Healthy Anti-Aging Skin Care:

Can We Just Keep It Simple?

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If you’ve ever tried to find a skincare product to deal with the skin care concerns of aging skin, you’re probably as confused as the average person. There are so many products and ingredients that tout ‘increase in this, ‘decrease in that,’ ‘revitalized this and revitalized that’ and on and on.

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To understand what anti-aging skin care products are intended to do, you have to first understand what the aging process is for the skin. Aging skin has the condition where the structural proteins that bind and support the skin, collagen, and elastin, lose their resiliency and cohesion, causing the skin to wrinkle and/or sag. The body's ability to produce new collagen and elastin also diminishes with age while the cells in the various layers of our skin decline and thin, losing the ability to adequately maintain moisture. Without proper hydration, the healing mechanisms of the skin cease to function, adversely affecting the skin's ability to receive nutrients and repair itself. The result is rough, loose, wrinkled skin.

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Sure- we all want to have the best-looking skin possible regardless of our age and we’re searching for solutions to maintain the healthy, youthful look of our skin. With the constant marketing and advancements in skin care, littering the path of our quest, it can sometimes be challenging to find an affordable and effective solution for great skin care.

However, what you need to know is that it doesn’t have to be that complex (as many product names might suggest!). What any skin care program should be is simple. That’s it, just simple. The results that we all want are straightforward: we want smooth, supple, clear, glowing, youthful-looking skin.

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Luckily, there are constant and ever-evolving advances in skin care and we all have the option for the condition of our skin to improve with age.

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If you are looking for a skincare program, there are some guidelines you may want to consider when making your skin care choices:

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- Protect your skin while you are in the sun and in extreme weather. Use sunscreen.

- Drink lots of water. It’s so important for proper skin hydration and keeping your body clean from toxins and other chemicals that could cause adverse reactions in your skin.

- You should know what you are using on your skin. Stay away from products that are chock full of fillers, coloring, preservatives, and chemicals that are not beneficial for your skin. Watch the labels and choose products with skin-healthy formulations where the active ingredients are around 80% of the ingredients.

- Be sure that your skincare system covers all 5 of the skin’s nutritional requirements. Not sure what they are? Check out my post on your skin’s 5 Nutritional Requirements.

- You should use a good quality and very effective cleanser. This is the most important step in your skincare process. If your cleansing product does not leave your skin feeling smooth and deeply cleansed, chuck it in the garbage and get a new one. Find a product that can deeply penetrate the pores, provide slight exfoliation and conditioning, and does not leave any residue. Applying moisturizers and treatments on top of skin that is not completely clean will only create problems or make existing challenges worse by clogging pores and creating a rough, uneven skin texture.

- You should be able to adjust your program to meet your daily needs.  If you can’t adjust the use of the products to match what your skin needs on a particular day, are you really getting what you need? Your routine should be able to hydrate, heal, and renew your skin. You should see this gradual improvement every day. It’s like watering a plant. A plant that needs water will respond very quickly to the water as it is absorbed through its roots and perk up within a few hours. Watch your skin for a week or so and you’ll know how effective the program can ultimately be for your skin care needs.

- You should not be able to feel the product on your skin. For skin care to really be effective, it must penetrate the skin cells. A product sitting on top of your skin is a product that is not penetrating the skin layers. Products with fillers and other unnecessary, complex formulations may not saturate the pores deeply enough to provide the treatment and results you are looking for. You should not know that you are wearing your skin care. You should feel comfortable with makeup-skincare optional skin.

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If your skin care is working, then the condition of your skin will improve, and you won’t feel pressed to cover your healthy skin with makeup when you don’t have to. Most skin concerns are, largely, correctable. You should be able to go out feeling confident that your skin is at its best no matter your age. Also, by wearing makeup infrequently, you are giving your skin more time to repair and restore itself without the interruption of other product chemicals on your skin.

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