Ultimate Anti-Aging Regimen 101

Ultimate Anti-Aging Regimen 101

How to stop aging?  Ah, the age old question, no pun intended.  Well, let’s just start by saying that everyone, including newborns, are aging.  (I borrowed this line from Gwyneth Paltrow’s educational book on beauty and health, Goop Clean Beauty.)  We can’t fight, stop, reverse, prevent, halt, or bypass aging without serious consequence, anyway (what’s the alternative to aging?). But, I think the phrase “anti-aging regimen” means simply that we incorporate a daily skincare routine that takes what we know about skin health to the max. For example, we know that the sun (a carcinogen, by the way) directly destroys precious collagen, the building block protein of skin. Avoiding the sun will lead to fewer wrinkles. Wearing sunscreen is not anti-aging endeavor– it is simply enabling you, and your skin, to age well.

Being on anti-aging regimen means avoiding harmful substances that accelerate aging, and also helping to foster good skin health.

Here is the Ultimate Anti-Aging Regimen 101 for a person with NORMAL skin, year-round:

Morning

• Cleanse with warm water – washing your face in the morning should not be a big deal, and no, there are no anti-aging cleansers, not possible
• Apply antioxidant vitamin C serum – this literally scavenges free radicals (the bad hombres) produced by the sun , reversing sun damage + helps make more collagen + lightens brown spots and helps with skin pigmentation problems
• Layer a moisturizing sunscreen on top – dehydrated skin looks dull, and hence old; sunscreen we already know about

Evening

• Remove makeup, if any
• Cleanse face with a gentle cleanser, or, if you have oily skin or normal skin and wish to exfoliate, a glycolic acid cleanser – again, let’s not harp on face wash; the active ingredients are not in contact with skin long enough to do any real magic
• Apply antioxidant powerhouse vitamin A – goes by many names including tretinoin, tazarotene, retinol, retinaldehyde, retinyl palmitate – which one to start with? don’t obsess, pick one and see how it goes; main side effect with by dryness! Vitamin A helps reverse sun damage, treat existing pre-cancerous lesions, tightens loose skin, lighten brown marks, shrinks pores, and helps with overall skin rejuvenation
• Layer a rich night cream on top – look for ceramides, glycerin, dimethicone, hyaluronic acid

Anti-Aging Formula In a nutshell

AM: C + SPF

PM: Cleanse + A + Moisture