all age our skin prematurely
“When it comes to skin care in general, one of the main complaints people have is their skin’s loss of elasticity due to the breakdown of collagen,” she says. “Anything that stimulates collagen will help skin appear more youthful.”
Skin ranges from smooth and wrinkle-free in our teens and 20s to wrinkled and covered in dark age spots in our 30s, 40s and beyond. Part of the way we age is genetic. If your mom or grandma had great skin by the time you were 60, chances are you will too.
However, your teenage tanning years will come back to haunt you no matter how great your genetics are. Free radicals, such as those caused by sun damage and stress, are primarily responsible for breaking down collagen in the skin, causing premature lines, wrinkles and a decrease in firmness and elasticity.
Related
Everything Canadians need to know about topical cannabis products
The greater the exposure to free radicals, which can be environmental (pollution, UV rays) and/or lifestyle (cigarette smoking, alcohol consumption), the more damage your skin suffers.
The body can only regulate so many free radicals before it becomes too much and something called oxidative stress begins — a place where cannabinoids like cannabidiol (CBD) and others get a chance to shine.
“We know that oxidative stress is the main cause of skin aging, so it makes perfect sense to apply cannabinoids topically to reduce the oxidation processes in the skin,” says Ahmed. “Anything with antioxidants helps fight oxidative stress.”
Cannabis for Inflammation and Anti-Aging
Most cannabis-infused skincare products in Canada rely heavily on CBD, which research says can help reduce inflammation, as well as THC, which readers say is better for pain.
Also showing promise is CBG, a lesser-discussed cannabinoid that has shown anti-aging properties as it is a powerful anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant stress fighter.
Using cannabis on your skin to reduce the appearance of wrinkles works very differently than smoking a joint. You don’t just apply it one night and magically wake up and see results the next morning.
There has to be a way to get the cannabinoids into the skin to see any effects.
“The most effective molecule for improving skin elasticity is hyaluronic acid (HA) and that’s why many of the topical creams contain some HA,” explains Ahmed.
When skin care products use a carrier like HA, active ingredients don’t just stay on the skin after application, but can actually penetrate it to produce meaningful results over time, such as: B. the reduction of fine lines.
Ahmed says that with products that only use oil as a carrier, for example, the chance of the cannabinoids changing the skin’s appearance is reduced. It does not penetrate the epidermis, which would be necessary for therapeutic properties.
Although topical cannabis products entered the world of legal weed in 2019, it’s still very early days. Plenty of anecdotal evidence supports the effectiveness of cannabis in skin care, but the industry needs more long-term human clinical trials to better understand how cannabinoids can be mixed into beauty products and what long-term effects they have.
5 cannabis skincare products to try
WholeHemp CBD cream
THC 15.00mg; CBD 200.00mg
Proofly CBD Natural Clay Face Mask
THC 25.00mg; CBD 500.00mg
Nuveev Restorative Facial Cleanser
THC 0.00mg; CBD 150.00mg
Emprise Canada CBD Eye Cream
CBD 500mg
Extra strong body cream from Apothecanna
THC 100.00mg; CBD 100.00mg
Lisa Feleptchuk
Lisa Felepchuk is an experienced lifestyle editor, writer and digital nomad based in beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia.
Check out Lisa Felepchuk’s articles
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