The Low Down On Anti-aging Protection For Your Skin

Lately, I’ve been researching into anti-aging products and how they may help your skin stay fresher and younger-looking.  This is because I have discovered some great new ingredients to use in my skin care products that seem to work really well. And other ingredients that I know and prescribe as a naturopath to reverse the main causes of internal aging and illness (help! my body is degenerating). And now they are being used externally and promoted commercially as “new” magic anti-aging ingredients.

There is one common factor – INFLAMMATION. No, you can’t see it or feel it, but it is present in many of us at a cellular level, working away and damaging the integrity and structure of your body. This is caused by the activity of free radicals that create an “oxidation chain reaction”. This results in small, incremental damage over time, so that the results are not obvious until you have some niggly symptoms some time later - even years later. You may eventually feel less energetic, slightly creaky in the joints, have minor ongoing sinus, get eczema or allergies that you didn’t have before, have digestive issues….and start to show some of the 7 signs of aging. Including wrinkles.

If you were a “flower child” of the ‘1950s, 1960’s or even 1970s, its likely that you smothered yourself in oil and lay out in the sun to get an all over, even suntan. It was your number one beauty tool – or so we thought! Remember Q-tol to soothe sunburn? But where was our sunscreen in those days? Sitting in the shade or wearing a long sleeved shirt was the only sunscreen that I remember.

3. What Causes Age Spots?

Over your life time, ultra violet rays reach into your skin and stimulate the action of special pigmentation-generating cells called melanocytes, which increases melanin production. This is the basis of a sun tan.

How do you know if age spots are ready and waiting, under your skin? Beauty Therapists use a “black lamp” also known as a Skin Scanner or Woods Lamp which can see under the surface of your skin. What is visible on the surface can look totally different to what is actually happening underneath your skin. Scary!

4. What’s All The Fuss About Collagen?

If you watch the ads, you will know that boosting collagen is the key to anti-aging skin care. But what do you actually know about collagen?

Collagen is part of our “connective tissue”. It creates tensile strength and support to our bodies. Collagen is not only a component of skin, but also of the rest of our body. It is what gives our skin firmness and support. When it is depleted and not replaced quickly enough, skin starts to become slack and fine wrinkles begin to appear.

Depleted levels of collagen production are a “side effect” of decreasing hormone levels – especially accelerating around the time of menopause. Which is why all those thousands of women who used to take HRT also had nice skin. But now the alarming health risks of taking HRT are well known, and it is no longer a drug to be used lightly by the masses who are afraid of growing old, or of going through menopause naturally.

By applying collagen to the skin, we can only hope for one result – it helps retain moisture, thus plumping up fine lines and making wrinkles less obvious. But it doesn’t actually replace the lost collagen because the size of the molecule of collagen cannot penetrate the surface of your skin.

5. What about taking collagen internally?

I’m not convinced that this one action will result in your having beautiful, ageless skin. The trouble is that if your whole body is depleted in collagen, there is no way of telling the capsule contents to just to go to your skin. It will go wherever your body most needs it first.

And no doubt you have been reading all of this - with a furrowed brow!- thinking:

6. OK. So How Do I Stop My Aging Process?

Alright, maybe “stop” is too much to expect.
Would you be happy with “slowing down” the aging process?

• Stop those niggly health issues and create an anti-inflammatory lifestyle
• Eat plenty of anti-oxidant veges & fruit and collagen-containing broths
• Wear a daily broad spectrum sun block on your face winter and summer.
• Reduce superficial age spots with a series of beauty salon gentle fruit acid treatments –best done in winter
• Stimulate cellular production of collagen on your skin with a series of beauty salon electrical galvanic treatments
• Have a Skin Analysis and establish a daily skin care routine suited to
  your skin type
• Take supplements known to beautify your skin
• Sweat through your skin for 15 mins daily – exercise, brisk walk, sauna, bath
• Get enough sleep – exhaustion shows in your face
• Take control of your stress, so it doesn’t manage you. Worry makes wrinkles!