ABSTRACT

The current circumstance thus brings into focus a new category of desirable therapeutic and preventive agents, that is, agents that function to achieve and maintain states of optimal skin normalcy. Such a category of agents may be assigned the name of eudermaceutics, or perhaps simply topical euceutics. This group of agents would include ones to bind water and maintain optimal skin hydration; to normalize keratinization and desquamation; to enhance barrier efficiency; to reverse epidermal-dermal atrophy and maintain optimal skin morphology; and to decelerate the skin aging processes, especially those caused by oxidative damage. Candidate substances known today qualifying as topical euceutics would include water itself and adjuvant humectants; retinoids; alpha hydroxy acids (AHAs), some beta hydroxy acids (BHAs), and AHAs with multiple hydroxyl groups, poly hydroxy acids (PHAs); and sun screens to interfere with, or prevent completely, actinically induced damage that today accounts for so much skin unhealthiness.