Your Skin and the Sun: Part Two

The sun is an interesting 2 edged sword, as we spoke in this article. We obviously cannot live without it, but it has many effects on us, including the appearance of our skin. In actuality our skin doesn’t really age as much as it becomes sun damaged. To see this look at the tops of your hands and the tops of your feet or even better the cheeks of your face and the cheeks of your buttocks. They are all the same age, but they don’t look the same.

Taking Care of your Skin

Look at the carpet in your house by the window and the carpet away from the window. The sun does the same thing to your skin. It is interesting to notice that people who drive on the right side of the road like in the US have older appearing left sides of the face than right and those in UK have older appearing right sides of the face. UVA, which is one of the main components of energy emitted by the sun, penetrates window glass.

Sun-damaged skin appears sallow, has a lot of play on texture and a lot of play on color. Fine lines and wrinkles also appear on the surface. To treat the manifestations of sun damage the most important thing to do is to use sunscreen every morning as part of your daily routine.

Skincare Advice

SPF 15-30 is certainly sufficient and you will not only help prevent further damage as well as skin cancer, but the appearance of the sun-damaged skin will actually begin to reverse. At night the use of a retinol cream has been shown to improve the appearance of sun-damaged skin as well. It is best to use the retinol at night as the molecule is sensitive to sun and will not be as effective if used during the day.

Standard office treatment consists of chemical peels to reverse the appearance and laser resurfacing can also be of benefit.

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