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Sat Apr 21, 2007 7:53 am  |
Hi, I've tried a few actives to help my broken thread veins. Based on my personal experience here is what does and does not work.
Horse chestnut and vitamin k - these don't work. I used them for about three months added to my night cream. Minimal difference.
MSM and milk thistle extract (silymarin)- these work. In the past I have used a product called Rosacure, but it's quite pricey. It did work to calm redness, but a few days after stopping the product they came back. After looking through a Rosacea forum I found out that the active ingredients in it were msm and milk thistle. I have been using these in my night cream for 4 days now and the redness is definitely decreasing, particularly on my neck/chest area.
MSM can be bought from most health food stores and online, and powdered milk thistle extract can be bought from Bulk Actives quite cheaply. The msm can be added directly to your day/night cream or serum as it is water soluble. However the milk thistle can be quite difficult to dissolve. I tried dissolving it in hot water, no good, and then alcohol, no good. I just ended up with a sticky lump that I had to mash and mash, and even then it never dissolved completely. I then tried dissolving it in vegetable oil. 1/4 tsp of the powder and 1 tsp of sesame oil and it 95% dissolved immediately. I left it for 5 minutes and it had 100% dissolved, so I stirred it into my night cream.
As I said I have only been using this combination for 4 days (nightime only) but it is definitely making a difference, just as Rosacure did. The only difference is I now don't have to pay $40AU for a 50ml tube of Rosacure.
Just a little extra info. Things that irritate thread veins - alcohol based toners, aha's and asprin, so no asprin masks for us! For exfoliation try baking soda for a gentle manual exfoliation, and enzymes instead of acids. Don't laugh, but the cheapest way to get enzymes for an exfoliating mask is simply to buy a jar of meat tenderiser from your supermarket. This contains papain (the enzyme in papaya) along with rice flour, salt and sugar. Just add a small amount to any mask you use. I have found this to be remarkably effective. Just don't leave it on too long. If you don't use masks, you could just mix it with water, pat it on with cotton wool and then rinse off after 10 minutes.
A once weekly aha/bha peel would be okay but a daily acid product would definitely make them worse over time. An acidic vitamin c serum is okay 2-3 times a week, more than that may be too irritating.
I have had broken thread veins since I was in my early teens, so I've tried quite a few things over the years. This combination is working for me and I hope it will help anyone else who suffers with them. |
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Sat Apr 21, 2007 9:10 am |
| I have thread veins and never exfoliate but use EmerginC each day, take 500mg of Rutin (health store product in tablet form) and use spf 50 and they have greatly improved but you would need to be on a product for 6 months to see any improvement. We Irish have very fair skin so broken veins are common here. |
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Sat Apr 21, 2007 2:51 pm |
Thank you luckylouie for the reviews. Good to know what really works. C serums also can create broken capillaries, that's what brought up the one that I have under my left eye area and I could not get rid of it ever since.
Will try MSM on it, and I have silymarin also, as you said BulkActives carry that at a great price. |
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Mon Apr 23, 2007 10:46 pm |
I used about half a teaspoon of each added to 50 grams of night cream. Since posting this I've found that the milk thistle powder dissolves equally well in glycerin, so I have since added the actives to some aloe vera to use during the day under sunscreen. I added the 1/2 tsp of msm directly to the aloe vera gel and dissolved the 1/2 tsp of milk thistle in 1 tsp of glycerin and then stirred that into the aloe vera. Hope this helps.
As for mineral makeup, I've tried several types and because I have slightly oily skin, I find they simply accentuate my pores and get cakey. They also seem to accentuate the fine downy hairs on my outer cheeks. I've tried both the powder and pressed mineral foundation, and I've even had mineral makeup applied professionally once for a special occasion. Same thing, cakey and uneven. I've also used them by themselves, and also with an oil absorbing finishing powder. Still cakey and uneven.
I use Revlon Age Defying liquid foundation and powder. These do not completely cover imperfections, but that's not what I'm looking for in a foundation. What I want is simply to make them slightly less obvious and give me a more even skin tone and the Revlon does just that. Normally I just use the powder by itself simply to help tone down the shinyness. This never accentuates the downy hair. I use the liquid foundation for evenings, special occasions, or those days when I wake up and my thread veins look more obvious than normal.
I buy both of these cheaply on Ebay. The great thing about Revlon is you can check the colours at your local chemist and then buy it online at half the price or less. I just bought the age defying pressed powder from an american seller for less than $10AU including postage and handling. The retail price in Australia is roughly $30AU. Even if you can't buy from the US Ebay you may be able to find what you need on the Italian Ebay.
Sorry you had no luck with the serum. I never had any trouble getting the actives to dissolve (except for the horsetail which simply stayed slightly grainy and the serum had to be shaken before use) however I did find that it didn't absorb that well and I had to stop adding oil to it and just stick to the aloe vera gel as a base. Now I'm finding it's just as easy to add the actives directly to a night cream so the serum has been superseded.
At present I'm just using aloe vera gel with some actives added under my sunscreen for daytime and a good night cream with actives added for night time. The fewer steps the better. |
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Mon Apr 23, 2007 11:28 pm |
Hi Molly,
I have them on my neck/chest area and on my upper cheeks near the eyes, along with one on the side of my nose. Although I've had them since a teenager, they are partly caused by sun damage. I moved 7 years ago from an inner city suburb to a beachside town and am at the beach every day. I'm the sort of person who puts sunscreen on at the beginning of the day but never reapplies it. The consequences of having oily skin and perspiring freely. However I have noticed that when I up my vitamin c intake they are less noticable, so you are probably right about dietary deficiencies.
Lorena - thanks for your kind words. I forgot to mention in my last post that if you don't want to mess with actives, or can't get hold of them Rosacure does work to temporarily fade them. I don't use it because of price, however it is an italian made product, so you may be able to buy it there at a much more reasonable cost. |
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Tue Apr 24, 2007 6:58 pm |
| edithsz wrote: |
Thank you luckylouie for the reviews. Good to know what really works. C serums also can create broken capillaries, that's what brought up the one that I have under my left eye area and I could not get rid of it ever since.
Will try MSM on it, and I have silymarin also, as you said BulkActives carry that at a great price. |
Actually, edithsz, as I understand it, Vit C does NOT cause broken capillaries. What you are seeing is angiogenesis, or new capillary growth. Lise, over at the Skin Interactive board, explained that anything that causes new tissue growth (vitamin C, retinoids, copper peptides, etc...) can cause new capillaries to form in certain susceptible individuals -- the body is making sure there is an adequate blood/oxygen supply for the new tissue.
Apparently, one of the few topicals that encourages new tissue growth but doesn't cause the accompanying capillary growth is EGF. It's one of the reasons that it is considered a great active for those with rosacea or ruddiness -- it really thickens the skin without any additional redness.
Just wanted to share that... |
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Tue Apr 24, 2007 7:27 pm |
Katee, I am not saying that Vitamin C causes broken capillaries, I am saying that the acidic nature of an ascorbic acid serum can aggravate broken capillaries, in the same way that the acidic nature of something like glycolic acid can.
A non acidic form such as map or ascorbyl palmitate would be fine. |
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Wed Apr 25, 2007 8:39 am |
| There are some controversies surrounding using Growth Hormones in skincare. I am using it in my hair serum and mixed with SKbio and shampoo but I am not ready to put EGF or any other growth hormones on my face. Even though I did read that they produce noticeable results. |
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Simple but No Simplier...Approaching late 20s, Normal/Combination Skin, Rarely Breakout now but have some old acne marks, sunspots, & broken caps |
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Sun Apr 29, 2007 12:14 pm |
I have been taking MSM internally too and have noticed (especially on my legs) that it makes the thread veins lighter and maybe thinner - less noticeable.
I am definitly going to add it to facial cream too. What strength of MSM did you use luckylouie at 1/2 tsp added to your face cream?
Also, I added Milk Thistle, Silymarin, to my face serum, and um it turned this gastly yellow. Looks like golden mustard! After I added it via warmed glycerin I reread the ingredients and it has 350Mg of tumeric in it! Oh my I am testing out on the inside of my arm because I am afraid it will turn my face yellow!
So check your Silymarin/Mild Thistly ingredients before you add to topicals.  |
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Mon May 21, 2007 2:16 am |
| Dimethyl sulfone is the ingredient to look for, it's another form of msm. |
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Mon May 21, 2007 5:52 pm |
| Hi, I just wanted to post that I added pure MSM to my DIY hyaluronic acid, and started seeing results right away! I mix up a batch weekly, then morning and evening I moosh a glob of HA with my oil blend, and apply to my face. I'm beginning to see "normal" patches of skin showing through the red patches. I've been too lazy to place an order for the silymarin yet, but that's next! |
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Nadine, age 50, live in VA; half-Asian, slight yellow tone; sensitive, dry/combo skin |
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Thu Jul 12, 2007 11:57 pm |
I found this info from a link Tangal provided on a MSM thread
Add 1 level teaspoon of MSM powder/crystals to every single fluid ounce of base. This will give you a 17% strength topical (the highest possible percentage that is available without the mix turning gritty) to use on the patches daily after washing both morning and night. Stir it well until fully dissolved, this may take a few hours and shake well before each use. It is better absorbed if applied to a non-towel dried (damp) face. Not everybody used a topical solution during the experiment which proved that oral supplementation of MSM provided the most benefit. Whether it was used or not, all remarked on how amazingly soft the skin on the whole became and how other skin problems subsided through it?s regular use.
Just thought Id post for anyone interested in % |
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39, in Australia, using retin a, Skin actives I Bright and Antiaging Cream, change sunscreen regularly currently. |
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