Best Health features a 6 page spread as an ultimate skincare guide for the 30’s through 60’s plus. There’s no shame in aging… aging well means investing in healthy skin.
Beauty Directer Ingrid Williams collects the best advice and best products to help you love the skin you are in, and focuses on tips and tools for the 30’s, 40’s, 50’s and 60’s.
Along the way she talked to and consulted Pacific Derm’s Dr. Marcie Ulmer.
Insights into the aging process and your aging blueprint:
“We know that aging is partly intrinsic and partly extrinsic. The speed at which the process unfolds depends on a person’s genetics and exposures — it’s the extrinsic factors we can modify,” says Dr. Marcie Ulmer, a cosmetic and medical dermatologist at Pacific Dermatology in Vancouver.
Advice for 30’s, on sunscreens and antioxidants:
After SPF, Dr. Ulmer lists antioxidant topical agents as a daily do. “Studies suspect pollution causes skin damage contributing to wrinkles and pigmentation. This is because it causes the generation of free radicals,” she says. Think of an antioxidant serum as a booster to your SPF: “I recommend wearing it underneath sunscreen each morning to enhance photo-protection, while it helps to minimize fine lines and improve skin texture.” Look for ingredients such as vitamin C or ascorbic acid, black tea, or blueberry extract.
Advice for 40’s, on the appropriate use of retinols and the necessary acclimatization period:
“The trickiest thing is that it can be irritating,” says Dr. Ulmer. “Start low and go slow.” She recommends that you work it into your routine once or twice a week at bedtime for the first few weeks and then increase the frequency as your tolerance grows, pairing it with a nourishing moisturizer to offset side effects like flaking.
Insight into the onset of menopause in your 50’s:
“Menopause is a dramatic change, I really do see that. Women tell me ‘all of sudden it was a like a switch was flipped,’” says Dr. Ulmer. Best Health continues that internally, the system is thrown out of whack, and the decline of the functions in the processes that happen in your skin is five times faster after you reach menopause.
Advice for 50’s on sleeping tips, as there are multiple benefits to be had from a great night’s sleep:
“Sleeping on your back is best. If you sleep on your face or side, you can get sleep wrinkles,” says Dr. Ulmer.
Insight into the various impacts the aging process has in your 60’s:
“It’s not just the skin that’s aging, it’s the facial structure, too,” says Dr. Ulmer. “Volume loss is related to fat. We lose fat in our faces and that contributes to wrinkles, jowls and changes in facial proportion and shape.” Bone loss also adds to the change. “It contributes to volume loss as the bone structure is unable to support the overlying soft tissue in the same way that it once did.” Best Health recommends that to help slow the change, eat nutritiously, exercise often (try weight-bearing activities that keep bones strong), and look for plump and firm products.
