If you want to make a good impression, your skin is the first place to start. Yes, one thing’s for sure: your skin isn’t the same as it was at 20. Healthy habits and smart lifestyle choices can make you look and feel years younger. After years of sun exposure has left your skin wrinkled and littered with tiny age spots and the amount of collagen and elastin aren’t quite what they were. “As you age your skin’s requirements change quite dramatically,” says Sally Penford of the International Dermal Institute.
So how can you make the best of what your genes gave you? Practice these tips to avoid the following skin-damaging habits.
The good news is that, is there’s plenty you can do to improve and you just need to know how to go about it. So here’s what you need to do to, quite literally, save face.
1. Wear sunscreen daily
One thing men generally overlook is sunscreen. If you’re outdoors, even in the winter, you’re exposed to ultraviolet radiation from the sun, and it adds up. “Your fifties is the decade during which, if you haven’t been using sunscreen, earlier sun damage really becomes apparent,” says dermatologist Dr Nicholas Lowe, author of Skin Secrets. That doesn’t mean you’re a lost cause: “Using SPF15 daily will help slow down the formation of wrinkles and age spots, which often proliferate in this decade” he says.
- Avoid rubbing your eyes too often
Most Dermatologists agree that the skin around your eyes is the most delicate skin on your body. Treating that area roughly will likely result in wrinkles and sagging. “The more you rub, the more it stretches the skin and breaks down the collagen and elastin, making skin more wrinkly,” says Dr. Piliang. “The more you do it, the worse it gets.” Stretching the skin around your eyes to apply makeup has a similar damaging effect. “You want to minimize the tension you put on that skin,” she adds.
3. Use moisturizer
Because the production of sebum – the oil that keeps skin moist and supple – slows down as we get older, skin can feel drier and be more susceptible to dehydration. So keeping your skin adequately hydrated becomes especially important. If you’ve never used a moisturizer before, now’s the time to start.
4. Improve your facial muscle tone
Your skin relies on collagen – a fibrous structural protein – for its strength. In men’s skin, collagen is particularly dense, which is why we wrinkle later in life than women. The downside of this is that when we do wrinkle we wrinkle big time, with deeper furrows and more pronounced wrinkles.
5. How to reduce age spots
Maybe, despite all the above, you can’t be bothered to drastically change your grooming routine. You want a quick solution to the ageing process (but don’t fancy Botox). Well, for an instant improver, look for skincare products such as Lab Series BB Tinted Moisturizer SPF35, which contain light-reflecting particles, helping to diffuse light as it hits the skin, diminishing shadows, evening out your skin tone and making wrinkles a little less pronounced
