Quantification of moisturizing effects
Skin hydration is an essential process to maintain skin health and beauty. We know that skin plays a key role in the protection of external aggressions. Thus, it can perfectly fit this role if it has an optimal hydration.
Moisturizing the skin contributes to its suppleness, elasticity and firmness. A good level of hydration prevents excessive flaking, premature wrinkling and irritation. Moisturizing dermocosmetics products are formulated to reinforce the skin’s hydrolipidic barrier.
With the C-Cube, Pixience brings you a complete and versatile tool for carrying out a wide range of measurements and proving your product claims. It is the most precise tool on the market, with an accuracy of 0.1%.
Thanks to its advanced quantification and analysis capabilities, discover how the C-Cube can be used to assess skin hydration.
Desquamation studie: in-vivo and ex-vivo
Skin dryness can manifest itself as visible desquamation, which is a flaking of the stratum corneum. This phenomenon may be due to a medical condition (eczema, psoriasis) or lifestyle (use of hot water, poor diet, use of products containing alcohol).
The C-Cube makes it possible to quantify desquamation directly on the skin or ex-vivo via patches and the Pixience sampling reader.
In-vivo
Skin flakes are generally whitish in color and become visible when they are significantly lighter than healthy, well-moisturized skin. Thanks to its patented lighting and specific color calibration process, the C-Cube converts image pixels into CIE L*a*b* measurements. In this way, we exploit the L* component to locate brighter or whiter pixels, i.e. the scales detected. We produce a binary image in black and white, and the area covered by the in relation to the entire surface corresponds to the desquamation index.
Ex-vivo
D-Squame® or Corneofix® patches are used to eliminate skin flakes of the skin in a standardized way. To analyze the samples, simply position the C-Cube in the Pixience sampling reader.
For analysis, the index is calculated in the same way as in-vivo, using the color difference between the patch background and the scales. This analysis also provides a breakdown into 5 categories according to scale thickness.
Hydration and roughness study
Skin roughness is often a sign of skin dryness, caused by the water and lipid loss. When the skin is dry, the grip of dead cells is damaged, it leads an exessive desquamation and an uneven texture. The skin becomes less elastic, forming microcracks and crevices that increase roughness.
The C-Cube uses the stereophotometric technique to estimate surface normals. The software then uses these normals and a geometric calibration to deduce altitude information for each pixel. Roughness parameters Sa, Sq and Sdr are measured.
Symmetry and sharpness evaluation
Skin symmetry and sharpness are common indicators of skin shine and hydration.
Thanks to its ability to perform 3D measurements, it is possible to measure symmetry (Ssk) and sharpness (Sku) parameters. Ssk is the degree of inclination and expresses the symmetry of peaks and valleys around the mean surface as center. Sku determines the sharpness of a surface and expresses the height distribution score.
Complexion radiance determination
Skin radiance is generally perceived as a change in tone associated with notions of clarity of complexion, a rosy or even complexion and healthy skin. Hydration has a direct effect on this parameter by modifying the way the skin interacts with the measurement bias.
We have an exclusive radiance index to express in percentage terms the evolution of lightness, redness and overall homogeneity. These three criteria are easily extracted from a calibrated image, and combine in such a way that the index value increases with the visual impression of brightness. The higher the percentage, the more radiant the skin.
Obtaining the radiance index as a percentage
Moisturizing is one of the most important claim in cosmetics. That’s why the C-Cube allows to quantify this effects in many ways. This versatile tool, accurate to 0.1%, will help you demonstrate the efficacy of your products in clinical studies.
The C-Cube 3 and its software, the ultimate tandem of performance and versatility!
