Skin Care Ingredients and Facts – Hydrolyzed Hyaluronic Acid

HHA is a small molecule of Hyaluronic Acid (HA). HA is a polymer, meaning it’s a relatively large molecule made up of smaller parts. The smaller parts are multiples of simpler chemical units called monomers. Polymers are common in living tissue as proteins for example.  HHA can be described as a big molecule made form from repeated monomers, so that it can be Hydrolyzed and effectively chopped up into effective, but smaller parts. This is thought to increase skin permeability in order to better hydrate your skin, adn makes Hyaluronic Acid more “mixable” for skin care.

Hyaluronic acid attracts and retains water in your skin giving it firmness to plump collagen in the presence of  elastin’s flexibility. This trinity of substances give your skin the strength to protect you, the moisture to inhibit inflammation, and the flexibility to move almost any way you need to go. It’s a miraculous design! So why chop up the HA molecule to make it smaller?

Research indicates that both high and low molecular weight HA’s maintain the ability to attract and retain water, and improve the appearance of dry and aging skin. By the way, low-molecular-weight HA is 10–500 kilodaltons or “kDa”) and high-molecular-weight HA, is greater than 500 kDa. What’s a kilodalton?  In 1803 John Dalton proposed to use the atomic mass of the lightest atom, hydrogen, as the natural unit of atomic mass. This gave us the original atomic weight scale. And while High and Low Molecular Mass is expressed as “Weight” it may not present as weight related to gravity like you and I think of it.

Higher mass at the molecular level is merely presumed to measurable as weight, more or less based upon the ratios of sub-atomic particles. No one has actually measured sub atomic particles on a scale, so their “weight” is a presumption based upon their mass, (which is also something of a presumption). But whether high or low “molecular weight”, HA molecules have been proven in experiments to inhibit inflammation. While High Molecular Weight HA inhibits more causes of inflammation in more cell types, Low Molecular Weight (HHA) retains the ability to suppress UV induced inflammation.  And so when it’s anti-inflammatory properties are combined with the ability off HHA to better mix with other ingredients, HHA has become a popular and effective ingredient in topical moisturizers and skin care products.