What is Contributing to Your Aging Skin?

With age, our skin suffers natural wear-and-tear, just like the rest of our bodies. But much of what we think of as natural aging is in fact due to sun exposure and other factors. This means that aging skin can be avoided, and it’s never too late to start.

Within our skin layers is a fiber meshwork of collagen and elastin. These proteins keep our skin firm and moisturized. When the skin is stretched, this protein matrix snaps it back into place. Over time and the change in hormones, our fiber network weakens, and skin sags. This is what creates the appearance of wrinkles.

What are wrinkles?

Wrinkles are really a figment of our imagination or an optical illusion. We do not see the folds of excess skin, we see the shadows cast by the thinner outer skin. All that you have to do is ask an artist. Artists use values to translate the light and shadows they see into shading, thus creating the illusion of a third dimension.

Aged Skin

Skin becomes thinner with age and loses fat. The plump smoothness of our skin as children is replaced by a rougher texture. Gravity’s relentlessly tugs on weakened skin, create the droop of jowls and folds of skin. None of this so-called “intrinsic aging” of the skin can be avoided. While you can use serums and moisturizers and supplements to replenish your skin, you are fighting a losing battle and mainly looking to slow the process down.

Sun Damaged Skin = Aging Skin

The ultraviolet rays from the sun penetrate into the skin. There, they damage the elastic fibers that keep skin firm, allowing wrinkles to develop. Sunlight is also responsible for age spots or “liver spots” on the hands, face, and other sun-exposed areas. The number of wrinkles that develop, and how prominent they are, are largely dependent on a person’s lifetime sun exposure. 

We can not go back in time and start using a good quality sunscreen from a younger age, nothing is stopping right now from making the changes. Adopt some new behaviors like:

• Stop intentionally sunbathing. Any suntan means skin damage has occurred
• Always wear sunscreen. Choose a product with a sun protection factor (SPF) 15 or greater. The hands and face are the most frequently exposed — cover them
• Wear a hat with a brim
• Avoid the sun between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., when the rays are the strongest.

New Sources of Light radiation

We now have other factors exposing our skin to UV rays, computer screens. Screen time has increased dramatically during the pandemic. The additional exposure to the blue light from technology devices is also damaging our skin. Research shows blue light from electronic devices can lead to changes in your skin cells, including cell shrinkage and death. These speed up the aging process. Even exposures as short as 60 minutes can trigger these changes.

To protect skin from aging due to blue light technology and exposure to the sun, we need to utilize sunscreen even indoors. You can also use a facial serum that replenishes your skin’s moisture while fighting free radicals and toxins from the blue light and sun rays. Rooibos is high in antioxidants that fight the free radicals and toxins from the blue light and sun rays. Rooibos is also a powerful anti-inflammatory that helps to calm the skin, allowing it to glow and shine from within!