The Dry Skin Myth

Dry skin causes wrinkles, right? Right?  That’s what I’ve always been told and that’s what I believed until I took a closer look into this common myth.  Let’s take a look into what makes the skin form wrinkles. The causes of skin aging can be broken down into 5 categories that we will look at individually.

Skeletal Remodeling

Huh?  As we age, our bones go through changes and the bones in our face actually tend to decrease in size.  As you can imagine, if the bones are smaller they don’t “fill in” our faces as well.  This is particularly evident in the jaw and on the forehead, where the skin often starts to sag.  Unfortunately, there isn’t a lot that we can do at this time to prevent this from happening.  There isn’t a cream in the world that can fix this, but there are non-invasive procedures (fillers) and surgical procedures (face lifts and facial implants) that can help if you want to go that route.

Gravity

Well, we all know about this one.  As we age the cumulative effects of gravity start to take over.  Gravity is constantly working against us and pulling our soft tissues downward.  Now, obviously we can’t take away the gravity effect unless we all move to the moon but we can take steps to make our skin more resilient to gravity.  Collagen and elastin fibers help to hold our skin structures together and as we age these fibers deteriorate.  The goal is to increase the natural formation of these two fibers.  You can do this in several ways- the most important thing to do is feed your body the ingredients that it needs to make them:  soy, dark green vegetables, and beans can all help.  Secondly, treat your skin with glycolic acid or another one of the alpha-hydroxy acids to stimulate production.

Muscular Facial Activity

You know those people that have their feelings written all over their face?  I’m one of those people with a very expressive face- and I pay for it with crow’s feet, the dreaded “11” on the forehead and other expression lines.  The good news is that research has brought us wonderful ingredients that help to decrease these lines.  Argireline (otherwise known as acetyl-hexapeptide 3) is a peptide that decreases the muscle tension that causes these lines.  It doesn’t work to the same extent that an injectable would, but it does offer great non-invasive results on expression lines.  

Soft Tissue Maturation

As we get older, our skin cells and the tissues underneath begin to function differently.  The skin cells become flattened and distorted and the skin itself becomes thinner.  Skin cells are produced at a much slower rate than they were when we were younger.  These factors cause the skin to lose more water- which makes the skin look worse, but I’ll get to that later.  Retinol is one of the greatest ingredients available to mitigate these effects.  Retinol speed up skin cell turnover- it helps you to make new skin cells faster.  The best news is that the new skin cells that are formed tend to function more normally and are not flattened.  After just two weeks of use you can see visible benefits of retinol and there are countless benefits that you can’t see.  There are few ingredients that I would term to be true skin care “superstars” but this is one of them.  There are certainly side effects of retinol use and some people cannot tolerate it (it can cause dry flaky patches, itchiness and redness).  To avoid side effects, try using it every other day until you know how your skin reacts and increase usage as you are able to.  The side effects should subside after two weeks.  If you use retinol make sure you protect your skin from the sun because it will be more sensitive.

Solar Changes

When it comes to damage from the sun, there is good news and bad news.  The bad news is that it wreaks havoc on our skin- causes skin cancer, sun spots, collagen and elastin destruction...need I go any further.  The good news is, you guessed it, it’s preventable!!!  So lather up, get your fake bake on and look young for years to come!

So what about dry skin?  Well, as I said earlier, it just makes wrinkles look worse.  By hydrating the skin we plump up those areas that are wrinkled and sagging and drooping.  Did you know that some companies will use alcohol to clean someone’s face before they take “Before” pictures in skin care product trials.  That’s because alcohol dries out the skin cells and makes the skin look worse than it actually is!  

There are 3 key ways to hydrate the skin:

1. Provide it with water- drink up!
2. Provide it with hyaluronic acid- this ingredient is incorporated in SimplySkin Rx’s Prime and Restore products.  It binds water in the deeper layers of the skin to keep it moisturized from within. (Stay tuned for our new Hydrate mask that contains hyaluronic acid)
3. Provide it with oils- the key moisturizing ingredients in lotions and creams are the oils that help your skin retain moisture.  Sometimes it takes time to find a formulation that works for you and doesn’t clog your pores, but your skin needs moisture so keep looking.