Complaint Review: SkinBiology.com Loren Pickard

Loren Pickard is a pioneer in Copper Peptide research and this must be said-however, anyone wishing to try copper peptides MUST be warned!

I bought many products from the skinbiology site very excited by the rational explanation and extensive research seemingly presented on the site. I made the awful mistake of not doing my homework and as someone who had very nice skin for my age a half year ago I am regretting every minute of it. After 5 months of using the products religiously I woke up to fine that, first on my neck, my skin had become lax and began to look "crepe-paper" like. Soon this effect was on my stomach and lower chest and then my body all over followed by my arms and legs.

It was so sudden that I looked for a factor and concluded I was over-exfoliating. Surely years in the sun could have also caused it so I thought. Then I started to really be concerned and frankly depressed as I still am. I sought to explain how just months ago I looked younger than my years now my skin looked closer to my grandmother's than my own! All of my explanations were in fact false. I started to realise this as I started to notice that areas which I never exfoliated, areas that never saw the sun BUT did see the copper peptides, also was losing elasticity, looked leathery and crepe-paper like. I then did research and in addition to hearing a ton of stories similar to mine, I found out there is in fact a substantial amount of information that says copper peptides can and DO damage skin in some if not many people!

The mechanism of breakdown is apparently the fact that studies have shown mmp-2 and mmp-9 can actually cause collagen to degrade rather than build up.

The scary part is that forum after forum on the internet, including Skinbiology's own forum, people talk about this and are told-one even told by Dr. Pickard (Ph.D not MD btw) that this effect is "due to the skin repairing faster than new collagen is built" and everyone is advised (as per skinbio) these are temporary "uglies" which soon will give way to beautiful new skin. NOW--some people do swear this to be the case, others never go through this and yet others like me quit because they have seen enough damage! Others who can be found all over the internet seem to say the resulting damage is permanent or semi-permanent with most reporting that the symptoms persist for well over a year or more.

I am sorry and in all due respect to the extensive research Dr. Pickard has done---I do not want crepe-paper aged skin to be part of any process to try and make me look younger! This is not an acceptable cosmetic result and the claims Dr. Pickard makes that this is a part of extensive healing does not make too much sense in light of the fact that so many people have damaged skin a year or more later. To me it seems that these are probably useful for some but not all and until the exact reasons are known and people can be 100% informed as to what may happen I do not believe these are reputable products.

I am not writing this to hurt Dr. Pickard or his site at all as I think his research is great-BUT, I think he has to do more and be more transparent. I also am doing this because I wish I had seen something like this before buying and using these products and believe a warning should be displayed on that site!

Lex
Miami, Florida
U.S.A.