Today I’m going to cover my top five anti aging skin care routine tips. These are ways to get your skin to look healthy and to turn back the clock.
Five simple tips that you can start as early as today.
My number five tip is to try oil cleansing if you have oily skin. A lot of people who have oily skin. They try to get rid of that oil and many of them will use alcohol-based toners or astringents as a way to remove oil.
The problem with using these types of astringents and alcohol-based toners is that you may remove that oil instantly or immediately, but long-term it creates this feedback loop where your skin notices that the oil has been removed and it creates more oil.
So even though you may be getting rid of the oil temporarily by using those toners and astringents, the skin will actually react by creating more oil and your oily problem actually can get worse.
One solution, interestingly enough, is to use oil cleansing and this is very popular in Korea and other countries.
You can find oil cleansers at your local drugstore or at department stores.
Oil cleansers can actually work to help clean oily skin without making it feel more oily and without creating that kind of feedback loop of creating more oil afterwards.
If you haven’t tried it, it may sound weird “my skin is oily, why would I use an oil cleanser,” just try it because a lot of people find that their acne can even improve from it.
My number four tip is to exfoliate your skin. Ideally two to three times a week if you’ve got normal skin. Once a week if you have sensitive skin.
The reason why it’s important to exfoliate is because when we are young, our skin exfoliate or turns over every six to eight weeks. This is kind of the normal cellular turnover that we have when we’ve got young, radiant, youthful skin. That cellular turnover keeps our skin feeling smooth and soft and gives it that radiant look.
As we get older, that process slows down. It starts to take ten weeks, 12 weeks, even longer for our skin to turn over and then we start developing this buildup of dead skin cells on the surface of our skin.
That’s one reason why as we get older our skin feels rougher, it gets more wrinkly and it doesn’t look as youthful.
When you exfoliate your skin (you can do it with a simple scrub, you can do it with the Clarisonic) a couple of times a week, it gets rid of those upper layer skin cells that have been built up over time and it actually sends a cellular signal to the deeper skin cells to cause it to exfoliate and increase that cellular turnover.
By exfoliating regularly, you’re actually gonna cause your skin to start turning over more quickly and get you back to every six to eight week cellular turnover that you would ideally like.
Once again, exfoliate two to three times a week if you’ve got normal skin, exfoliate once a week if you’ve got sensitive skin.
You know you’re over exfoliating if you find that your skin is getting irritated after doing it and red. It shouldn’t. It should be a very nice and comfortable process for your skin.
My number 3 tip is to use an SPF 30 sunscreen at least and to avoid oxybenzone.
You’ve heard from dermatologists and plastic surgeons for years to use sunscreen and to use it every day. The main ager of our skin is ultraviolet radiation from the Sun.
All you have to do is compare the skin of your face and of your chest to the skin of your butt to know that ultraviolet radiation can make a big difference.
Because most likely the skin of your butt looks and feels much nicer than the skin of your chest or of your hands or even of your face.
Unfortunately not all sunscreens are created equal and oxybenzone is one that I strongly discourage you from using.
Oxybenzone is a known hormone disruptor. It can actually mimic hormones in the bloodstream. Especially you do not want to apply this to your children, because they’re young, they’re growing, their hormones are still changing. You don’t want to throw in a hormone disruptor like oxybenzone into their system.
The second reason why you have to avoid oxybenzone is because it is harmful to the environment, especially for coral reefs.
Iif you go out into the ocean on vacation, try to buy a sunscreen without oxybenzone because you don’t want to disrupt the coral reefs with it. There are a lot of places that won’t actually allow you to use sunscreens with that, if you’re in the beach and in the water.
So try to use an SPF at least thirty sunscreen every day and avoid that oxybenzone.
My number two tip is to use a combination of vitamin C and vitamin E every morning. These are antioxidants that most skincare lines use.
Vitamin C helps to fight free radicals and get your skin protected from damage throughout the day. There are studies that show that when you combine vitamin C with vitamin E, you get a synergistic antioxidant effect. In essence, they combine together to work even better together than when they are alone.
There are a couple of them on the market today. C E Ferulic by SkinCeuticals is very popular.
So instead of just going with a simple vitamin C, if you can get a combination vitamin C and vitamin E antioxidant, you’re gonna get that synergistic power and much better antioxidant protection.
What is my number one skincare tip?
Use Retinol!
If you had to pick one anti-aging cream to use long-term, that is safe, that’s relatively inexpensive, that can reduce fine lines, that can fade age spots, that can thicken the dermis, deeper layer of the skin, that can exfoliate the skin, it is a retinol.
What I recommend is for all of you, as long as you tolerate it, because there are some people with real sensitive skin that can’t, but as long as you tolerate it, try to use a retinol based cream every evening.
That is going to be the best anti-aging cream that we know of scientifically.
The great thing about retinol is it’s not that expensive.
There are so many creams out there. They’re sold at these luxury department stores for hundreds and hundreds of dollars for even one ounce. They are not as scientifically proven as retinol.
There are a ton of companies that have their own retinol products. You can find them at your local drugstore, at your local department store.
So use a retinol moisturizer every night and you’re gonna be ahead of everybody else.
Those are my top five anti aging skin care routine tips.
Rebecca is a licensed aesthetician and certified laser technician with almost 15 years experience in the dermatology. Her life-long passion is making people look good and happy.