Of the many valuable chemicals present in green tea, polyphenols and catechins, like epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) in particular, are really good for us and our skin. Scientific research illustrates EGCG to be effective as an antioxidant, in repair of damage done by UVA radiation, antitumor (benign and cancer), and in prevention of damaging mutations. Another benefit of EGCG is in acne control, helping to keep pores open by controlling sebum secretion.

Polyphenols in general are not brown or beige, but they get brown upon oxidation, like when potatoes and apples are cut and exposed to air (a non-enzymatic process called browing), making life difficult for the biochemist. I did research in photosynthesis for many years and we almost always used young spinach leaves because they contain very little polyphenols, which when oxidized make it difficult to isolated intact chloroplasts.

It is possible to get a purer version of EGCG than the one we sell (50%) but then we would be excluding (or decreasing a lot) other polyphenols that may be valuable for our skin. Other polyphenols in green tea are epigallocatechin, epicatechin gallate, and epicatechin

Please note that our green tea EGCG/polyphenol mixture is not pure for polyphenols either, as amino acids, peptides and chlorophyll-derived colored chemicals are very likely to be present. Conversely, the process involved in preparing black tea oxidizes most of the polyphenols, including EGCG.

Line

Active ingredient in Teamine™ and ReVive™ lines.

Each tube is enough for 20 fl oz of cream or lotion at approximately 1% concentration (5 g in 600 mL cream). Use in your favorite cream or add to our Canvas Base Cream or a Sea Kelp Bioferment base. The powder will not dissolve immediately but will release components slowly into the cream/lotion.

Lu, Yao-Ping; Lou, You-Rong; Xie, Jian-Guo; Peng, Qing-Yun; Liao, Jie; Yang, Chung S.; Huang, Mou-Tuan; Conney, Allan H. (2002) Topical applications of caffeine or (-)-epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) inhibit carcinogenesis and selectively increase apoptosis in UVB-induced skin tumors in mice. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA: 99(19), 12455-12460. Huang, Chieh-Chen; Fang, Jai-You; Wu, Wen-Bin; Chiang, Han-Sun; Wei, Yuan-Ju; Hung, Chi-Feng (2005) Protective effects of (-)-epicatechin-3-gallate on UVA-induced damage in HaCaT keratinocytes. Archives of Dermatological Research: 296(10), 473-481. Hsu, S.; Yamamoto, T.; Borke, J.; Walsh, D. S.; Singh, Baldev; R., Sushma; T., Kamatani; Nah-Do, N.; Lapp, C.; Lapp, D.; Foster, E.; Bollag, W.B.; Lewis, J.; Wataha, J.; Osaki, T.; Schuster, G. (2005) Green tea polyphenol-induced epidermal keratinocyte differentiation is associated with coordinated expression of p57/KIP2 and caspase 14. Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics: 312(3), 884-890. Fujiki, Hirota; Suganuma, Masami; Okabe, Sachiko; Sueoka, Eisaburo; Suga, Kenji; Imai, Kazue; Nakachi, Kei; Kimura, Shunsaku (1999) Mechanistic findings of green tea as cancer preventive for humans. Proceedings of the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine: 220(4), 225-228.

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