Glycolic Acid Cream and Its Use for Underarm Skin Whitening

Of late glycolic acid cream has gained a lot of popularity and finds wide-spread use in skin lightening treatments, not least for underarm skin whitening. This popularity is certainly deserved but a note of caution may be in order. Because the chemical is also useful in industry, and hence likely to find its way to the do-it-yourself enthusiast (Yes, some people do mix their own skin care creams!), information about its use may help you make the right choices – and yes, avoid the dangers!

Glycolic acid creams as marketed today use the chemical as the chief active ingredient. Glycolic acid is a natural product, extracted from sugar cane or other plants. Its use in skin brightening creams derives from this property it has for penetrating easily down to the lower layers of the skin, as well as its anti-oxidant effect. It also dissolves the “glue” that binds together the dead cells that make up dead skin (which naturally is darker than normal live skin), exposing them to attack by other chemicals that wash the dead stuff away thus allowing the rejuvenation of the skin through collagen formation. When it is mixed with other skin lightening additives glycolic acid helps by enabling them to penetrate and therefore operate down in the deeper layers of your skin.

But because glycolic acid is a powerful chemical regulations require that it should not be used in concentrations higher than 10% in skin care products, although some experts maintain this is still too low to be effective in skin treatment applications. For industrial use the concentration is normally not higher than 70%.

The concentration in a typical skin whitening cream for underarm skin whitening or other use will usually be lower than this, maybe 6-8%. The manufacturers know that a higher percentage would probably be better – and worker faster – for you, but for fear of lawsuits in case something goes wrong they limit themselves to a concentration lower than the legal safe limit, except in certain, so-called high-end products.

For underarm skin whitening though, and in the right concentrations, glycolic acid cream has an inherent advantage over other armpit whitening creams because the area of the armpits sees a lot of skin damage especially for those who shave or wax it a lot, or those that use deodorants or hair-removal creams which, tend to penetrate to the tender regions at the base of the hair follicles.

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Those, basically, are the facts concerning glycolic acid creams in general, especially as applied for underarm skin whitening. When you go out to buy you need to know that the higher the concentration the better, but you also need to know that skin lightening creams with concentrations higher than 10% glycolic acid, although they may give you faster results, could potentially cause unwanted side effects like excessive sensitivity to the sun or soreness. In fact most manufacturers will usually supply the cream with a sunscreen, or else they will recommend it. Products with glycolic acid in them are not recommended for children.

Read the article Underarm Whitening Cream for for information on skin brightening solutions for dark underarms