What is Ultraviolet A?

You might be surprised to learn that initial studies to find effective sun protection ingredients didn’t consider UVA protection. Unlike UVB, UVA doesn’t burn your skin, so you can’t feel the damage happening. Thing is, UVA is sunlight’s aging frequency and you’ll only see the effects after some time. As the intensity of UVA radiation is always high and can’t be blocked by glass or clouds, you can be exposed to it even when you’re indoors or outside on an overcast day.

So what’s the damage?

UVA light activates free radicals in your skin that cause damage to your cells, the structures inside of them, the structures surrounding them (the extracellular matrix), and even the structures inside of them (cytoplasm). If these free radicals are activated inside the nucleus of the cells they can also cause damage to the DNA. This type of damage is called indirect DNA damage.

Thanks to all that damage, your cells will start to age prematurely. They’ll also try to fix their surroundings by increasing enzyme levels in a bid to remove damaged collagen and elastin. Alas, these enzyme levels, while initially helpfully, may remain high due to constant sun exposure. This then results in the breakdown of healthy collagen and elastin causing the skin to thin and lose elasticity.

UVA is also the “tanning frequency” that causes the most activation of melanocytes, causing the skin to go brown.

Ultimately, the challenge with UVA light is that it penetrates deep into the bottom layers of the skin and you don’t feel the damage as it occurs. You’ll only see the effects by the time it’s almost too late. Also, UVA 1 has the same effect on the skin as UVC radiation in that it causes the skin to lose its immunity.

Get complete protection

While most sunscreens will protect your skin from the ravages of UVA, they won’t cover you from the full spectrum of UVA light. However, Lamelle Helase 50+ contains improved UVA organic sunscreens. This means Helase will give you more protection from UVA than other ingredients. In fact, Helase has an improved critical wavelength, meaning the percentage of this frequency it protects you from is also enhanced. Another big plus? Helase 50+ also contains an advanced enzyme that will find and fix any in-direct DNA damage caused by UVA, just in case any rays do happen to get through its sunscreen protection.
Last but not least, Helase also contains a super antioxidant – Pycnogenol – a very potent inhibitor of free radicals. It also protects healthy collagen and elastin from free radicals as well as enzyme damage. It can also reduce the enzyme levels to a point where they reconstruct skin without damaging it.