When we are working so hard to keep the skin on our faces looking younger, we sometimes forget about our hands. They can give away age if not given the same care.
I had a conversation the other day with an esthetician about younger looking skin, particularly younger looking hands. Here’s what she told me.
1. First, moisturize your hands continually throughout the day, including the cuticles and nails. Since we wash our hands so often, they need more moisturizing than our faces.
2. When driving, the backs of your hands are often exposed to a lot of sun, so it’s a good idea to use a good sunblock on the backs. I would never have thought of this, but it makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?
3. Finally, although she said she had little faith in drugstore skincare products for the face, there is no need to buy expensive specialty products for your hands. Buy hand creams easily found in drugstores, but look for those that contain glycerin or retinol. Glycerin is apparently very kind to aging hands.
I plan to tap into this woman’s expertise more, and I’ll pass along her tips in the blog. So come back often so you won’t miss them.
Category: General
Anti-aging products have come a long way baby!
I just had this frustrating conversation with an “elderly” friend. OK, she’s only a few years older than me, but she seems much older because she’s stuck in a time warp about 20 years ago!
The argument was about anti-aging products. She said that once you had wrinkles, nothing could reverse them in any way, because there is no way to restore collagen after it has broken down with age. Now I remember that this used to be the case back in the eighties when I first started looking for ways to keep my skin looking young. However, the emerging and growing science of cosmeceuticals has changed all that.
After all, medical science has made all kinds of things possible now to cure illnesses that were death sentences twenty years ago, so why wouldn’t the same be said for the science that deals with beauty and skin care? Especially when you think about the gazillions of dollars made by the cosmetic and skin care industries!
So don’t listen to old fogies that tell you your skin can’t be improved at your age. And don’t use their skin as a measure of what can be done, because they’ve obviously done nothing to help themselves!
There are lots of great anti-aging creams and other products on the market. My purpose with this blog is to help you find the best anti-aging products, to improve your skin both from the outside and the inside. A few of my friends are also helping me test and report on products, so we’ll help you find the ones that suit you best. Stay tuned!
Anti-aging Skin Care: 5 Lifestyle Tips
Anti-aging skin care becomes more urgent after the age of fifty, as we can easily see the aging process in our skin. It’s certainly worth looking into the products that are coming out of ongoing research into anti-aging generally, but with or without external treatments there are 5 simple steps we can take as part of our lifestyle to look younger:
1. Pay attention to diet and what you put into your body, as it will definitely show in your skin. We’ve all heard about the importance of lots of fruits, vegetables and grains, but knowing is not enough—we have to take action. There is different advice out there about just how much fruit, veggies and grains we should consume and I’m not here to declare exact measures. However, if you are not regularly including them in your daily food intake, start now. It’s never too late. If you already do, consider having more. When you are relaxing at night, perhaps reading or watching television, change your snack from chips and other fast foods to healthy fruit. Biting into a crunchy apple is satisfying as well as filling; divide a luscious orange into sections and savour them one by one. I love cereal, and I have it as my late night snack—satisfying, delicious and good for me.
2. As well as food, add vitamins A and E to your routine, both in the food itself and as supplements. Why? These vitamins make your skin look more radiant because they promote new cell growth in the skin. Green and yellow vegetables are good food sources of needed vitamins, but they are probably not enough by themselves. Make sure your multi-vitamin includes A and E, or take them in special supplements by themselves.
3. Follow your own anti-aging skin care routine. Aging skin is quite different from the skin we had even a decade ago, and it may need different treatment. Look for specialized anti aging skin care products, and pay particular attention to why they are good for your skin. (I’ll be passing along the results of my own research and trials of anti aging products as this blog grows.) You want to choose products that provide intensive nourishment to reduce the dryness that comes with age. Wash your face with mild cleansers and when you exfoliate be sure to use gentle products. Retinoids and anti-oxidants are often present in anti-aging creams, as they help regenerate the cells in the skin.
Moisturizing becomes even more important as our skin ages, so use a good quality, rich moisturizer morning and night as part of your routine. Creams that contain retinol and alpha hydroxyl acids are particularly useful.
4. And yes, do protect your skin against the effects of the sun. These effects include not only serious conditions like skin cancer, but also all the signs of aging skin such as wrinkles, age spots, sagging skin and discoloration. These unwelcome results come from the ultraviolet radiation of the sun, so be sure to use quality sunscreen products. That doesn’t just mean buy them—use them every time you go outside!
5. Drink lots of water. Whether you choose bottled water or just plain tap water (if the water in your area is good quality), get lots of it. Why? Because as we get older, the fat layer in our skin starts to shrink, resulting in dryness and those dreaded wrinkles. Replenish the moisture levels from the inside by drinking lots of water. Try adding a glass just before meals (which can have the added benefit of reducing your appetite), and instead of one cup of coffee every day. Instead of a glass of wine, try a glass of sparkling mineral water with ice and a slice of lemon—delicious, and good for you!
Welcome to Great Skin After 50!
If you are over 50 and starting to worry about wrinkles, dark puffy undereye area, age spots, uneven colour and all those other surprises that may be happening to your skin, this blog is for you.
I’ll be writing about information I’ve discovered in my own research, talking to experts in the field and reporting on their views, experimenting with various skin care products for people our age, and books and other information products that give us other tools to fight aging skin.
As the blog grows in content, I’ll add categories so that you can easily find the information you’re looking for, and I welcome your comments on any posts at any time. If you have information to add, or questions to ask, please use the comment boxes for this purpose. If you disagree with anything I’ve said, your comments are also welcome — as long as you keep it civilized.
Tomorrow I’ll start posting information, so come on by again then.