Are Activated Charcoal Products Worth Your Money?

Lately there has been a lot of buzz around activated charcoal, an ingredient popping up in many face packs, face washes, tooth paste and even smoothies. Every beauty store be in online or offline, online bloggers, pop-up ads telling us how charcoal cleansers, masks, soaps can do miracles to our skin and how we can get a acne-free flawless youthful skin right away. I surfed the web a little, did some research and here is what I found out. 

Activated charcoal is charcoal which is heated at high temperatures or treated otherwise to increase its reactivity or absorptive power. Activated charcoal can bind to masses that are thousand time heavier than its mass. Activated charcoal has been in market for quite some time. It is a staple medicine in hospital's emergency room for treating alcohol poisoning or drug overdoses. It binds with the heavy poisonous metals in stomach and prevent them from entering blood stream.

When its come to beauty,there is always a skepticism between what we need, what we want and what works. And the skin care segment aggravates this problem by offering huge range of different products. Charcoal beauty products have recently flooded the skin care market promising solution to many skin care problems.Unfortunately, use of charcoal in skincare is quite new and a lot of research needs to be done to find out its pros and cons on skin.

We all face skin problem once in a while and environmental pollution in the city only tends to aggravate them. If you are facing any such problem and thinking of buying a charcoal product that might cost you at least 3 figures, we have a good news for you. You can leave any charcoal product right their on the store shelves and save yourself some cash. A renowned dermatologist and author of book Jaishree Sharad says that "It is all hype." Activated charcoal is not a magic potion for your skin. It is what any other cleansing agent do that is cleaning your skin. 

If you are planning to use a home-made charcoal based face pack, be sure to use it only once a week as frequent use might lead to skin-burning, skin-rash or permanent scarring. When using charcoal mask for acne, be sure to choose the product that has salicylic acid, bentonite clay, or tea tree oil for an effective treatment.

Also,there doesn't seem to be any clinical evidence that using charcoal mask can be any more effective that using a soap or other skin care products. Many of us like the idea of fewer chemicals on your skin and a more homeopathic remedy to acne (me included).  Activated charcoal is not a naturally occurring substance and I would therefore refrain from using it on my skin when I have much better alternatives available in the market. It might not cause any harmful effect on the skin but it kind of makes it seem less enticing to put on your skin in the first place.

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