Ingredient: Beta Carotene

The beautiful orange color you see in carrots, sweet potatoes, cantaloupe, pumpkins and apricots is beta carotene. It's the precursor to Vitamin A. Vitamin A makes your skin look younger and more radiant. As always, keeping skin healthy means you want to work from both the inside and outside. Eating the foods listed above will help on the inside. Adding beta carotene to the outside will boost skin's retinyl esters. (Retinyl esters are the skin's storage form of retinol which stimulates the production of new skin cells.) This helps minimize the appearance of dry skin and reduces skin flaking.

Beta-carotene is an anti-oxidant. When ingested, the body converts it to Vitamin A. It helps reduce free radical damage in the body and plays a vital role in the reproductive processes. It also keeps eyes healthy. When used in cosmetics it's a healthy orange colorant.

What else can beta carotene do?

It helps protect the skin from UVA and UVB rays. Research has shown that persons with a diet rich in beta carotene foods and whose topical skin care contained this ingredient enjoyed this photoprotection.

It can reduce the dark spots (melasma) on the skin. Using topically applied beta carotene can help reduce or eliminate discoloration over a period of 9-10 weeks.