The most important skin care tip that I can give you is to stop listening to celebrities, designers and cosmetic companies. Skin care tips should focus on improving and/or protecting the skin's health, which in turn will improve your appearance.
Cosmetic companies take a backwards approach. They try to improve your appearance, without being concerned about the health aspect. Many of their most popular ingredients are known allergens, irritants and toxins. All you really have to do is read the warning labels to realize that.
Here, in this article, I hope to provide the information that consumers need to protect themselves, since industry regulations in most countries don't protect us. If you take this advice to heart, I promise that you will enjoy looking in the mirror for many, many years to come.
Skin care tip #1---Use common sense in the sun. You might believe that a tan improves your appearance and a little exposure to sunlight is fine. But, to understand the damage to your appearance that overexposure to the sun causes, in the long run, all you need do is look at a fisherman, who has spent his life in the sun and wind.
The best protection against overexposure is clothing. Most skin care tips promote the daily use of sunscreens. While sunscreens may provide protection from burning and certain types of skin cancer, there is a higher incidence of malignant melanoma among regular sunscreen users.
It may be because benzene derived sun screening compounds, which have been shown to cause DNA damage. Or, it could be because people believe that sunscreens provide complete protection, which is not actually the case. Either way, if you expect to be outside for more than 15 minutes, you should wear a hat, sunglasses and protective clothing. The only sun-block with a proven safety record is zinc oxide.
I have seen skin care tips that blame UV rays from the sun for 90% of the wrinkles and sagging that we see in the elderly. That's a bit of an overstatement, which brings me to skin care tip #2. Protect yourself from free radical damage, the actual cause of most of the signs of aging.
UV rays from the sun increase the production and activity of free radicals molecules located within the skin's cells. So do smoke and air pollution. The common skin care tips tell you to avoid the things that cause free radical damage. The best skin care tip, in my opinion, is to use creams that contain antioxidants.
Antioxidants are our natural defenses against free radical molecules, but they must be ground down to a microscopic size, in order to penetrate the skin's cells. The best formulation is a combination of coenzyme Q10 and natural vitamin E, processed using nanotechnology.
Other skin care tips that I suggest include the use of gentle, not harsh cleansers, and to avoid the popular cosmetic ingredients. When you read a skin care tip, ask yourself; is it good for me. Just use common sense.
