Inspired by today’s announcement at the American Academy of Dermatology of the successor product to the highly successful Kinerase, Pyratine-6, it seemed to me that a few words were in order about skin care. Many anti-aging doctors place less emphasis on skin care than I do. I’ve gotten into some heated arguments about the importance of process and product with my peers. The dermatologists, though, almost never disagree with me. Here are my thoughts.
Skin care may not be the most dramatic or sexiest anti-aging intervention that you can make but taking care to prevent environmental damage and maximize the health of your facial skin can go further over time than many other anti-aging choices you might make.
Skin care isn’t hard but it does take time. Be you male or female, using quality product is key. Most body washes and bar soaps are really too harsh to use as face washes and will tend to leave skin too dry. Committing to a good quality, face targeted skin care line is important. I have my biases here, but there are a lot of good product lines. The minimum product level that I’d consider from a major retailer is something like Garnier or the high end of the Olay line, Regenerist. The biggest problem that major retailer products have is a lack of expert advise. Buying from your physician’s office or esthetician should, in theory, help you get products well matched to your skin.
The process is pretty simple and basically 3 steps. Cleanse, tone, moisturize. Some lines have products that shortcut this, but I’m skeptical whether skipping a toning step works as well. Historically toners removed the oily residue of non-waterbased cleansers. Modern toners adjust the pH of the skin and prepare the skin for the third step, moisturizing. There’s a great video demo and explanation of the whole process here. Regardless, the daytime moisturizer that you use should have a sunscreen in it with an SPF of at least 20, higher is probably better but I dial this number down a little to bias toward the products I use.
Additional steps can come in the form of eye creams and specialty products. Whether eye creams matter or not is a subject of debate. As for other specialty products there are many products for anti-oxidant protection like Prevage, reducing wrinkles like Kinerase or skin recovery like TNS Recovery Complex. There are even prescription product lines like Obagi that include actual pharmaceutical products in the skin care routine. Do you need these? Get your skin looked at by a professional. Finding a professional you can trust is hard, but worth it.
I use SkinMedica product, personally. I like it, I know the line and it works well for my skin. What you settle on for skin care will be dependent on your needs and budget, but get serious about skin care. It’s one of the simplest changes you can make to age against the machine.
