Cream lends an air of beauty
Oxygen
The first time I saw oxygen products being sold for beauty purposes was in the mid-1980s at Tamara Spa in Michigan, where I grew up. The range was Karin Herzog (pictured below), founded by Paul Herzog, who pioneered the concept of delivering oxygen to the skin through a cream. This range is still the most trusted name in oxygen products. I remember thinking, 'oxygen cream? Because some people don't know how to breathe?' I felt confident that I was getting my necessary oxygen intake. If not, I reasoned, I'd surely be dead.
In the late 1990s, an oxygen bar opened on Wellington Street in Hong Kong. This was not long after Michael Jackson made hyperbaric oxygen chambers famous in his quest for eternal youth. Again, the concept of an oxygen bar was ridiculous to me. But in the past few years, oxygen as a beauty tool has emerged as a certifiable trend in spas, beauty supply stores, and even in the aisles of Watsons, with Clean & Clear's oxygenating skin care range and super-oxygenated sports drinks.
Hyperbaric chambers and hyperbaric oxygen therapy have been in use for centuries, as early as 1662, according to experts at Medical Multiplex. The Hyperbaric Oxygen Safety Committee was developed by the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medicine Society (UHMS) in 1976 to oversee the ethical practice of hyperbaric medicine, including the use of chambers to help treat deep-sea divers with decompression sickness.
It is in this scientific environment that Dr Herzog developed medical-grade oxygen products for treating damaged skin - burns, skin ulcers and post-surgical wounds. This is not to be confused with claims by one skin care brand that a Nasa scientist developed its brand. Dr Herzog's work is Nobel honoured. The Karin Herzog products contain the fewest possible ingredients, and those ingredients are of the highest quality. Having used these products personally, I can say that they do provide a firm overall texture to the skin and can help eliminate problem areas such as patchy dryness or blemishes.
But what about oxygen facials, oxygen peels, and even oxygen water?
Oxyvital is a famous name in oxygen facials.
The company creates the equipment that many spas use in treatments, and it swears by its products, which include plant hydrosol which is blasted into the epidermis during treatment. This is not the most relaxing facial. Products are applied to clean skin and then a small air gun is used to deliver these products into your skin.
This point should not be overlooked as the benefit of the use of oxygen, even in Herzog's products, is the delivery method.
After the oxygen facial, skin looks better. But as with most facials, the immediate results are due to the plumping properties of the products applied to your face.
Michelle Peck, celebrity facialist with cosmeceutical skin care brand Intraceuticals, says the 02 Intraceutical Treatment, or oxygen facial, provides an instant firming and lifting action by using hyperbaric technology which saturates the skin with oxygen and infuses it with a rejuvenating hyaluronic acid serum.
Inhaling oxygen at oxygen bars has obvious benefits in a city ravaged by pollution. City dwellers in Tokyo, New York and elsewhere enjoy a breath of fresh air for up to HK$140 per inhalation, but the benefits are obvious.
It seems the trend for oxygenated products has some merit for beauty and health treatments, but you can go back to drinking spring water or a nice cup of hot tea, which at least has properties for eliminating toxins.
