I'm always in the market for finding awesome new skincare products! Since I used to worship the sun back in my thirties, now I am looking for ways to keep my skin looking as young and supple as possible! So I'm looking at CBD skin products. They're super popular right now, but is there any reason CBD should be in your moisturizer…?
Your first natural reaction might be skepticism, just because CBD oil is super popular right now, and so putting it in everything from toothpaste to nail polish is going to be a cheap way for companies to make money.
But in order for us to determine whether CBD skin products are actually better, let's first give a quick rundown of the benefits of CBD oil in general (from a nonbiased source!):
- The main stated benefit of CBD is that it helps reduce anxiety. This is because it makes your brain more receptive to serotonin, the calming hormone. In fact, studies have shown that people with anxiety who took CBD were more likely to be able to do things that ordinarily made them anxious, like giving a speech. That definitely makes me think about trying some. 😜
- It's also possible that CBD helps protect your brain in general, because it activates the receptor CB1, which, when it's not active enough, is linked to neurodegenerative issues like Alzheimer's. This goes for Parkinson's Disease and strokes too. Additionally, it's being studied whether CBD has anti-inflammatory effects that could protect the brain as well as the rest of the body!
- The same way that CBD makes your brain receptors more open to serotonin and also activates CB1, it's currently being studied whether CBD can help with pain. Unfortunately, the jury is really still out on the extent to which it has pain-relieving benefits for things like arthritis, or for muscle pain.
- Last but not least, when it comes to CBD skin products, the reason people think CBD could be good is because it blocks the glands that make sebum. You want your skin to produce a little sebum oil in order to keep hydrated, but too much, and that leads to oily skin conditions like acne.
So if you have oily skin, will CBD skin products help? And are there any other potential benefits of CBD skin products?
Emma Roberts, Melissa McCarthy, and Kim Kardashian all seem to think so. Not only because of the anti-inflammation properties but also because it has vitamins A, D, and E in it.
And proponents also say that CBD helps boost levels of your own natural cannabinoid (cannabis-like molecule) called anandamide, which is like an endorphin.
But is rubbing it on your skin actually doing anything?
Dr. Bonni Goldstein, despite working in LA and Advising closely with medical marijuana distributors, doesn't think so.
She believes that slathering CBD skin products on your skin will not be able to penetrate down to the bloodstream, if people were hoping that it would be healthy on that level. It just stays in the surface layers of the skin.
However, what I was saying earlier about it being an anti-inflammatory, and also blocking oil, is still true. There seems to be a lot of anecdotal evidence that it can treat both oily skin and dry skin, and even skin conditions like eczema associated with both inflammation and oil production.
So yes, it can help with acne, eczema, and other skin conditions, but there's not really much evidence that it's otherwise more helpful than other skin products. And there's even less evidence that it could be absorbed into your bloodstream from your skin.
Overall, I would say there's definitely no harm in trying CBD skin products, especially if someone's acne is so bad that the alternative is a harmful solution like Accutane.
