#82

@Kira_Miftari This is what I currently have. $212 + tax. Shipping is $67 by sea (took about a month to get here) or more by air (much faster). I think it’s a fantastic price. Same product that gets sold for $1000+ by Mito.

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#83

My Eucerin advanced repair looks bluer than yours. It’s naturally white so no color mixing and I might have put more MB than you did. When I put it on it gives me a slight bluish tint. Not like I’m auditioning for the Blue Men Group, but just like… a corpse’s skin. My husband asked me why I looked so tired all of a sudden :laughing:… that was right after I slathered on my bluefied Eucerin and before I emerged from Babayaga’s magic cauldron, aka before I did time in front of the red light panel.

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#84

I don’t think that’s the right way to think about this. A skin cream might have a lot of methylene blue but have no blue tint if the methylene blue is in its reduced leucomethylene blue form which is probably a much better form for topical absorption. On the other hand, if you are trying to deliver methylene blue to your skin and then immediately use red/NIR light therapy to try to convert it to leucomethylene blue for improved absorption, then a blue tint would definitely be a good indicator that you have significamt amounts of it in the cream. Good luck with your experiment.

#85

“reduced leucomethylene blue”
Can you cite any literature that it is as effective as regular methylene blue?

#86

That won’t be necessary. Methylene blue and leucomethylene blue are interconvertible. Methylene blue can be reduced to leucomethylene blue and leucomethylene blue can be oxidized to methylene blue. When you ingest either form, they will be converted to each other in the digestive tract, in the blood and in cells. Which form is predominant in each place depends mainly on the redox state and the pH of the environment. Inside cells, where the redox environment is slightly reduced, the reduced form, leucomethylene blue, will predominate, regardless of which form you ingested.

If you apply it to your skin, the most important thing is that it gets absorbed, otherwise it will just go to waste. Both methylene blue and leucomethylene blue are quite hydrophilic and do not dissolve well in fat. This makes it hard for them to penetrate the skin. The leucomethylene blue form however has higher solubility in fat than methylene blue which is why it will be more easily absorbed when applied to the skin. So to get it into the skin the leucomethylene blue form is better. Then after being absorbed, some of the leucomethylene blue will be converted to methylene blue in the cells. I hope this helps explaining this.

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#87

What about putting them into a mix with DMSO or something like that?

#88

“Methylene blue is (hydrate) is soluble in organic solvents such as ethanol, DMSO and dimethyl formamide.” and of course water. Since Transcutol is an organic solvent, ether DMSO or Transcutol could be used as a carrier depending on how deep of skin penetration you are looking for. Since I also take methylene blue internally, I use transcutol in my own cream.

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#89

I can’t find any readily available sources for leucomethylene blue.
Many supplements, for example, Tryptophan and 5-HTP, share the same pathways, but they are not interchangeable. Tryptophan has branches that do not include 5-HTP. Do you know if methylene blue has branches that do not include leucomethylene blue?
Do you know how much leucomethylene blue is in the commercial products?
I can’t seem to find an answer to that, which is why I prefer to add my own methylene blue, along with a little transcutol to an existing cream that I like.

#90

It’s really a moot point because all the cosmetics I’ve looked up or heard of purport to use methylene blue, not leucomethylene blue, and they all report it in tiny amounts, as in, the last ingredient, in even smaller concentration than the preservatives.

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#91

I think it is mainly a ph thing

#92

That might work but I don’t know enough about DMSO to be sure it would work.

I’m not surprised. It’s generally not sold as leucomethylene blue but is sold as methylene blue.

Btw it’s possible to convert methylene blue to leucomethylene blue by using some reducing agent and keeping conditions somewhat acidic. This can be accomplished partially by mixing a solution with methylene blue with ascorbic acid (vitamin C).

I’m not sure what you’re asking here. If by branches you mean different metabolic pathways, I don’t think that applies here.

I’m assuming very little, if we’re talking methylene blue that you buy somewhere. If we’re talking skin creams that contain methylene blue (there is one called Bluelene claimed to have methylene blue as the main ingredient) then I think a significant part of it might be leucomethylene blue assuming they deliberately use that for better skin penetration.

That’s not a bad idea. Maybe the transcutol works. If not, in the worst case scenario, it just won’t be absorbed and goes to waste. But given how cheap methylene blue is, that may be a risk worth taking.

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#94

The implications of mTOR rebound can vary and in some cases, it may be desirable to have mTOR rebound, as it can help restore normal cellular functions and promote growth and repair. On the other hand, excessive mTOR activity can be associated with certain diseases, such as cancer and age-related conditions-next week I go in for a softwave laser treatment where I will try and raise mTOR for healing using PBC-157 + xtra protein
a new protocol cycling peptides PBC-157 for 10 days following 10 days of suppression of mTOR Rapaymcin and protein fasting- will do blood test including TNF factor. Wonder if I playing with fire here?

#96

I’m thinking on the good properties that methylene blue (mb), aparently brings all over.
and during forum navigation, I was “why not put this on the hair growth serum?”
Reading your post I was in first impression “oops, destroying hair follicles is not what I want” BUT the study, was focused on laser absorption in hair folicles with MB. The study aparently tested the “better eficcacy” of laser being used WITH the Methylene blue.
But if you do not put an intense light, (that it is proposal is to kill the hair follicle) Will the MB be bad for hair folicles? Does someone has some experience if MB has any effect in hair folicles? (maybe testing in arms or other place that if losing the hair is not significant?)

#97

The last comment reminded me of this thread.

My post mortem: I very much doubt I had any significant mTOR inhibition going at all, let alone rebound effect, since my rapa source all along was siroboon. Initially I got pissed when I found out I had been wasting my money on very little to no rapa but seeing as I fell pregnant by accident it was a good thing. My baby is now 9 months old and perfectly healthy. Who knows what might have been the case had I been on the real deal? I’ve got the Pfizer pills now and waiting until she’s weaned to start.

Re: skin, I’ve recently resumed my interventions.

Adding ultraformer mpt to my RF microneedling. So far I stacked two ultraformer treatments 3 weeks apart with one RF microneedling session in between. The rest of the ultraformer treatments will be 3-4 months apart as ChatGPT convinced me I’d be undermining my results if I went any oftener. Also I noticed that methylene blue, for me least, works the best when mixed with a specific moisturizer: Eucerin Cream for extra dry skin. I don’t know if there’s an ingredient or two in there that it works synergistically with but I’ve tried other bases for the MB and I don’t get that “Snow White facial” effect I mentioned elsewhere. I’ll only use it with that base going forward. The red light panel continues to reduce it down to a colorless finish. Just tonight I’ve started on tretinoin again. ChatGPT tells me it should be completely harmless to a baby the age of mine.

Skin is looking amazing overall, especially considering that I gained quite a bit of weight during pregnancy, most of which is shed off now but sagging is always a concern when that happens. I havent experienced any miraculous difference from the ultraformer yet but I don’t expect anything until 3-4 months post procedure anyway. All I know is having bought the device, I’m satisfied with a wait and see for the next year with the understanding that I’ll keep using it every 3-4 months. But had I paid retail for the procedure I’d be super annoyed. It’s what happened with the RF microneedling too. At first I through it didn’t work at all and just kept using it to justify the money I spent. Then after 4-5 treatments it was “wow, holy *#%€!” So let’s see if that’s the case here too.

My skin surface is looking ridiculously good, almost entirely poreless “glass skin,” the stuff of Kbeauty wet dreams. What bothers me is a tiny bit of loss in the sharpness of outline along the jaw, slight nasolabial folds noticeable to me (which so far nothing has really improved), and the eyelids are showing a bit of a trend towards crepiness now that I gained and lost a lot of weight — bit of deflation in the balloon. I’m not worried about the eyelids, I brought them back to looking great from being way worse than they are right now. A few more rounds of RF microneedling will do the trick, and if not then I’ll bring my plasma pen out of retirement, the big gun. It works wonderfully but would leave me with a week of having to explain my ridiculous appearance whereas these other modalities have zero down time.

For nasolabials I hope the ultra former will soften them and I’ll add volufiline into the mix. The ultra former works at the SMAS level, 3-4.5mm deep, so it can lift and tighten the skin envelope whereas no topicals have a chance to make a difference there and even RF doesn’t go that deep.

My belated New Year’s resolution is to get serious about sun protection. And that I never have been, aside from avoiding bad sunburns and applying SPF at the beach. But I think doing all this stuff while not taking care of sun damage is a bit like trying to dry off while still in the shower with the water running. I’m lucky to not burn easily thanks to Mediterranean undertones but as good as my results have been they would have probably been even better had I been committed to sun protection. I’m also starting to notice a few gray hairs sprouting only where the sun hits the top of my head, along my hairline. So I’ll have UV protective hats as part of my arsenal from now on. For skin, I’m settling on the zinc stick as I don’t have access to this fancy Asian stuff that’s supposed to work better than physical sunblock and I hate the greasy chemical sunscreen. Zinc stick is almost like wearing foundation, which on the one hand I don’t like as I’d rather show off my own near perfect skin, which it covers. But on the other hand the alternative would be white streaks all over my face. So the nude zinc stick is preferable. But if anyone has suggestions of better stuff I can buy in the US, I’m all ears.

I also bought a Local Dynamic Micromassage machine that should take me from 90% poreless to 99% poreless.
Should take a good month or so to get here though as I didn’t want to splurge on shipping from China. But women are already asking me what I’m doing to my face as the improvements are noticeable.

Re: LDM

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#98

Where did you buy LDM machine? I may be interested to try. I found one at Alliexpress for $700. Is it a good price for it?

#99

Are you in the US? If so, this is how you order Beauty of Joseon Korean SPF

I’m sure they have other brands, but I think BOJ is perfection.

And yes, I often wear a tinted zinc and then it’s my makeup too.

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#100

I found it on Alibaba for $500 + shipping. It seems like an unusually good price — other vendors had this same machine for $800-1200. On AliExpress you may be duped by the advertised price. Ask them what it will cost to ship to the U.S. and they’ll usually tell you there’s extras to be paid for “customs’ clearance.” Now it might be even more with the friggin tariffs! I made sure to place the order before they were imposed. Had you heard of LDM too? It’s rather new to me. What I found very attractive is the completely different mechanism of action. I feel I’ve exhausted the range of heat based and mechanical based controlled injuries. LDM has chemical and molecular effects that seem very interesting.

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#101

Thanks! A bit expensive but I’ve been Asian-sunscreen-curious for years so I’ll order me some. I’ll be much likelier to stick to my resolution if my sunscreen is … well… perfection in a bottle. But so you like the zinc stick too? It looks like concealer

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#102

I heard about it from a friend who’s an aesthetician and is using it on her patients. Unfortunately, she’s too far from me, otherwise I would try it. The price I found, $700, includes shipment. So, I guess it’s not bad.

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#103

Then it’s not bad at all! What does your friend say? Is she seeing good clinical outcomes from it?