As we age, our skin becomes more relaxed, we tend to lose some volume and elasticity, our body’s collagen and elastin production levels slow, producing less and less more often. Our elastin fibres also start wearing out, and our dermal layer thins. But, as scary as it may sound, ageing is a natural process, and one of life’s beautiful journeys.
However, ageing can be brought on a little earlier than we would like by many common factors such as external environmental aggressors, pollution, stress, UV damage, certain medications, smoking and drinking (to an extent, we all love that glass of red at the end of the day), and also genetics.
Whilst ageing is inevitable, there are steps we can introduce into our daily lives to slow the signs of visible ageing. Verve has teamed up once again with the Global Beauty Group to give you a rundown on how to do just that.
Aside from UV damage, how do other environmental aggressors affect our skin?
Environmental aggressors such as pollution, car/exhaust fumes, toxic chemicals and smoke all act as free radicals in the skin.
These free radicals steal electrons from surrounding atoms, creating a cascade effect. This then creates more free radicals and essentially damages the skin because the atoms are losing their electrons, as well as trying to contribute to other electrons at the same time. As a result, this negatively impacts the health of the cells and speeds up the ageing process. Which is why antioxidants are so important and can have a profound impact on the health of your skin.
When should we start an anti-ageing routine?
You can start your anti-ageing routine at any age, and honestly, the earlier the better. Prevention is more effective than trying to reverse the visible signs and effects of ageing once they have appeared.
Things like antioxidants and Retinol are extremely powerful when it comes to slowing down that ageing process. Another great idea is to get a professional skin analysis to determine exactly which skin type you have if you don’t know it already.
As our skin ages or undergoes any type of change, its needs for upkeep will change with it. Switching up your routine now and then is a very normal part of skin maintenance. The sooner you get your analysis/ diagnosis, the sooner you can start tackling your skin concerns as dermatologists can direct you to the exact product/ ingredients you need.
What are the general lifestyle factors that can potentially affect your skin?
Many different general life factors can contribute to anti-ageing. Below is a curated list of the best habits to introduce into your everyday life to combat premature signs of ageing:
- Exercise/ physical activity
- Keeping stress levels as low as possible
- Having a positive attitude
- Breathing exercises
- Meditation and mindfulness
- Actively avoiding over-consumption of alcohol
- Avoiding smoking
- Sleep, sleep, sleep!
- Sleeping on your back – this reduces compressing the skin
- Chose to fake tan instead of sun-tanning
- SPF always
- Avoiding scrunching your face
In the short term, exercise and physical activity help to increase circulation and lymphatic flow. Over the long term, you are improving your heart health, as well as managing stress better. All of these different elements can then have a positive impact on contributing to the overall health of your skin.
The healthier someone is internally, the better their skin will look as this is reflected externally.
What effect does smoking have on our skin?
For anyone still smoking – stop. Toxic chemicals act as free radicals within the body, increasing the rate at which your cells break down, increasing cellular ageing.
What effect does alcohol have on our skin?
When we drink, it puts mass strain and pressure on our liver to metabolise and break down the alcohol. As a result, it takes away energy from other essential processes, and slows everything down internally, impacting our lymphatic and circulatory systems which can then impact the skin.
What about too much sugar?
Too much sugar can lead to glycation, essentially damaging the proteins in the body (this includes collagen), and whilst it’s hard to know exactly how much sugar will lead to such erosion, it has been shown that it can lead to detrimental effects on our skin. Skip the sugar in your coffee, your skin will thank you for it!
Diet
- There are many ways we can help ourselves out diet-wise when it comes to anti-ageing.
- Keeping your skin hydrated and meeting that daily water consumption heavily contributes to flushing out any toxins. This also means that avoiding things that heavily dehydrate you like alcohol.
- A balanced diet, we have all heard the saying ‘everything in moderation,’ but these are words to live by! Keeping that salt, carbohydrate and sugar intake to a minimum will help you in the long term.
- Taking supplements like collagen powders, phytoceramides, and fish oil amongst other things can help give you that extra boost where needed. On this note, supplements can only be beneficial up to a point. If for example, your joints need the extra collagen then that’s where it will go – unfortunately, there is no guarantee that it’s going to go towards your skin just because we want it to. Our Dermal Educator, Elise, does heavily recommend prioritising everything else (i.e., healthy diet, exercise etc.) before taking supplements.
- To encourage new collagen production, treatments such as micro-needling and plasma will help to stimulate new collagen production.
- Packing your diet full of all the good stuff, including fatty acids (i.e., fish), as well as nutritious and delicious superfoods that will help boost those collagen levels. such as dark leafy greens, garlic, berries, and avocados.
- Antioxidants such as Vitamin C and E are the ones to look out for!
Skincare
Many skincare ingredients can help with boosting our collagen levels. Here are some ingredients to look out for when doing your skincare shop at your local beauty supplier:
- Hyaluronic acid is one of the best skincare products and is a must for helping to boost skin’s hydration levels and is an important impound for collagen in the skin
- Sunscreen, sunscreen, sunscreen!
- Retinol and Retinoids (Vitamin A)
- Peptides to help rebuild the skin
- Vitamin C is an antioxidant that also helps to brighten the skin
- Vitamins E, B3 (Niacin – niacinamide form of B3)
Some tips when it comes to applying your skincare is to make sure that you’re applying during the day, and not to neglect your neck and décollatage! Another great tip is to apply your skincare to moistened skin – straight after the shower (before it dries) is a great time to do so.
Is cleansing your skin in the morning important?
At night we are removing the day’s sunscreen, makeup, grime, and dirt that our skin has been exposed to all day.
Morning cleansing is just as important as we still sweat during the night, and our skin has been exposed to our pillowcases (which will undoubtedly contain a build-up of dead skin cells, dust, pet fur, etc.).
Cleansing ensures that you start your day fresh-faced. Otherwise, you are layering skincare on top of dead skin cells and it won’t be nearly as effective. It’s also important to cleanse after we exercise or participate in physical activity, as obviously, we sweat. This is particularly important if you are acne-prone, to make sure you remove the bacteria that is a direct result of sweat.
Cleansing tips
- Double cleansing thoroughly removes build-up so your skin is prepped and primed for any serums or actives to be applied afterwards.
- As we get older, we are quite likely to have changed our cleansing routine. Using a gentler cleanser might be a good idea so as to not strip the skin of those essential oils. Unless you are acne-prone, avoid using harsh cleansers.
- If you are acne-prone, foaming or gel-based cleansers are great options.
- Ageing comes with naturally more dehydrated, dry skin, so moving to a cream-based cleanser is a great option and will be more suitable and beneficial
Why is regular exfoliation so important? Why even more as we age?
Regular exfoliation is all about replacing the dead skin cells on the surface of your skin.
When we are younger, approximately every 28 days the skin will essentially replace itself from the basal layer up to the epidermis, and this is a natural process.
As we continue to age, this process slows right down, so it means that we get a build-up on the surface of the skin that won’t be eliminated properly by itself. Cue our exfoliant! The idea is that we then give the skin additional help to eradicate those nasties that are lingering on the surface of our skin which can cause acne and congestion. It’s vital that as we age we continue to regulate this process and make sure that we are keeping the surface layer healthy.
There are two types of exfoliation, granular and manual. Depending on your skin type, more robust and thicker skin types may do well with these types of scrubs as the skin is much tougher. But, it is super important to pick the right type of exfoliant for your skin type.
The second type of exfoliant is chemical, such as AHA’s and BHAs which will both encourage cellular turnover. These are great as there is a whole range right through from more gentle exfoliants such as Lactic and Salicylic acids which are more suitable for acne-prone and more sensitive skin to stronger exfoliants such as Glycolic Acid.
Skin treatments
Dermal educator Elise has outlined her top picks for anti-ageing treatments:
Microneedling:
- Collagen induction therapy or CIT uses a microneedle pen to puncture the skin barrier creating tiny micro-wounds, triggering a healing response within the body.
- In the process of regeneration, the skin’s collagen production levels are boosted and new collagen growth is stimulated.
- CIT encourages skin rejuvenation, volumises and plumps the complexion, strengthens the skin barrier and boosts elasticity, and increases production levels of elastin and collagen.
- As the new collagen is produced and dispersed, wrinkles appear less deep, fine lines are reduced, pitted skin fills in, texture irregularities become less noticeable, acne scars face and stretch marks become smoother.
Plasma rejuvenation
- This is a growing trend within the anti-ageing and skin-rejuvenation field and is becoming increasingly popular because it is a non-surgical treatment.
- A plasma pen utilises a small, electric charge to deliver energy to the superficial skin cells.
- This then creates a wound healing response within the skin, stimulating fibroblast cells to produce new collagen, renew the dermal tissue and repair the skin.
- New collagen continues to generate for 4-6 weeks, resulting in smoother, tighter and younger-looking skin.
IPL photo rejuvenation
- IPL stands for Intense Pulsed Light and works by applying rapid pulses of light at varying lengths to the treatment area from the IPL machine.
- IPL improves skins texture and tone, as well as stimulation the fibroblast cells within the skin so as to encourage collagen and elastin production.
- It also works to plump, firm and hydrate the skin, as well as improving overall skin tone and texture by regenerating the skin, resulting in a younger, and fresher complexion.
- There is no downtime and long-lasting results!
To conclude, ageing is a very natural process that we will all experience in life, and should be embraced with open arms. However, there is no shame in getting that extra helping hand just to slow that process down, keeping your skin hydrated and youthful. Remember, what works for one person may not work for you, so take a trip to your local dermatologist and let them guide you through what is best for your unique self, so you can get the best results. Embrace the anti-ageing!
This article was written in partnership with The Global Beauty Group – https://www.theglobalbeautygroup.com.au/
Words: Annabelle Taurua
