What “skin care” should I practice?
Our cells change as we age and “oxidative stresses” or free-radical producing processes that occur because of day to day function of our cells as well as from external factors such as sunlight, smoke and pollutants. We can help minimize this with sunscreen or sun block and anti-oxidants that we apply externally to our skin. Of course eating a variety of healthy foods and getting enough sleep doesn’t hurt.
A lifetime of ultraviolet rays from the sun make the skin age more quickly, cause wrinkles and brown spots and skin cancers. (For an easy test compare the skin on the outer part of your forearm to the skin on the underside of your forearm—which looks less damaged?) Our face, neck, chest, hands and forearms take the brunt of all the sun exposure that we accumulate and therefore show the most damage. What about Vitamin D? Sunlight exposure to our skin for 20 minutes or so a few times a week generally produces enough Vitamin D. During the summer this is not difficult to do. No sunscreen blocks 100% of the rays and we can get Vitamin D through food and supplements. Those with darker skin or very little sun exposure should consider having a blood test to measure your vitamin D level to make sure it is not low.
I live in a sunny climate so I wake up every morning and put use sunscreen on my face, chest and hands. I use my sunscreen as a moisturizer and because it has anti-oxidants I don’t use anything else under my make-up. Unless you work outside, most of our sun exposure is incidental in our daily life: driving, walking to and from our car, getting mail, running errands. How many times are we caught getting a lot more sun exposure than we had expected? In my area, it may be raining when I leave the house but sunny a few hours later. For these reasons (and because I nag my patients about it), I put on sunscreen every day. If you can tell it’s daytime it is because the sun is out and coming through the clouds. In climates with darker winters this may not be necessary. I use a different sunscreen for my face than I do for my body. The sunscreens formulated for the face are more elegant, come in smaller quantities and are usually more expensive. I like sunscreens that contain zinc oxide for these areas. These would also be the areas to apply products with anti-oxidants. The added protection that darker skinned people have is helpful, however, a sunscreen on the face in later years is a good idea to prevent the discoloration and brown spots that so commonly occur even in those with darker skin tones.
Retinol is extremely useful for both acne and unclogging pores as well as for signs of sun-induced aging such as freckling, fine wrinkling, and sallow appearance. Retinol works at the nuclear level of skin cells and helps the epidermis, dermis and pigment producing cells to normalize which is why there are so many beneficial effects. The only downside of retinol products is that they can cause some peeling and redness but this diminishes with time. The smoothing serum formulation contains added anti-oxidants and anti-inflammatories for this reason. You can start with every other night use and then more frequent applications. In other words, you can work through any irritation that occurs by modifying how often you use it. They make the skin slightly more susceptible to sunburn only because they peel away the dead skin cells but we are all using our daily sunscreen anyway, right? If I could only use 2 products on my face, it would be sunscreen with anti-oxidants in the day and a retinol at night. Salicylic acid and glycolic acids are also helpful in both acne and in mature skin. The anti-oxidants and moisturizer formulations may be applied any time of day. Cleansing need not be drying and should be done gently without scrubbing.
The skin on our body is designed to take care of itself. Every hour our skin cells are imperceptibly shedding off and being renewed. As a general rule, Americans over-bathe, over-cleanse and strip off our naturally produced moisturizing factors. We inherit our tendency for dry or oily skin but for everyone with each passing year the skin on our body becomes more and more dry so that we must modify our routines over time. The oiliness of our face and scalp is independent of our skin elsewhere because there are many more oil glands in the skin of the head and scalp.
Skin care for those with overly dry skin or acne can be tailored to address this. Our hands in particular need extra protection because we interact with our environment with our hands and we wash them with soap and water which strips off the protective natural oils.