Anti-aging can be more about the expensive packaging than the product
In her book “The Mind-Beauty Connection,” Dr. Amy Wechsler, who is board-certified in both dermatology and psychiatry, writes about what contributes to aging skin and how to fight it. In this excerpt, she discusses stress and lack of sleep, the most common causes of aging skin. She also explains why many anti-aging potions are more about packaging than product. An excerpt.Getting started with revitalizing your looks: Skin-care essentials
Meet Clarissa, a 35-year-old mother with a skin age of at least 39. On some days, it’s more like 42. Like so many other working moms trying to have — and do — it all, Clarissa doesn’t get enough sleep at night (between five and six hours). The product manager for a large company in San Diego sets her alarm for 6:15 every morning so she can get her two young twins dressed and fed before dropping them off at preschool on her way to work. She’s at her desk by 9:00 a.m. to do a job that has become even more demanding due to a recent promotion. She’s usually back home around 7:00 p.m.
Her husband — whose workday starts and ends much earlier than hers — is the family chef. He’s fed the twins by the time Clarissa walks in, and while he pulls together some food for her, Clarissa does bath time with the kids. After that, the parents usually grab a half hour together while the kids wind down. They head to bed around nine and Dad’s close behind them, as he’s up at four. After they gone to bed Clarissa starts the Internet part of her night, catching up with friends via e-mail, checking the news, surfing her fave sites, and often doing some work. It pushes her bedtime into the wee hours.
The sleep deficit, caused in part by her stimulating, late-night Internet addiction as she catches up with friends on e-mail and surfs the net, has begun to show up on her face in the form of crinkles and a dullish skin tone, making her look older than her 35 years. “No one calls me, even by mistake, ‘young lady’ anymore,” she says, laughing. She also has dry white patches on her cheeks, a few horizontal lines on her forehead, and some sun spots that, she emphasizes, are not from the recent past. “Whenever I go for a half-hour run, I always wear a hat to cover my face and big sunglasses. Living in San Diego, I see a lot of sun damage, and I’m terrified of it.” To prove it, she brandishes a bottle of Shiseido sunscreen with an SPF of 55. “I love this and use it every morning, rain or shine,” she says.
I gave Clarissa a big thumbs-up to this healthy habit during her first appointment. Like most of my patients, she asked for a low-maintenance skin regimen, explaining, “I barely have time to brush my hair in the morning.” After taking her history (no blistering sunburns as a child but some secondhand smoke from her dad), I decided that topical tretinoin (under the trade name Renova .02) would be an easy fix for Clarissa’s fine lines, wrinkles, and brown spots, if she used it regularly every night. To treat the dry white patches, I gave her a product sample of hydrocortisone, which cleared them immediately.
Filling a prescription for Renova was the easiest of the antiaging tasks. I wanted Clarissa to go much further in addressing underlying stress. Clarissa’s life had become a treadmill of working and taking care of the kids, and I knew that from being a mom myself, having 3-year-old twins wasn’t easy. I encouraged her to sleep more, and take more time-outs without the kids so she could focus more on the happiness factor with her husband. I recommended that she hire a babysitter and go out at least every other weekend.
Six months later, Clarissa reported great results. Her skin, and her lifestyle, had improved measurably. Her skin tone evened out, and her sun spots faded. “My skin feels firmer, and the texture is so smooth that it looks like I’m wearing powder, though I’m not. I haven’t needed it since about a month or so after I started on the Renova.” She did have a few trouble spots — dry areas around her chin and jawline — but I instructed her to avoid applying the Renova to that area for about a week and it worked brilliantly.
Through trial and error, Clarissa also found a doable nightly skin routine she likes and has down pat: washing her face during her evening shower with her favorite Kiehl’s cleanser, then applying Renova, and last a hydrating moisturizer from Lancôme. (Mornings involve just a quick cleanse and a slathering of Shiseido sunscreen.) The evening self-care adds a bit of constancy to her busy life, a bit of me time that she finds therapeutic. “By being more diligent about my skin-care regimen, I feel proactive, like I’m actually helping improve the health of my skin. And knowing that I’m making my skin look and act younger makes me feel better.”
Getting more help has been good, too. Clarissa’s sister-in-law babysits for the couple two weekends a month so they can have some quality time together. This self-described workaholic known to bring her job home has also managed to shave a few hours off her workweek. While she is trying to go to bed earlier — for her, that means 11 — Clarissa admits to falling off the wagon at times. “I’m probably averaging about six and one-half to seven hours of sleep a night, which is more than I used to get,” she says. “But sometimes I toss and turn. Some people can just go to sleep when their head hits the pillow — my husband, for one; he’s lucky that way, but not me. My mind starts to race.”
Clarissa is not alone with her sleep issues. The same tips I gave her for achieving better, more restful sleep at night I’ll be giving you a bit later. One fact that Clarissa’s story points out is that skin care doesn’t have to be an expensive, time-consuming proposition. Whatever your age, and no matter how many kids or daily dramas you juggle, you can look younger — now and later — if you adopt a few stress-busters that really work for you, know which skin products actually do something (and which aren’t worth a dime), develop healthy sun habits, and learn how to deal with adult acne if that’s a problem for you. Sure, starting early and being consistent are ideal but it’s never too late to trade so-so habits for super ones.
Many women overdo it with their skin: overclean, overtreat, overeverything. So we’re going to go all the way back to basics during this program. Give your skin a rest by doing the absolute minimum. Imagine doing less, but seeing greater results.
In this chapter I’m going to cover beauty basics — what I think every woman should do regularly no matter what kind of skin she has. I’ll also share my own personal everyday skin-care routine, which can set the foundation for your new skin-care regimen. To start, let’s explore some of the general products currently available on the market — virtually all of them touting something related to youth, beauty, and antiaging. I’m going to show you how to save yourself money, headaches, wrinkles, and regrets.
The must-haves for optimum skin beauty
- A gentle daily cleanser
- Two good moisturizers — one for day use with sunscreen (SPF 30+) and another for night use
- If necessary: antiacne washes and formulas, exfoliants, antioxidant serums, retinoid/retinol formulas.
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