Aging Skin Care
By Nicholas Davidson
This article is all about the best ways of caring for aging skin and why minimising free radical exposure can help
keep you looking younger. Prevention is better than the cure.
No matter how old you are, it’s never too soon or too late to be worried about aging skin care. Your skin,
being the outermost layer of your body, is the part of you that people see, and reflects
your overall state of health and age. If you are concerned at all about how you appear, it’s therefore a good idea to take good care of
your skin.
The best method of aging skin care is to start young. The effects of age on skin doesn’t happen overnight, and
actually starts occurring right after you’re born. Actually, you could even argue that your skin begins to ‘age’ the moment it is
formed inside the womb. Although it seems to age all of a sudden for a lot of people, in a period of just a few years, the visible
effects of aging skin are the result of a process that has been happening for as long as you’ve been alive.
So the sooner the better with aging skin care. What causes skin to age is a few different things, but the major visible reason for
aging skin comes down to damage done to the elastic proteins your skin has to keep it tight. What causes the damage is
chiefly free radicals. What the heck are free radicals you ask? A free radical is just a fancy chemistry word for an oxygen
compound gone wrong. It actually doesn’t have to be oxygen, but in our environment it almost always is. An oxygen molecule that
has been split is highly reactive and very corrosive to pretty much everything it comes in contact with, including the proteins in your
skin.
Since oxygen is everywhere, you can’t really avoid this corrosive effect all together. However, you can lower the amount of free
radicals that occur in your skin in a few ways. UV radiation is a major source of free radicals, as it is just the right wavelength to
split oxygen molecules, so staying out of the sun is a good form of aging skin care. A little sun light everyday is okay, and actually
good for you, but its never a good idea to lay out all day in the sun if you’re worried about aging skin care. Even
using sunscreen, some UV rays are going to get through and do damage over time.
Another key form of aging skin care is to avoid tobacco and alcohol. Smoking anything, especially tobacco, is a great way to infuse
your entire body with free radicals, and too much drinking will do the same.
The best ways I know for aging skin care are the above preventative measures, as these are the only real ways to keep young looking
skin. Once wrinkles occur, you can’t get rid of them without surgery, and aging skin care products are just different
ways of covering them up.
Resources:
National Institute Of Aging - Skin Care and Aging. "Defy aging.", Tone and firm sagging skin.", "Restore your skin's own wrinkle control"
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