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11 · OAKVILLE BEAVER Friday, April 3, 2009 Habitat heroes W OAKVIEW FUNERAL HOME elcomes Cindy Montgomery & Luann Jones Your new Pre-Planning Funeral Directors Call Cindy or Luann today to make your plans in advance and ask for your FREE Estate Planner! Call 905-842-2252 OAKVIEW FUNERAL HOME 56 Lakeshore Road, W., Oakville · 905-842-2252 · www.oakviewfuneral.ca FREE WASHER FLUID WITH EVERY XC60* CITY SAFETY ROAD TEST XC60 PRICE STARTS AT $45,495** Phone: (905) 825-8088 www.volvoofoakville.com *While Supplies last. **Freight and PDI, $1,650 extra. Taxes and other fees may apply. Call for details. NIKKI WESLEY / OAKVILLE BEAVER AT HOME WITH HUMANITARIANISM: Board of Directors Chair Edward McMahon (top left) and Habitat for Humanity Halton Executive Director Kathrin Delutis (bottom right) present Oakville's Wendy Belcher (clockwise from bottom left) with the Special Service Volunteer of the Year Award, Dave Cole with the Peter and Jane Fisher Volunteer of the Year Award, Desmond Landon with the ReStore Volunteer of the Year Award, and Carol Dineen with the Administrative Volunteer of the Year Award at Habitat for Humanity Halton's Volunteer Conference and Recognition 2009 at the Holiday Inn Saturday. The local, non-profit, faith-based organization working for a world where everyone has a safe and decent place to live. For more information about HFHH, visit www.habitathalton.ca or call 905-637-4446. Advertorial New creams rid older skin of its outer layer, removing brown spots 3 By Doctor Gifford-Jones MEDICINE "Vanity, thy name is woman," wrote the immortal bard William Shakespeare hundreds of years ago. He was right. I know, because two years ago I wrote a column dealing with "cosmeceuticals" and mentioned Reversa, a cream that helps aging skin. The avalanche of mail from female readers stunned me and gave the postman a backache. So this week, let's forget about cholesterol and other depressing problems and talk about another cosmeceutical that gets rid of aging spots. Let's hope it also alerts everyone to the dangers of excessive sun exposure and saves needless deaths from skin cancer. The way our skin ages depends on several factors. The most controllable factor of all is "photo-aging." Excessive exposure to the sun results in coarse, pebbly, rough, wrinkled skin. But it also causes irregular pigmentation due to ultraviolet radiation. The time clock also plays a major role in skin aging. Like ships, the skin acquires barnacles such as spots, lumps and bumps. None of us like it when we see these imperfections in the mirror and we sympathize with Shakespeare's Lady Macbeth when she remarked, "Out, damned spot, I say." Dr. Suzanne Gagnon, a noted Montreal dermatologist, says, "The skin breaks down due to several factors. In the top layers of the skin each individual cell is held together by a substance like the mortar that binds bricks together. Deeper, collagen and elastin make the skin flexible. And as years pass, the mortar becomes less efficient and the collagen-elastin system is in short supply so the skin becomes thin and wrinkled." referred to as sun spots, age spots or liver spots. And they're usually first noticed by women over 40 years of age. Age spots are due to an abnormal increase in the amount of melanin in the epidermal layer of skin. Since melanin production is stimulated by an enzyme, tyrosinase, the goal is to decrease the activity of this enzyme. Reversa UV Anti-Spot Cream contains Rumex, which is very effective in inhibiting tyrosinase. It's an extract derived from plants native to the Canadian prairies with a long botanical history as a medicinal agent for the skin, a good choice for cosmetics due to its scarcity of side effects. To increase the moisture level of the skin Reversa UV Anti-Spot Cream also contains hyaluronic acid, glycerin, vitamin E and panthenol. And to protect against further ultra-violet damage from the sun, the cream also contains UVA/UVB sunscreen (made by the original formulators of Ombrelle). These are important additions because the sun causes brown spots faster than any agent can depigment the skin. Remember there's no harm in a touch of vanity. By using these two creams we might all retain healthy and more attractive skin. What's more hazardous is ignoring medical pleas to guard against excessive sun exposure. This is why death from malignant melanoma is at an all time high. Since I'm not a dermatologist I'll no longer look foolish when patients point to aging spots and ask me what to do. Perhaps I've also retained a little beauty in this country and that's not a bad idea. But, above all, I'm preaching sun sense that will save lives. One plea. Please spare me requests for information about these products. They're available in drug stores. If you want more facts, call the toll-free number 1800-465-8383 or visit www.reversa.ca. FACE UP TO AGING Night cream This is why women's antennas lit up when I wrote about Reversa Corrective Night Cream. This skin cream contains glycolic acid that helps to shed the outer layer of aging skin. It also has an anti-wrinkle micro-collagen along with vitamin C that acts to regenerate collagen and elastin. It's a far cry from grandmother's cold cream. Another cream, Reversa UV Anti-Spot carries skin care a step further and may be the answer for many of my patients. The ones who point out brown spots on their skin to me, wondering why they've suddenly appeared, and begging me to get rid of them. These imperfections are often