It's Thyme for a New Generation of Skin Care

I’m a real doctor. I’ve been seeing patients since 1981 and have been a plastic surgeon since 1987. Early on, I realized it didn’t make sense for people to have facelifts or laser procedures without fixing the damage that the sun has inflicted on their faces. So, I prescribed Retin-A® and hydroquinone pigment fader for my patients and put them on a regimen of vitamin C, fruit acids, and sunscreen. But that’s a lot of steps. Washing your face, exfoliating, and applying these creams and your makeup takes a lot of energy. And it’s a fact of life that, like diets, the more complex the skin care program, the less chance you’ll stick to the program long-term. Even my celebrity patients didn't want complex routines.

Since skin care programs don’t work overnight (despite the ridiculous ads you see), I wanted to design a program that would be easily worked into your regimen – like brushing your teeth and dental flossing. And so I spent a year figuring out how to put the most scientifically proven ingredients into one cream. I called my first product "Dr. Perry's NightSkin", created for another company in 2006 – it combined a less irritating form of vitamin A with the active form of vitamin C and glycolic acid, a fruit acid. For quicker fading of brown spots, I added licorice extract. In that very potent cream, I used vitamins (A and C) that are destroyed by sunshine. That’s why I advised using it at night!

I knew that cream would work, because science has proven the worth of each of the individual ingredients. But I was surprised at how fast it worked and the extent of the benefits when I started using my own concoction on my patients. It decreased the appearance of brown spots on the skin in as little as two weeks, probably because the exfoliant effect of alpha hydroxy acid helped wear off the brown skin. In the meantime, it slowed the formation of new pigment. NightSkin was so popular - the company sold something in the area of 800,000 bottles with my name on it. I separated from that company in 2012, and I’m so happy to have created the next generation of skin rejuvenators. After over a year of tinkering in the lab, I created Dr. Perry’s NightThyme^® light serum. I included milk thistle, a great antioxidant in NightThyme, and take a whiff and you’ll pick up the scent of thyme, another great antioxidant. Rounding out my NightThyme is lactic acid, a great exfoliant that helps the other ingredients work.

While NightThyme is a nourishing serum, in the morning it is important to protect your skin from ongoing sun damage. It doesn’t make sense to try and fix the skin without preventing new damage. So I created Dr. Perry's DayThyme^® , with the key ingredient of zinc oxide sunscreen. I put enough zinc oxide in DayThyme to give it an SPF 20, and that is just fine for everyday use. Because it has zinc oxide, UVA, as well as UVB, is blocked. The FDA gives me permission to call DayThyme a "broad spectrum" sunscreen, one that helps fend off wrinkles and skin cancers.  

It took a long thyme to figure out how to combine zinc oxide with vitamins B3 and B5 but I have to say that I hit it just right. Making these skin creams requires a scientific mind, the experience of a clinician that actually sees the problems, and… a bit of artistry - once the science is solved, it's a lot like cooking. A lot of people ask me why I just didn’t use chemical sunscreens – they’re easy to deal with and dirt-cheap. But those of you who have listened to me on my weekly radio show or saw me on the Dr. Oz TV show (check out the link on www.perryplasticsurgery.com) know that I consider these to be toxins.

Yes, toxins. They get absorbed into your body and stay there, disrupting your hormones for two days. Not so with zinc oxide. Zinc oxide stays on the surface of your skin and does what it’s supposed to do. Reflect ultraviolet light. And this sunscreen not only blocks UVB, but also UVA – that’s what’s called a broad spectrum sunscreen. We now think that the epidemic of skin cancer, particularly melanoma, is due to inadequate protection from UVA. In fact, if you think about it, you’re worse off if you use poorly designed sunscreens that just protect you from UVB – because you’ll be led into a false sense of security and stay in sun longer.

And even though many sunscreens claim to be "broad spectrum", some of these only block a tiny portion of UVA. DayThyme blocks the broadest spectrum of UVA of any sunscreen. So DayThyme is a sunscreen. A sunscreen with added vitamins B3 (niacin), B5 (pantothenic acid), and E to strengthen the skin. These aren’t destroyed by sunshine and they pack a great punch in rejuvenating the skin. DayThyme can be used as a foundation under your makeup, or it can be used alone. A skin care program is not complete without a skin cleaner. And until now I could not recommend a single soap or cleanser. So I created my own - and I called it Dr. Perry’s CleanThyme^®. I’ve got to tell you...my new skin cleaner will change the way you think about soap. This product will be a game changer... CleanThyme is a bar cleaner. We can’t call it a soap because it is not made from fat, like soaps are. I designed CleanThyme to have the same acidity as normal skin. That’s more important than you can imagine. Your skin was designed to be acidic, like a lemon, not alkaline like baking soda. The acid kills those nasty Staph bacteria, and when you use an alkaline soap (like 95% are), Staph grow on your skin like it grows on cheese left out of the refrigerator. It takes your skin 3 hours to restore its acidity. My CleanThyme keeps your skin at the right acidity. And because it’s a bar soap, CleanThyme doesn’t need preservatives. I eliminated petrolatum and replaced it with beeswax. This holds the bar together nicely. But synthetic bars like mine traditionally don’t perform too well. That’s one of the reasons there aren’t many around. I took over a year to figure out how to make mine function nicely. I used quillaja – that’s the stuff that makes root beer frothy – to give it a lather. I’d never use that SLS (sodium lauryl sulfate, a skin irritant) in my products. To give it a little slip, I added glycerin, and to give it just the right amount of body, I added oats. Now, while I hate the idea of fragrances, it’s a fact of life that all soaps and synthetic cleaners smell bad. You simply wouldn’t use one without fragrance. So I chose lemon and lavender oils and of course, thyme, to give CleanThyme an incredible smell. Lemon and lavender are aromatherapy agents – they relax you to the point where your blood pressure and pulse rate decrease. But lemon oil is a photosensitizer and that’s where my chemistry background comes in. I found that when a certain chemical (called bergaptene for you chemistry gurus) is removed, the lemon oil does not sensitize. One warning, though…once you use my CleanThyme, you won’t be able to use a traditional soap again. I will have spoiled you…

So that’s my simple skin care program. You don’t have to buy a zillion products to have skin that look nice. But what about Dr. Perry's SoftThyme^®, my moisturizer? Well, most people don’t need a moisturizer. Not a great marketing strategy, is it? While that's the truth, even my own wife wouldn't give up her moisturizer. So, I figured that if you're going to use a moisturizer, then at least use a great one. I had created SoftSkin years ago, and I took the opportuity to improve an already great product, adding things like Vitamin D. SoftThyme was designed to simulate the natural oils of your skin. Amazingly, it massages in easily and is not at all greasy. SoftThyme replaces the ceramides and Vitamin E, and ....get ready for this one...phytosphingosine...important constituents of skin that are stripped by soaps and actually depleted by other moisturizers (it's complicated - my next book explains this problem).  

You'll notice that I have a limited product line. With your support, I will be bringing in additional products, but I'll never create unnecessary ones...like toner... As we move forward, I will be introducing more functional, safe, nontoxic, honest, and scientifically proven products. Stay tuned... In the meantime, I do want to announce the results of my recent study.