When you’re young you have the skin you’ve been given. When you are grown, you have the skin you deserve
This is a very wise proverb.
To a large extent, the quality of your skin is up to you. How Well you love it, nourish it and protect it will determine how good it looks.
There are 3 main functions you want from your skin care.
- To maintain skin health
- To prevent skin ageing
- To treat sun damage
Depending on your age you will be more focused on maintenance and prevention or maintenance prevention and reversal.
Now, a couple of important principles:
First of all unless your skincare is easy, you won’t use it, it doesn’t matter how good it is. Secondly, regardless of the ingredients, they won’t work unless they are at the right concentration and they are in a form that can be absorbed through the skin.
Here are some of the ingredients to look for, remembering that many of the good ingredients have several functions
Vitamin A, C and E: are powerful antioxidants which shield your skin from oxidative damage. ( a major cause of skin aging)
Retinols: are excellent at repairing fine lines and wrinkles, improving orderly metabolism and cell communication and stimulating new collagen and elastin. However they can be irritating so you need the right ones.
Alpha and Beta Hydroxy acids (AHA, BHA): these include ascorbic acids, Salicylic acid, Lactic acid, glycolic acids etc great for exfoliating the skin, improving pigmentation, promoting smoothness, stimulating blood flow and improving collagen content.
Niacinamide (Vitamin B3): is a superstar newcomer which is excellent at improving pigmentation by preventing melanin uptake into skin cells. It produces both skin clarity and translucency. It is also a powerful antioxidant and improves cell to cell communication, so is very versatile.
Co-Enzyme Q10, fantastic for cell health and metabolism but, we are still awaiting really good scientific proof that it is valuable when applied to the skin.
Growth factors: Scientifically, the biggest buzz at the moment surround’s fibroblast activating growth factors. The proper forms of these products, directly stimulate the skin to produce new collagen and elastin creating tighter, firmer skin and improving wrinkles.
Don’t forget sunscreen, it is probably the most important part of your skincare to prevent ageing and for goodness sakes stop smoking if you still participate in the ritual from the dark ages. It is killing both you and your skin.
If all this seems too confusing or you want to know where to get hold of the right “stuff” you are welcome to contact my office for help.
