Everything You Want to Know About Our First Serum; Deliverance

Introducing our first serum: Deliverance.

How do I use Deliverance?

We recommend using twice daily for best results. Morning and night, gently pat one pump of Deliverance on your face and neck using clean hands. Deliverance can be used as a first step post-cleansing or directly after your toner/essence. Continue with your skincare ritual as normal and always wear SPF. 

If your skin is on the sensitive side, start slow by integrating Deliverance nightly at first and if you have no reaction, move on to using morning and night. 

What results can I expect when I use this product? Who is this product for?

Deliverance was developed for people who want to soothe their skin while effectively tackling signs of irritation, aging and uneven tone. Our cannabinoid complex calms irritation while a water lily complex further soothes skin. Both ingredients are potent antioxidants along with added white tea and passionflower extract to protect skin. Two clinically studied peptides target firmness and fine lines. Finally, niacinamide gently evens tone and texture. Deliverance when used morning and night leaves skin feeling soft, calm and more even.

This product was developed to be soft on skin while delivering visible results. While we can’t guarantee this product is for everyone (no product is!), we have tested our serum for irritation on panelists with no adverse reactions and have also formulated with actives that are generally well tolerated and don’t resurface skin for results (nothing wrong with products that do, they just can be irritating). 

In a clinical study (keep scrolling), our cannabinoid complex was shown to calm and soothe skin. We tested three doses and interestingly, the lowest dose brought skin back to a healthy baseline at the quickest rate and so this is what we then used in our serum. The cannabinoids are also encapsulated to ensure stability and delivery of the ingredient. Deliverance also has added peptides to target the signs of fine lines and wrinkles while niacinamide and a water lily complex address uneven skin tone concerns. Potent antioxidants including white tea, passionflower and the cannabinoids themselves protect and repair skin.  

This product is meant to be used on its own as a powerful serum, Deliverance can safely be paired with existing resurfacing actives (retinoids, chemical exfoliants) if that is something you use in your existing routine. 

It’s important to note that you should not add more than one new product into your routine at a time, i.e. if you use a bunch of new products and Deliverance at the same time, your skin may have a reaction. Use the one product at a time rule when incorporating Deliverance into your routine. 

Does this product have CBD?

Yes, this product has a complex of three cannabinoids including CBD, CBG and CBN. While we’re hoping to do more studies in the future, as of now our study focus on this complex. 

This is also why we cannot sell our serum in Canada. While Canada has federally legalized hemp and cannabis, they see all cannabinoids as a controlled substance and we would have to sell through the Canadian dispensary network. This, unfortunately, is unfeasible to us as a small brand and we hope Canada revisits hemp derived cannabinoids and loosens regulations. 

Why did you do a clinical study on cannabinoids?

CBD and all the cannabinoids found in hemp are incredibly promising botanicals, but there’s not a ton of data out there for how they might specifically work for skincare. Unlike traditional ingredients like retinol or Vitamin C where we know what percentage range the ingredients are efficacious at, no one really knew what dosage of cannabinoids should be put into skincare.

We also found a lot of brands were using cannabinoid extracts without thinking about how to stabilize the ingredients. This means that the product might oxidize or become inactive by the time they reach your beauty cabinet. 

We tested to ensure the encapsulation worked, that the encapsulation allowed for stability and finally that it delivered results and was efficacious. 

A lot of brands show milligrams of CBD, why does your brand talk about percent actives?

Milligrams in skincare is a vestige of the supplement industry.

Supplements are measured in dosage per serving, like Vitamin C. Supplement companies boast dosings on their packaging but in skincare, to save you volumetric math calculations we keep to active percentages.

We have full certificates of analysis for our testing, but in our final formula we found a 1% blend of the cannabinoid complex to be most effective.

So, what exactly do cannabinoids do for your skin?

While different cannabinoids in preliminary studies yield various effects, we are most excited about the ingredient’s potent antioxidant properties and anti-inflammatory properties. Important to note that "inflammation" is a drug claim therefore cosmetic brands must use words like calming and soothing (for example, our third party lab approved the use of the term "reduces inflammation" but we use less direct language as there are so many kinds of inflammation it's difficult to say that blanket term). There’s still a lot of testing to be done but in our clinical trial, our third party lab noted claims around the dosings calming properties are well substantiated, particularly as the results were consistent across participants in reducing the induced inflammation.

There are a lot of claims around cannabinoids and acne, for us, we need to see * a lot * more research and results before any claims around oil regulation or inflammation as it pertains to acne are helped by cannabinoids. There are different kinds of inflammatory responses. This is why we say calms and soothes skin. It likely does not work on all kinds.

What we can say is the cannabinoids in Deliverance are targeted to reduce induced irritation and are potent antioxidants that due to our packaging and encapsulation are active. This helps protect and calm the skin which, in turn, is “pro-aging” improving the overall appearance of the skin. 

The clinical study results:

In a proprietary clinical study, Dieux evaluated the efficacy of three doses of cannabinoid complexes in reducing induced inflammation compared against a control site where no complex was applied.* This is a single-blind study as we were looking to understand the dosings and whether cannabinoids had an effect.

While the induced inflammation was still present on the last day of the study (day 14) of the control patch where no complex was applied, every cannabinoid base cleared inflammation by day 10. 

However, the lowest dose of the encapsulated complex was the most effective. It brought the signs of inflammation back to baseline in as little as 5 days with a once-daily application. This dose is what we included in our final formula, Deliverance. Important to note the numbers on the Y axis is the scale of clinical grading for presence of erythema.

Single blind clinical study of 20 participants conducted by an independent 3rd party research group. 

How did we know we should study cannabinoids?

There was preliminary data that told us soothing skin was a promising effect of cannabinoids. That being said, sourcing the cannabinoids took a lot of time and to encapsulate the cannabinoids was also challenging. Once we finally had a cannabinoid source that we trusted and found a facility that could encapsulate them with technology our head of product, Joyce, approved of, she started mixing blends. 

Our co-founder and CEO (Charlotte Palermino) had an allergic reaction and happened to be meeting Joyce to test the new encapsulate with a cannabinoid blend. After days of nothing working to bring down the irritation, Charlotte tested the complex and had some incredible results. Anecdotal experiences are great (and we are by no means saying this is the exact result anyone will get with this serum!) but we needed a study to see if this was something that calmed skin and at what level. While we have a lot more research to do and more tests, we're hopeful on the promise of cannabinoids and calming the skin. What's also clear from our study is dosing matters. The higher the dose doesn't automatically yield better results, in our case, lower dosing was the most efficacious.

What studies are there on the other ingredients in the serum?

3% Water lily complex: 

Sodium palmitoyl proline and water lily blend shown in testing to soothe skin and irritation both from induced irritation and the stinging sensation from using lactic acid. 

2% N-Prolyl palmitoyl tripeptide-56 complex: 

An optimized peptide, this complex has been clinically studied to boost skin’s visible firmness and minimize the look of fine lines and wrinkles.

3% Palmitoyl hexapeptide-52 complex: a blend of passionflower, white tea and peptides clinically shown to help reduce the appearance of wrinkle depth, fine lines and wrinkles from expression lines. 

4% Niacinamide: vitamin B3 evens tone and texture while supporting barrier function. Note, we decided to have 4% Niacinamide as it’s an increasingly common ingredient. While doses between 2-5% is the range for efficacy, we wanted to take into account the potential for irritation in layering multiple products with Niacinamide.

Does your product have a certificate of analysis? Price Transparency?

Yes it does! See our full testing and price transparency here. 

Is Deliverance pregnancy safe?

Err on the side of caution and please speak to a doctor before using this product. Due to the lack of research, we do not recommend using this product while pregnant. 

Is there an age restriction on purchasing this serum?

The FDA's consumer choice center recommends the following: "If any category of CBD is to be age-restricted, only smokable flower or vaping oils should be sold only to legal adults (18+) However, other forms of CBD (cremes, oils, topicals, edibles, etc.), considering its medical benefit, should not be age-restricted."

As our product is only meant to be applied topically, we follow this guidance but if you're in your teens and very early twenties ... you truly shouldn't be buying a serum that targets fine lines as one of the benefits. 

Have more questions? Reach out to us at hello@dieuxskin.com