Methylene Blue and Skin Care

The cosmetic and beauty industry has a lot of ideas about reversing the physical signs of aging. The marketplace is replete with products and injectable treatments that promise to take years off your appearance. They promise to diminish wrinkles and fine lines. Many treatments like cosmetic surgery come with considerable downtime and recovery. But recent research suggests that an inexpensive medicine that has been around for about 150 years may be a potent way to slow the signs of skin aging.

Is there a fountain of youth? Probably not, but we do know certain facts about the process of aging. And skin aging is the most visible sign of how old we are. We know that oxidative stress is a prime cause of skin aging that produces hyperpigmentation, wrinkles, and an inhibited ability to heal wounds.

An effective method to delay skin aging is to apply antioxidants found in skin care.

Now, methylene blue (MB) appears to provide benefits that slow down skin aging. MB is a mitochondrial targeting antioxidant. In studies, it has shown to have a potent scavenging efficacy in cultured skin fibroblasts from healthy participants and participants with progeria. Some studies show that methylene blue is more effective than other widely used antioxidants.

In one study, methylene blue was more effective at stimulating growth in skin fibroblasts while slowing cellular deterioration. This is welcome news especially since studies also show that MB is safe for long-term use and has decades of proven effectiveness. It does not irritate the skin. And it enhances skin viability, increases hydration and skin thickness, and increases the skin’s ability to self-heal.