STYLE FILE
Skin expert debuts his ZO line
Dr. Zein Obagi has been talking about skin for 35 years, so he's come up with a vivid summation of the effect of skin-care regimens on your skin: "Imagine your skin is a wall and that wall is disintegrating over time. The skin-care industry tells you to paint the wall, without addressing the (structure) itself. You need more than paint to keep the wall strong.
MEET DR. ZEIN OBAGI
» Consultations: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. today and tomorrow
» Place: Nordstrom, Ala Moana
» Cost: $50, redeemable toward a ZO Skin Health purchase
» RSVP: 953-6100, ext. 176
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"Nobody did this intentionally. Everyone used information they knew at the time; now we know more," he said during an interview yesterday at the Halekulani.
Obagi's professional medical-grade line of skin products have only been available by prescription through dermatologists and other skin-care specialists, but the Beverly Hills-based dermatologist is in town to introduce a consumer line bearing his initials, ZO Skin Health. He will be at Nordstrom today and tomorrow to launch the line in Hawaii and meet clients for one-on-one consultations.
In developing ZO Skin Health, he's set no lower a goal than revolutionizing the skin-care industry, starting with re-educating the public about skin, and what skin care can and cannot do.
"What I want to do is launch an awareness campaign," he said, suggesting that women have made it easy for the skin-care industry to take advantage of them by inventing the phenomenon of "sensitive or delicate skin" that can only be addressed with "special" products.
"Scientifically, that's the most stupid thing ever said about skin," he said. "A baby's skin was made to tolerate everything, and no child or man has ever complained about sensitive skin, only women.
"Most women don't know their skin type, anything about their skin, so when they go and buy something, they're buying blind."
The self-treating often exacerbates problems by throwing the skin's natural balance of water, protein and lipids off-kilter.
"In the last 60 years, the skin-care industry has focused on three things -- cleansing, moisturizing and protecting the skin from sun. More recently, they've added anti-aging. Scientifically speaking, if there have been improvements, it's been insignificant.
"I could have started a consumer line 15 years ago, but there was not enough technology out there to help us. Nothing would be effective; nothing was going to work and I could not work on something I don't believe in."
His aim is for healthy skin with all the attributes of a baby's skin, in which all cells are active and producing elastin and collagen, which give it vitality. He said the skin cells start losing function at 25, and topical solutions thus far have only helped to make skin feel better, without addressing the underlying breakdown.
"Whatever you put on skin, if the cells are sleeping, it's not going to work," he said.
The secret of ZO is retinol -- a form of vitamin A that reawakens the skin cells -- in a 1 percent concentration, 10 times the industry standard. He said a minimum 0.7 percent concentration is needed to have an effect.
"Retinol is a problematic substance utilized very poorly in skin-care products because of its negative features," he said. "In high concentrations it causes irritation, burns, makes the skin turn red and itchy. It breaks down when you mix it with water or oil. It's difficult to formulate, which is why the industry started to use peptides, lipoic acid, Q10."
Obagi's research led him to encapsulate retinol in a way that makes it effective without adverse side effects.
The products cannot work with nothing, so he tells those suffering from bad acne, sun damage, hyperpigmentation and other skin conditions to get appropriate medical attention first.
"You can't depend on topical solutions for medical problems," he said. "No skin care will treat. You have to go out and get treatment. After that, we can help you maintain it."
Obagi is known in Hawaii for his expertise with Asian skin, a familiarity that comes from having spent a few years here while in the Navy in the late 1970s, as well as work in Southeast Asia and Japan.
"Asian skin has certain properties that can be considered great, and those are few, and other properties that are bad, and they are many."
He said Asian skin is prone to uneven pigmentation and scarring due to heightened reactions to acne. At the same time, he sees a cultural importance paid to appearance such that a warning on a cigarette package in China reads, not that smoking may be hazardous to your health, but that smoking my be harmful to your face.
"Imagine how important appearance must be," he said.
"I didn't have to do this. I don't need the money, but this is a legacy line that I'm doing for the love of skin. I was a pathologist before I became a dermatologist. I've studied skin when it was alive, dead, cancerous, burned and I've always been amazed by how it's so capable of renewing itself.
"All great ideas come from a simple idea, but it takes observation, love and someone who would work hard to find answers."