The cosmetics industry is overflowing with people who have no clue what they are doing, and the issue of oxygen in skin-care products demonstrates that perfectly. After selling us products to ward off oxygen’s effects on the skin (the word antioxidant means anti-oxygen), the beauty industry then turns around and sells us products that claim to provide oxygen to the skin. Doesn’t the beauty industry have anything better to do? (No, it doesn’t, especially if there is an interested consumer willing to make a purchase.)
Many cosmetic products contain antioxidants, ingredients that keep oxygen off the face, such as vitamin C, superoxide dismutase, selenium, curcumin, plant extracts, and vitamin E, among dozens and dozens of others. At the same time, the cosmetics industry also sells products that contain hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) or some other oxygen-releasing ingredient that supposedly delivers an oxygen molecule when it comes into contact with skin. It makes sense to wonder if the extra oxygen would just trigger free-radical damage and cause more problems for the skin. But if you were also using products that contained antioxidants, wouldn’t they “scavenge” up that free-radical oxygen? The answer is that if the product could deliver extra oxygen to the skin it would indeed generate free-radical damage and, based on data from almost every imaginable published study on the subject, that’s bad for skin.
So why the concern about supplying more oxygen to the skin? Oxygen depletion is one of the things that happens to older skin, regardless of whether it’s been affected by sun damage or any other health issue. Why or how that happens is a complete unknown, though it is thought to have something to do with blood flow and a reduction in lung capacity as we age. Nevertheless, delivering extra oxygen to the skin doesn’t reverse it. After all, there is plenty of oxygen in our environment. The earth’s atmosphere is 21% oxygen; the oceans, lakes, and rivers are about 88% oxygen. Oxygen is a constituent of most rocks and minerals, and makes up 46.7% (by weight) of the solid crust of the earth. Oxygen makes up 60% of the human body, and is in every cell and organ. It is a constituent of all living tissues; almost all plants and animals, including humans, require oxygen to maintain life. However, oxygen is utilized by the body almost exclusively through respiration. Oxygen on the surface may affect the very top layer of skin, but so what? How much extra oxygen does skin need? Again, no one knows. Can it be absorbed? No. Plus, none of this addresses the issue about oxygen generating more free-radical damage, which is one of the processes that makes the veins and capillaries of the body stop working efficiently.
That brings us to this question: How did the caprice of oxygen booths get started? Oxygen booths (hyperbaric chambers) are used medically to repair skin ulcers and wounds that have difficulty healing. According to the American Diabetes Association’s Diabetes Forecast (June 1993, page 57), “When you have a stubborn [wound] that won’t heal, the white blood cells that fight the infection in the [wound] use 20 times more oxygen when they’re killing bacteria. Also, the more oxygen your body has to work with, the more efficiently it lays down wound-repairing connective tissue. Yet just when you need more oxygen, you may have less. If you have neuropathy (diabetic nerve damage), that may cause changes in blood flow, resulting in islands of low oxygen levels in your foot. Less oxygen means slower healing, and a [wound] that doesn’t heal could eventually lead to an amputation. So it seems that you should try to get extra oxygen in your blood when you have a foot ulcer, to bring the oxygen levels in the tissues around the ulcer up to normal, or even higher. But sitting in your living room and breathing in 100% oxygen won’t do the trick. Under normal circumstances, only so much oxygen will dissolve in your blood.” Pressure is needed to allow the oxygen to be used by the body; and sitting in a hyperbaric booth serves that purpose. The article continues, “But it is the inhaled oxygen, which is then absorbed by your blood after you breathe it, that speeds wound healing, not the oxygen drifting past the wound. You may have seen advertisements for devices that encase a person’s leg and deliver oxygen to the skin. This is not hyperbaric oxygen therapy, and it’s not effective—your skin doesn’t absorb oxygen that way. These devices may even reduce the amount of oxygen that gets to your leg.”
Moreover, leg ulcers and wounds are a temporary condition, but skin aging is ongoing. The notion that oxygen treatments affect aging, wrinkles, or any other skin malady is a joke. Nary a study exists anywhere to support those ideas, though there is a ton of research showing that the oxidative process generated by oxygen is partly responsible for wrinkles and skin aging in general.