Proactiv Acne Solution Blog - Proactiv Acne Treatment Info

It seems that just about all cosmetic and skin care advertisements make mention of a ph number, but what they fail to mention is just exactly what it is and what it has to do with anything. Does it really make any difference what the ph number is in a skin care product or cosmetic or anything else that you put on your body for that matter?

Quite simply the ph number is a number that is used to measure and gauge the acidity of any liquid or solution and virtually every aqueous liquid on earth has a ph number including water, which has a ph number of seven in its pure form. In fact all living animals have a ph number of seven and that is why seven is the number that is used to describe a liquid that has a neutral ph and is called ph balanced.

Free hydrogen atoms in a solution are what make and govern a solutions acidity and the more of them that there are the more acid a solution is and the lower the ph number is and the more acidic the solution is. You can’t get away from hydrogen atoms because they are all around us and in fact part of the air that we breathe is hydrogen gas along with oxygen and a few other gasses. In organic and a lot of non organic chemistry hydrogen atoms are the regulators or the game officials or the traffic police in that they control what takes place in a chemical reaction. Even if they aren’t part of the actual chemical reaction they are in there just hanging around not doing anything other than governing the acidity of the solution that the chemical reaction is happening in. If you drop an egg shell into vinegar and come back in a week the egg shell will be gone because the hydrogen in the acetic acid that is in the vinegar has reacted with the calcium in the egg shell and dissolved it. Some of the elements that made up the egg shell were released as a gas and bubbled up and floated away and some of the elements of the egg shell became new molecules that now contain hydrogen after they have reacted with it. Free hydrogen in a liquid is the wrecking ball of nature and chemistry and this is why a skin care product that is too acidic and has a low ph number will irritate your skin and make it rough, red and dry.

The ph scale also works in the other direction and liquids that have a ph number greater than neutral or seven are called basic in that they have fewer hydrogen atoms. Baking soda is mildly basic and has a ph number slightly higher than seven while bleach and lye have a ph number that is much higher than seven and are extremely harmful to the skin and in fact lye will eat a hole right into your skin. If you would like to see a very basic or caustic liquid reaction just spray some oven cleaner on some grease in your oven and watch what happens. It fizzes and bubbles not because the manufactures concocted it to that its because there is a frenzied chemical reaction taking place that is destroying the organic molecules that are there being the grease and food drippings.

Ideally a skin care product would have a ph number of seven and be as safe on your skin as water is but that is not how chemistry works unfortunately. In just the same way as the calcium in the egg shell was dissolved into the liquid solution by the acid in the vinegar so to must acid be used to dissolve and transform other elements and molecules into liquid form so that they can then be used for various jobs. This is how benzoil peroxide is created and then used and if there was no acid there would not be benzoil peroxide to kill acne causing bacteria. When a benzoil peroxide containing solution is applied to the skin two things are killed and one of them is acne causing bacteria by the benzoil peroxide and the other thing that gets killed unfortunately is skin cells just like the drippings in the oven.

An acid reaction can be counteracted by introducing molecules into the acid solution that are more reactive or engage more quickly and easy with the acid. If you pour baking soda into the vinegar that has the egg shell soaking in it the vinegar immediately bubbles up and the egg shell stops getting dissolved because the baking soda was far more reactive and took up all he hydrogen atoms and now the egg shell can sit in the vinegar for months and not be changed at all. Acidic and basic solutions are frequently used together to start and stop reactions all the time and this is exactly how film is developed. The film is first dipped into an acid solution that develops it and then it is dipped into a basic solution to stop the acid reaction and when the timing is right the photograph turns out great. This is exactly how Proactiv Solution is used and the reason for the three step acne treatment process. The first step of the treatment process uses a benzoil peroxide solution that kills the acne causing bacteria by forcing the chemical down into the pores and the second step of the treatment stops the acid reaction and leaves the benzoil peroxide trapped inside the pores where it can keep on killing bacteria. The second step also quickly stops the acid reaction that is damaging skin cells and returns the ph number to seven which is the acidity of pure water.

The third step of the Proactive Solution acne treatment doesn’t involve any chemistry but is rather a specially formulated non pore clogging medicated skin lotion that works to return your skins natural flexibility, elasticity and glow while leaving a micro-thin anti bacterial barrier as your skins first outward defense against attacking acne causing bacteria.