The foundation of antiaging skin care is to protect your skin from damage as the years go by, specifically to protect it from exposure to the sun. This is very difficult for several reasons: most of us have a lot of exposure to the sun when we are small children and, in Western culture, it is both fashionable to have a suntan and a popular form of recreation to lounge in the sun on a summer day.
It’s a strange contradiction that we tend to spend a lot of time in the sun, causing premature damage to the skin, and then go to great lengths to obtain antiaging skin care treatment to reverse the damage done. By the time we are adults, we have already sustained a lot of damage to the skin, even though we are not seeing it yet. Sun damage is cumulative over the years, and doesn’t show up until later in life. Antiaging skin care, then, should start when we are very young – skin should be protected with sunscreens and sun blocks whenever we are out in the sun.
Sunlight contains various wavelengths of light ranging from infrared through visible light and into the ultraviolet range. It is the ultraviolet rays of the sun that do the majority of damage to the skin. Ultraviolet sunlight is typically dived into UV-A and UV-B rays. UV-A penetrates to deeper layers of skin and stimulates tanning, but does not burn the skin as readily, while UV-B has more superficial penetration but causes more sunburn. Both types have been implicated in cell damage and malignancies of the skin, therefore exposure to both the sun and to the UV light in tanning beds will require some level of antiaging skin care treatment.
Skin tone is created by the pigment melanin, produced by cells deep in the skin. Melanin actually protects the skin from sun damage like a naturally produced sunscreen and this is why the skin produces more melanin, turning brown, in response to exposure to sunlight. Some people have more natural melanin in the skin than others, resulting in darker skin, and these people, not surprisingly, appear to have a lower incidence of skin cancers than light skinned people. It’s not good logic however, to tan in order to produce more melanin and protect your skin from sunlight – while you are acquiring that tan, the UV rays are doing damage to your skin cells. An antiaging skin care treatment that protects your skin from sun damage is a much better approach.
In today’s world of increased life spans and abundant leisure time, it’s hard to achieve a balance between perfecting a healthy lifestyle, following the fashion trends and enjoying the pleasures of outdoor life: there’s a trade-off to be made between having that glowing tan and having younger looking skin. Hard as it is to accept, the best antiaging skin care treatment is to stay out of the sun. Period.
