Sunday, February 2, 2014

National Aesthetic Spa Network Convention

One of the many awesome perks of being in aesthetics school is getting to go to the trade shows/ conventions. This year I had the pleasure of attending the National Aesthetic Spa Network convention. There was some great education, vendors and of course the swag bag which was awesome for product hoarders like me lol!






I decided to test drive my new MAC Heroine lipstick and absolutely love it! My husband however refers to it as that hideous purple lipstick! Purple has been my new obsession lately so I will put up a swatch soon with a couple of purples I've been trying.

One of the educational sessions that I thought was most interesting talked about one of the new breakthroughs in aging- telomeres. A telomere is a sequence of DNA at the end of chromosomes that gets shorter every time your cells divide. Eventually when the telomeres get too short, the cells will stop replicating.

 Telomere science has a lot of applications such as aging, skin care and cancer. I vaguely remember seeing a scientific show on tv a while back that talked about how the possibility of using telomeres to see how much longer a person would live.

In the application of skin care however, products are using a substance called TA-65 which is an extract of a Chinese herb called Astragalus. It is supposed to "turn on" telomerase which is an enzyme that lengthens the telomeres, theoretically lengthening cell lifespan and reducing aging.

I am a major nerd when it comes to skin care and love the science behind it! The CEO of one of the companies sponsoring the event did the telomere education, so I am always hesitant to take them word for word, but I thought it was fascinating nonetheless.


One of their products was included in my swag bag too, so I will be trying it out for myself!