Which anti-aging product should I use?

Aging; it’s great to gain more wisdom have more experience in life, but you know what’s not great about getting older? Wrinkles, face sagging, dark sports and so much more! Queue the billion dollar industry of ant-aging products. There are so many out there promising to perform a wide variety of miracles, (and they’re usually expensive) but how do you know which one to choose? Is the most expensive always better? Is more better? This article will help you understand what ingredients are actually in your products and how to use these products together for the best results.

The first thing that you want to take into consideration is your own skin tolerance and your skin needs. Most anti-aging products work by exfoliating the skin in some way to enhance cell turn over which produces newer, younger looking skin. This also means that if you’re not careful you can have some negative reactions, that is why you need to understand what your own skin can handle first.

So let’s talk about this, again aged skin is basically skin that is damaged. The damage can be caused by our environment, the sun, blue light from your screens, pollution and stress. When you are young and everything works how it should, your skin reproduces damaged skin with a quicker skin cell turn-over. As we get older, we slow down, that means your skin cell turn over slows down too, which results in wrinkles, dark spots and sagging skin. Anti-aging products help your skin to heal and rejuvenate quicker.

There are many different ingredients that can help with this process and new ingredients are being discovered as we speak, but we are going to talk about two basic ingredients. These are, antioxidants and peptides.

ANTIOXIDANTS

Antioxidants can help to protect from free radicals that are found in our environment, when these are applied topically they attach themselves to the cell membranes and neutralize them. When you apply antioxidants daily they can help prevent premature skin aging. Examples of antioxidants are, alpha lipoic acid, coenzyme Q10, green tea, resveratrol, pomegranate and vitamins A, C & E. One of the most potent of these ingredients is vitamin A, it protects it against UV damage and slows down aging. Vitamin A is made up of two parts, the first is beta-carotene and the second part is called retinoids. I’m sure that everyone has heard about retinol, and that’s right retinol is produced from vitamin A. The most potent form is called retinoic acid. This can only be prescribed by a doctor because even though it is very effective, due to its potency it may cause more side effects like redness, inflammation and irritation. The over the counter form of retinoic acid is called retinol. Retinol once applied to the skin turns into retinoic acid in the skin. This will add the mature skin to mature normally, it encourages skin exfoliation and brightens skin. Retinol will also improve hyperpigmentation. Another popular anti-aging ingredient is vitamin C. Some experts say that vitamin C is the anti-aging superstar. Vitamin C stimulates collagen, smooths texture, brightens and evens out skin tone. If you look at the ingredient section of your product, vitamin C will show up as ascorbic acid, ester C, vitamin C phosphate and tetrahexyldecyl ascorbate. To understand what these ingredients do, refer to my chart, ‘Types of Vitamin C in Skincare.‘ Another antioxidant are minerals; such as copper, magnesium, zinc, selenium, silica, sulfur and gold. So when you see these ingredients you can understand that they are helping to protect your skin from the environment around you.

PEPTIDES

Peptides are chains of amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. The most common proteins found in skin are collagen, elastin and keratin. This is responsible for the skin firmness and texture. Basically peptides help you to revitalize the building blocks of your skin to help smooth out lines and wrinkles, brighten skin tone and repair the skin barrier.

So let’s put this in understandable terms. Your skin is not repairing damage like it used to, so what should you do? Use these ingredients to help produce newer younger looking skin as well as protect your skin.

IS MORE ALWAYS BETTER?

Obviously, when you use higher quantities of these ingredients you will get more noticeable results; however, PROCEED WITH CAUTION! These ingredients can cause a lot of irritation on your skin, so always start out with small amounts and work up from there. You may not want to use these ingredients every day. Sometimes a few times a week is enough. This will require some experimentation on your part. Find what works for you. This should go without saying, but these ingredients always make your skin incredibly sensitive to the sun, so always use sunscreen at least an SPF 50.

IS THE MOST EXPENSIVE ALWAYS THE BEST?

Here is the short answer, no. The most expensive products are not always better. Many times you are just paying for the brand. What you want to look for is the concentration of these main ingredients. The higher concentration of the ingredients, the more potent and effective they will be. One great brand is ‘The Ordinary.’ This brand is a cost effective brand that gives you the same ingredients as many of the more expensive brands. I always like to look for samples, so I don’t have to commit to buying the whole product without knowing if it even works for me.

Using anti-aging products is always an experimentation for each person. Always consult your dermatologist for more suggestions and recommendations. What works for one person will not always work for everyone. Hopefully this article will help you understand what these ingredients actually do, so you can choose the right ones for your skin needs.