What Causes Wrinkles? Preventing Aging by Slowing the Clock

Every year, the cake comes complete with candles, family and friends, and the traditional song, right! And each year, we are aging. <clear throat> Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday dear beautiful! Happy birthday to YOOOUUUUUUUU! As we see the numbers go up, we also see a loss of the fat pads in the face and additions of the wrinkles. Other things also become more noticeable. 11s in between your brows, the long horizontal lines on your forehead, short lines around your twinkling eye, and the marionette lines around your mouth. Simply put, wrinkles are caused by a breakdown in the elastin and collagen fibers. Over time, our muscles continue to make contractions when we smile, laugh, frown, or wink! This movement in the muscle will eventually form a small fine line. The fine lines over time become deeper and create a wrinkle.

So now that we know the basics of how a wrinkle is formed, let's dive into how we can slow the aging clock, but externally and internally.

Three External Slowing Recommendations

#1 - Sunscreen/SPF

The sun is the number one external aging factor, so it stands to reason that the number one suggestion should be using a quality sunscreen or SPF. You need to apply daily (and repeat applications if you are outside.)

#2 - Antioxidants

Antioxidants in skin care help protect the skin against free radicals and pollutants that are found in our environment. One of my current favorites is Vitamin C. While this ingredient may be in a lot of over the counter options, this is one not to skimp on because many are not shelf stable, can be pore clogging and inflammatory in the skin.

#3 - Retinols (aka - vitamin A)

Yes, you’ve heard my back and forth through the years on this ingredient. But the skinny is that if you find a high quality product that contains retinol and doesn’t irritate your skin, USE IT! When you start using a Retinol product, let’s ease your skin into the routine. Definitely get with your Esthetician to find the right product and routine for you!

Three Internal Slowing Recommendations

#1 Reduce your stress

Again, since stress is our number one internal factor of aging, reducing this component of course would be number one! Find what helps you to reduce your stress - like meditation, yoga, breathing, etc. What works for one person, won’t necessarily work for you, so keeping trying and looking.

#2 Low stress diet

Yes, you read that right! Think high in fiber and greens and low in white stuff. Sugar creates glycation in the skin and makes the collagen and elastin brittle … which causes fine lines to become wrinkles, etc. So pay attention to what goes into your body. It will thank you for years to come in many aspects!

#3 Pay attention to your cues!

If something doesn’t feel right in your body, don’t ignore it! Address it! See your doctor, read quality articles about it, and then figure out what you can do to make small and simple changes that will help. Again, added stress in all formats will lead to faster aging.

Using both external (SPF, Antioxidants, Retinols) and internal options (stress, stress, stress - haha), you can definitely do your part in slowing what your mother and father passed down to you. Let’s do our own evaluation and see what we can do better, and then start today! I look forward to pointing you to the right direction for skin care that will work to slow your aging clock.

Don’t forget to

Breathe. Let Go. Relax.

Zoey Jolley, Le

How Long Will It Take For My Acne To Clear?

How long will it take for my acne to clear? Wow! That's a loaded question. But I will do my best to answer your question and help you get to your goal of clear, glowing skin. Let's dive right in on what we need to do to get you there as quickly as possible.

There are many factors on why you may be experiencing acne, one of which is the build up of dead skin cells. Babies skin cells turn over every 14 days. This process happens so quickly that you rarely seeing flaking or peeling on their precious skin. As you begin to age, the process of the dead skin cells sloughing away takes longer and longer. The optimal amount of time that we aim for in adulthood is 28 days for that process of the dead going away and the new skin cells reappearing. Our skin however will not be able to do this process and it's own and needs help. Exfoliation is a great way to help speed up the process to try and achieve the 28 day cycle.

What we put on the skin also affects if the skin can get rid of acne or if it makes it worse. There are many products that say that they are FOR acne that can actually aggravate acne. A couple of the ingredients that are NOT good for acne prone skin are: coconut oil, isopropyl myristate, butyl stearate, PPG2 myristyl proprionate, and D&C pigments to name a few. When looking at your skin care products, you'll want to focus on the first 8 ingredients in a product. These are the most important because they are the bulk of what the product contains. Cosmetics are also many times like poison on the skin and should be avoided if possible. 

Internal factors are also key here! Think stress, diet and even vitamins and supplements. Stress is the number one factor if our skin will respond to the treatment that we can do on the outside with products. Many times, clients are in school, have small children, or are experiencing a rough time in life. Our whole body responds in different ways to stress! Diet is also a contributing factor. Many will think chocolate or greasy foods, but in my research, the most important factor is the iodine content in the foods. Dairy is also considered to be a big culprit here. Vitamins and supplements are taken by many to help the skin, but too can have a negative impact. Biotin and skin vitamins are highly discouraged as they may fuel the acne to continue.

After explaining all of this to you, hopefully you understand that we become detectives in figuring out what some of the triggers may be to your skin. We work together to check every nook and cranny and to experiment. Changing up products and make sure that you include the right type of exfoliation, learning meditation to combat the stressors of life, switching vitamins and perhaps your diet and more may be part of the solution for clear skin.  Because it can take 90 days for a pimple to reach the surface of the skin, it takes a minimum 3 to 4 months to clear up the skin (if we figure out all of the triggers and can make the necessary corrections)... because each skin cycle is 28 days! Receiving regular treatments with your esthetician can help to speed up the process, perform extractions on whiteheads and blackheads, and help to guide you as a mentor through this process.

If you would like to set up a consultation to review what we could do for your skin, please use the book now button. We'll go over where to start and get you a free acne booklet as a cliff notes of the right things to do and the things to avoid. Here's to the start of beautiful, clear skin with more confidence than you ever thought possible.

Don't forget to 

Breathe. Let Go. Relax.

Zoey Jolley, LE

The 4 S's in Skin Care - Stress, Smoking, Sun, and Sugar

Skincare is all emcompassing. Not only are we dealing with genetics, but we are dealing with internal factors as well as the environment that we live in. There are so many do's and don't's and it seems like every expert has their opinion. Am I right ladies?

Well, I'd love to break down what I call the 4 S's in skin care - Stress, Smoking, Sun and Sugar. Small gains over a long period of time can help slow down the aging process for everyone. Where can you improve?

Stress

There... I said the one that we've all been thinking about. Everyone has stress. Whether home or work, finances or sleep (which could easily be yet another S) ... we've got something to worry about. Stress will not only cause those baggy, puffy eyes to make an appearance, but it will aggravate any skin condition that you currently have. For example, if you suffer with breakouts, you make be getting more pimples more frequently. Wrinkles can be more pronounced, seeing that you may furrow your brow more often. Definitely not where you want to hear the word more.

Here's another fun one for you. When I speak in public, there's a rash that starts on one side of my neck and slowly "grows" all the way across to the other side. What's it from? STRESS!

Learning healthy ways to deal with stress is important! Exercise, meditation, breathing, lots of water and even sleeping can help your body deal with all that cortisol. But if it's still not helping, don't let stress linger in your life. Seek out a professional to help give you the proper tools or a doctor that can give you further recommendations.

Smoking

This could be #1 on any list that you seek out. We all know that smoking causes cancer, but do we know that it causes premature aging? No one wants to age faster.

Here's the skinny on this S. Smoking weakens blood vessels and decreases your circulation, so there's a lack of oxygen for the healthy cells. Smoking also creates free radicals. As my teacher in school explained free radicals... "A free radical is like a hussie in a bar. She doesn't have a man, so she steals yours. And then you don't have a partner... which creates a cascading effect that just won't stop." (School was years ago, but trust me. I'll never forget about free radicals and the HUSSIE stealing my man! Haha)=

What do brown fruit and a rusted car have in common? They are exposed to free radicals which can cause oxidative damage. And that's what happens to our skin when we smoke.

Seek out professional help to quit if you need. And don't start smoking because you're stressed! (See what I did there?)

Sun

Ladies, let's talk a moment to talk about summer and how great it is to be outside in our beautiful weather. Okay, let's move on to talk about sun exposure. Sun damage occurs over time and is one of the things that we can improve!

Did you know that genetics makes up only 10% of our aging? The large majority goes to the winner... Sun! (80-85%!!!) There are 3 types of UV rays... UVA, UVB, and UVC. A stands for aging, B stands for burning. C rays don't make it through our atmosphere. The A rays are long and penetrate deeper into the skin, causing damage in the collagen (plumpness) and elastin fibers (skin's elasticity and "snap back"). B rays are shorter and considered to cause most of the cancers. They shorten the cell's lifespan, cause free radicals (see the HUSSIE listed above), and work hard to break down tissue.

So while we do need sunlight and the vitamin D, we also need to be careful and cautious about our sun exposure. Using an SPF product that feels good and is easy to apply is great! Wearing your foundations with SPF is not enough. Reapplication is important.

As a side note, SPF that is 15 covers 93% of rays, 30 covers 97%, and 50 SPF covers 98%. I wouldn't pay the extra big bucks to get more SPF to cover an extra 1/2 %.

Sugar

I saved my hard one for last. When you eat a diet high in sugar, your blood sugar can rise. When you blood sugar raises and remains raised, glycation happens. Glycation is when sugar attaches to the collagen in the skin and makes it hard and stiff. And even sagging skin! That's what happens when you eat sugar! There is also connections between the sugar we eat with the stress hormone, cortisol and inflammation. Neither are great for the skin OR your body!

What can you do? Figure out a way to limit those artificial sugars while still enjoying life. You'll not only sleep better, but your skin will thank you in 20 years!

Have you learned anything? Which is your nemesis? What changes can you make to help slow the aging process? I can't wait to partner with you to help you make a necessary change, hook you up with an awesome sun care product, and get rid of those hussies at the bar.

Don't forget to Breathe. Let Go. Relax.

Zoey Jolley, Licensed Esthetician