- Reaction score
- 20
Yeah, eventually time will take its toll. Next to a lot of unprotected sun exposure, being very expressive with your face
, not sleeping on your back, stress, having a bad diet, not sleeping enough, etc. Can you evade all of that and still be happy? Nope.Just live a healthy, happy life (going out/partying with lots of alcohol and 'unhealthy' food can definately be part of a happy life if done in moderation), use sunscreen (forgetting it once is not bad, most people rarely ever use sunscreen on a daily basis) and just take good care of your skin. With this you'll reduce the rate at which your skin ages by a lot.
Fine lines on the forehead are the signs of aging that pop up quite early. Most of us frown a lot and/or sleep on their belly, and over time those lines become deeper and more permanent. Dry skin often aggrevates this. Plump and hydrated skin bounces back easier, reducing the outspokenness of those lines.
The skin under the eyes is delicate and very thin, and eye creams imo are mostly gimmick. Topical caffeine is the only thing that seems to fight the typical bags and dark circles a bit. Sleep well and cut down sugar intake and you should see some improvement regardless.
Ask your dermatologist for a tretinoin prescription, don't buy it at an online pharmacy (if you were intending to). The last thing you want is having expired tretinoin or with bad carriers like alcohol. Start with once a week, if that goes well increase to twice a week, etc. Always use it in the PM and moisturize a lot.
Every skincare regime starts with cleansing. You can't moisturize or use any other product if you don't wash pollution, sunscreen, sweat, etc off your face first. If you don't cleanse once or twice a day, don't bother using anything else either. Which cleanser you should use depends if you have dry/sensitive or combination/oily skin. Very cheap yet good cleansers are the ones of CeraVe. They have a foaming cleanser (for combination or oily skin) and a hydrating one for sensitive or dry skin. I use the hydrating one (the foaming is way too drying for me) after an oil cleanser (I use a lot of sunscreen, and normal non-oil cleansers are not that good in removing all traces of sunscreen).
Exfoliating is very good (especially after 30, as skin cell renewal already slows down rapidly), but if you're using tretinoin I would be hesitant to use it at the same time as it could aggravate the drying effect of tret. YMMV, just look at how your skin reacts.
Sunscreen is even more important if you're using tretinoin (and/or exfoliators). Without sunscreen you could make things worse.
I know many people think sunscreen is a b**ch as it's greasy and leaves a white cast. Good (face) sunscreens are very rare indeed, but there are some.
I've been using the Purito centella green level unscented sun (its a south korean brand) for a few months and it's by far the best sunscreen I've ever used. It's quite moisturizing, calms down the skin (cuz of the centella asiatica extract), doesn't feel greasy (it does leave a dewy finish though, some may hate it), leaves no white-cast, has no fragrance, has SPF50+ and a PA++++/PPD20-22 protection (aka pretty much the highest protection you can find), uses newer and perfectly safe chemical sunscreen filters, and is quite moderately priced (18€ for 60ml).
There are many good others out there, but all of them are either European or Asian. American sunscreens suck a lot and I wouldn't recommend a single one of them (at least not for daily use on the face).
And oh, why you should use sunscreen:
UV (ultraviolet) light is present every day of the year, winter and summer. There are 3 types of UV light; UVA, UVB and UVC.
UVC is the most dangerous, but has the shortest wavelength (<280 nanometer) and for that reason it can't penetrate the atmosphere/ozon layer.
UVB has a longer wavelength (280-320 nm) and is the type that actually burns your skin. The SPF you read on sunscreens only protects against UVB.
UVA has the longest wavelength (320-400 nm) and is the one responsible for aging your skin. It won't burn or redden your skin, but it'll do the most damage over the years (as it can reach the deeper levels of skin). It can also penetrate glass, while UVB cannot. Look for the the PA (protection from UVA) and PPD (persistent pigment darkening) scores of sunscreens.
So a proper sunscreen should ideally have filters that protect you from all UV light between 280-400nm (UVB and UVA), also called broad spectrum sunscreen.
Microneedling can be effective, but anything beyond 0.5mm I wouldn't recommend on your face (especially not by a professional).
