Anti-Ageing Info Sheet

By botemp, please do not copy or distribute without permission.

What Constitutes ‘Ageing’

There are several factors contributing to the age of our skin; some we can influence, like our exposure to the sun, limiting and preferably abstaining from bad habits like smoking, having a good diet supplemented by exercise, etc. Other factors, like gravity, harsh weather, the general decline of the body, hereditary influences, stress, obesity, and expressive facial movements are as of yet beyond our control.

Within the context of skincare the term anti-ageing, and its various variations, are thrown around rightly and wrongly to tempt consumers into stopping or even reversing the hands of time. Whilst it is true that certain things can be influenced by behaviour the reality is nothing will stop us physically ageing, the best we can do is manage it in the best and healthiest way possible.

There’s more to Anti-Ageing than ‘just’ Wrinkles

Anti-ageing routines are often prompted and disproportionately focus on the onset of wrinkles there’s more than ‘just’ wrinkles contributing to it than that. Our body stops producing the building blocks for healthy ‘young’ looking skin in the same amounts as we age.

The loss of fatty tissue between skin and muscle (subcutaneous support) results in a general lack of firmness elasticity. Whilst wrinkles seem to appear much more suddenly the slow erosion caused by this gradual deficit will be more transformative over time.

Other natural changes to your skin as it ages are:

• A rougher texture
• Slackening due to loss of elastic tissue
• A thinning epidermis (the surface layer) causing it to reveal more of what’s underneath (small veins, etc) and expressing in a more uneven tone and can be the cause of increased sensitivity.
• Bruising can occur more easily and skin is more fragile.
• The loss of oil glands result in dry or drier skin

A well rounded anti-ageing skincare routine looks beyond the most superficial signs of ageing, tackling the natural onset of biological ageing as it occurs below the skin by supplementation (with active ingredients) to counter the deficit.  

Biggest External Factors that Contribute to (Premature) Ageing

UV light damage aka photoaging

Yes, that lovely thing the sun, responsible for life on earth and all that jazz is the thing causing that dreadful ageing thing. The sun giveth and taketh, so to speak.

The damage from the sun is twofold, UVB rays that cause skin to burn -and therefore permanently damaged- results in pigmentation spots or age spots if you’re going to be mean about it . Meanwhile, UVA rays (which are naturally present year round in constant levels, even reaching indoors) penetrates deeper in our skin and damages elastin fibers in our skin, the protein responsible for keeping skin firm and elastic.

Elastin is also essential in healing bruising and tears, this is the type of sun damage that won’t show up until later in life in the form of sagging. Preempting it with the use of a daily broad spectrum sunscreen is therefore one of the best anti-ageing decisions you can make from a very young age.

Secondary Factors

Gravity takes over where elastin drops off, your skin’s inability to literally bounce back with the same ease results in gravity taking its course. Those with highly expressive facial movements will start to see the effects of a lack of elastin sooner, lines settling it with more ease from their 30s onwards.

Your sleep position can also impact the way you age, skin creasing more dominantly on one side if you are a side sleeper. The only true solution is sleeping on your back, easier said than done. Specifically marketed silk pillowcases will do little except minimise the appearance of ‘settled lines’ first thing in the morning. Some may see results with specifically designed pillows that encourage sleeping on your back.

Smoking

I think there’s little left to be said on the dangers and risks associated with smoking, however, within the specific context of skin the research is overwhelming. Smokers are far more prone to wrinkles than those who don’t. Smoking causes free radical damage, one of the biggest contributors to premature ageing.

Anti-Ageing Ingredients

What should one be looking for?

The Base Line: Broad Spectrum Sunscreen

As noted above, the sun is responsible for the majority of photoaging. Thankfully the answer to that is simple to remedy with a stand alone broad spectrum sunscreen. Boring and annoying as it sounds that really is the base line of any anti-ageing regime. You cannot use photosensitising actives without a sunscreen, you can’t expect all the beneficial restorative and replenishing to work at their best without a support system. In a word, sunscreen is essential and without it an anti-ageing routine simply isn’t an anti-ageing routine.

However, it is important to note that sunscreen isn’t a holy saviour that protects you from everything. User error means it is unlikely you are consistently getting the advertised protection. You are even more unlikely to reach anything near the advertised protection on products containing sunscreen filters like makeup and moisturisers. Nor are they likely to deliver the necessary broad spectrum coverage a stand alone sunscreen will provide. As an anti-ageing product anything other than a designated sunscreen is of no interest and is mostly a useful way for the cosmetics industry to help you buy into a false sense of security and charge you more for a product and even additional products like a night cream.

Even a stand alone broad spectrum sunscreen has its limitations

While a stand alone broad spectrum sunscreen protects you from UVA and UVB rays but does very little in terms of protection from both visible and infrared light which can cause minor skin damage. Therefore beyond the use of sunscreen (which is a great and essential start) it is import to seek out supportive players that restore and replenish skin and minimise and/or prevent any incurred damage.

So what are these supplemental ingredients? They come in a variation of ingredients and products and are as follows:

• Exfoliants - in the form of leave-on chemical exfoliants that are non-abrasive (read: not a scrub) in the form of PHA, AHA, or BHA.

• Antioxidants - antioxidants won’t fight ageing but it will help minimise and deter further damage from environmental stress as well as having adjuvant qualities such as calming the skin, thus reducing inflammation (another premature ager). There are numerous antioxidants and the skincare industry is all too eager to discover the next power super star but the most researched antioxidants for skin include green tea, vitamin C, vitamin E, soy, genistein, pomegranate, and resveratrol. It should be noted that most research on the effect of antioxidants in skincare are done with ‘fresh’ ingredients directly on skin, so the claims are often questionable once translated into mass produced skincare. There is also plenty of research that antioxidants derived from diet are equally beneficial for skin health like astaxanthin (found abundantly in salmon). Antioxidants are best paired in or with a sunscreen.

• Skin Restoring Ingredients - Skin-restoring ingredients are about maintaining the balance in your skin, keeping it at its most optimal condition. These ingredients, like niacinamide and adenosine, work on improving and maintain skin tone and texture. On top of that ingredients like retinol and certain peptides can help minimise the appearance of wrinkles.

• Skin Replenishing Ingredients - These are the building blocks naturally present in your skin and responsible for its optimal and ‘youthful’ appearance. As we age levels drop so topically providing these ingredients as a form of supplementation becomes essential in an anti-ageing routine if we wish to retain that ideal balance that is responsible for soft and elastic feel keeping at bay dryness and dehydration.

These groupings of ingredients are the result of prolific research that is independently verified and proven to work best for anti-ageing purposes. There’s always something new on the horizon promising to be the next messiah, and whilst it’s easy to be dismissive all of the above mentioned groups of ingredients were once considered new and probably regarded with a healthy dose of scepticism. However, if you want proven ingredients with a long track record than the above is where the focus of anti-ageing will remain.

DIAGRAM:

The Anti-Ageing Holy grails: Retin-A (and its OTC Variances) + Broad Spectrum Sunscreen

Proven independently verified ingredients with a long track record that actually deliver anti-ageing results going so far as to reverse signs of ageing.

The Holy Trinity Support Cast: AHA, Vitamin C, Niacinamide

Proven independently verified with a long track record that help delay the onset of signs of ageing or minimise them.

The Promise of the Future: Peptides, EGF, Amino Acids, Copper Peptides

Proven independently verified with a shorter record that help delay the onset of signs of ageing or minimise them acting in similar ways as ‘traditional’ anti-ageing ingredients but often in a gentler form. Sometimes the theory to explain why something is working is lacking but the evidence can be verified.

Food for thought: Antioxidants

Ingredients that help counter free radical damage -once-healthy oxygen molecules that are now overactive and unstable-.

The Substitutes: argireline, hyaluronic acid, ceramides, collagen, fatty acids and lipids, cholesterol

The ingredients that are naturally present in our skin and responsible for the integrity of healthy and youthful appearing skin that naturally decline with age.

When to Start an Anti-Ageing Routine

There is no definitive age, the dermatological age has little relation to your chronological age due to external impacting factors and genetics. Many will start using common anti-ageing actives earlier than necessary for their use with other skin conditions.

As noted above a broad spectrum sunscreen is the best form of anti-ageing that makes sense at any age and for most will suffice as such until the first onset of signs of ageing.

Mid twenties are traditionally the time that the essential building blocks for younger looking skin start dropping off (albeit it in very low numbers). This doesn’t result in an aged appearance but there can be a noticeable change in terms of hydration levels and cell turnover speed. Ingredients like Vitamin C, Hyaluronic Acid, AHAs and Niacinamide become more of interest. Late twenties to mid thirties is usually the time to start incorporating Retinol and its alternatives like EGF, Peptides, Copper, etc.

Is it worth starting earlier? Prevention is better than cure, right?

If the question is, ‘Is it worth starting earlier because you’re deathly terrified of ageing?’ then the answer is a definitive no. Ageing happens, period. It’s nothing scary, it’s a natural part of life. As women specifically there’s a lot of discrimination against ageing and the beauty industry gleefully exploits this to scare us into buying a lot of unnecessary shit. Don’t become a victim to this, educating yourself on what works and what doesn’t helps you make smart choices rather than following directives from those who seek to benefit from you financially. You may not get to control what eventually happens but it won’t suddenly descend on you either. At best a targeted high actives routine will delay the point and impact of ageing, nothing will stop it from happening no matter how earlier you start.

I recommend using a broad spectrum sunscreen at any age simply because of the benefits it has to the skin including anti-ageing but not solely because of it. Protecting your skin from UV damage helps relegate the energy and resources spent on repairing that damages on the rest of your skin. And lest we forget, most importantly the prevention of skin cancer and the reason why the WHO advocates the daily use of it.

If the question is, ‘Is it worth starting earlier because I’d rather start from the point of delaying onset than rectifying after the fact?’ then the answer is a tacit yes. Things to keep in my mind with actives is that we build up strength but there must be a balance to avoid causing over exfoliation, ie. damage you were trying to prevent in the first place.

As we get older the physiological makeup of skin also means we’re less likely to tolerate things well. On the one hand understanding the limits and preference of your skin is always helpful, on the other hand, it wouldn’t make sense to build up to a place of maximum strength at an age where there’s little need for such a strong active especially if there are no other skin conditions to address.

Routine Examples

The following routines are separated by age range and don’t take in consideration additional skin issues. Nor is it required to follow a routine simply because that’s your age bracket, at its most basic the ‘up to age 25’ routine suffices as an anti-ageing routine for any adult as a minimum, further routines are for those who wish to gain more benefits from specific ingredients. Ages are approximate and based on the dropping levels of certain essential building blocks like Hyaluronic Acid, Vitamin C, Collagen, Elastin, etc. and only indicative. Ageing can happen at earlier or later ages dependant on lifestyle, disease, etc.

Up to the age of 25

AM

• Cleanse
• Moisturiser (if necessary)
• Broad Spectrum Sunscreen (SPF30 min. year round, SPF 50 in summer)

PM

• (Double) Cleanse
• Moisturiser (if necessary)

Age 25 - Up to Early/Mid-Thirties

AM

• Cleanse
• Vitamin C
• Hyaluronic Acid (if suffering with dehydration) or other replenishing ingredient/combination thereof
• Moisturiser
• Broad Spectrum Sunscreen (SPF30 min. year round, SPF 50 in summer)

PM

• (Double) Cleanse
• -Possibility of Retinol and AHA can be explored-
• Niacinamide Serum (or in high concentrations 4-5% in moisturiser)
• Hyaluronic Acid (if suffering with dehydration) or other replenishing ingredient/combination thereof
• Moisturiser (usually containing a mix of restorative and replenishing ingredients) and/or oil (if suffering from increased dryness)

Early/Mid-Thirties and beyond

AM

PM

(When to Seek Out a (Cosmetic) Dermatologist)

(Further Reading)