Cat’s question: She wants to know if alpha arbutin, one of the ingredients in Meladerm skin lightener, is related to hydroquinone a skin lightening chemical that has safety concerns. She also wanted to know if Meladerm is safe to use for 2 or 3 months or longer.
The Left Brain Replies:
On Cat’s behalf, we contacted Civant and asked them to help answer her questions. Here is the response from John Connelly of Civant’s R&D department.
Answers about Arbutin
1) Arbutin is extracted from Bearberry (Uva Ursi) and is natural occurring substance, unlike synthetic hydroquinone. Arbutin is present not only in the Bearberry plant, but also found in many plant-derived foods. Arbutin can be converted into hydroquinone when introduced to very alkaline conditions. These conditions however are uncommon and most definitely do not occur on the skin. Gastric fluids are known to be alkaline, but the Arbutin would have to be taken orally for it to enter the gastrointestinal tract. Our product, Meladerm, uses Alpha-Arbutin as opposed to regular (beta) Arbutin. Alpha-Arbutin is considered the most stable and effective form of Arbutin and does not readily hydrolyze into hydroquinone.
Arbutin and hydroquinone each have a different chemical composition and differ greatly in their skin lightening properties. Arbutin inhibits melanin synthesis where as hydroquinone can actually be cytotoxic to melanocytes. Furthermore, Arbutin does not have the associated side effects of hydroquinone. Due to the safety concerns presented by the FDA, we do not use hydroquinone in our products.
2) We suggest discontinuing daily use after 3-4 months. This is generally advisable for all skin lighteners, and not just Meladerm. After a few months of use, you will find that the results will begin to plateau and regular applications will no longer be necessary.
If there are any further questions, please have your readers contact our customer service. For specific product questions, I would advise them to send an email through our website’s contact page. Emailing enables us to direct inquires to our R&D dept and allows the staff some time to fully investigate the questions and provide a thorough and knowledgeable response. Readers should ensure that their contact information is entered correctly so we do not encounter any issues when responding. It’s also a good idea for them to double-check their spam email filtering options as sometimes important emails can be unintentionally deleted by the filters.”
Thanks to Civant for promptly responding to Cat’s concerns. The Beauty Brains are glad we could be of help!
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