We like it. We like the feel when we wash our face. We like the feel when someone else touches our face. We like how it looks. With it, we look healthier, more vibrant and more energetic. Yet it can seem so elusive. Don’t despair, we are actually starting to get a good understanding of why our skin isn’t as smooth as we want as well as a whole complement of things we can do to help our skin.
Three things contribute to uneven skin texture:
1. Motion lines
2. Volume loss in the face
3. Collagen loss
Botox helps motion lines. Filler helps volume loss. We will spend the rest of this update on improving the collagen in our facial skin. (To help understand the importance of collagen, check out an older blog “Amazing Collagen”). Old skin is by definition collagen deprived skin. Improve the collagen and you will improve the skin. It is amazing to see this slow improvement over time with regular skin care. I see it in my family, our staff and our clients as they commit to regular consistent skin care and treatments. We pull out the original pictures of when they first come to the clinic 2, 5 or even 8 years ago and we forget where we started but the improvement is dramatic.
The problem with collagen is that we inevitably start losing it in our skin. The body is always building and repairing the structural collagen framework. At the same time however, there are destructive forces breaking this down. After age 30, the repair process starts slowing down and we start losing collagen.
The first line of defense is to minimize the destructive forces. In addition to protecting against skin cancer, sunscreen protects against the destructive forces of the sun. Daily use and applying the sunscreen as directed in the bottle insures maximum protection. To step up the defense, add antioxidants such as green tea to “soak up” the sun rays that make it past the sunscreen.
Building collagen in the skin requires us to work with our body’s natural ability to build collagen. Assuming you eat fruits, vegetables and protein there are three general approaches, daily skin care, peels and lasers. With daily skin care there are 4 compounds that have substantial scientific evidence that they help build collagen. Don’t buy the other 10,000 choices until you are using these 4 ingredients. They are retinol, glycolic acid, vitamin C (topically) and collagen stimulating peptides. Peels are the next step up. Finally, the best collagen stimulators are our lasers.
At Dermacare we have several collagen stimulating lasers to choose from, ranging from the gentle “Genesis Laser”, to the moderately aggressive “Fraxel Restore Laser” to our newest and most aggressive laser the “SmartSkin CO2 Laser”. These 3 all work, what varies is the number of treatments needed to achieve your desired results and the associated down time. Genesis has no downtime but requires the most treatments. The SmartSkin CO2 Laser gives amazing results in one treatment, with 7 days of recovery. Fraxel is intermediate between the others.
Making the right choice for you will require a quick consultation with any of our staff. What are your goals? What is your tolerance for downtime? What secondary skin issues do you have? What is your skin ethnicity and type, etc? These all need to be considered and individualized. The other benefit of the consultation will be to make sure your daily skin care compliments and maximizes your laser results. We look forward to seeing your transformation as we work with you to find your smooth skin. Call 858-943-2443!