Skin cycle turn over, what a topic! I wonder how many people would know roughly how long our skin cells live for?
Up to the age of about 25 our skin cells would turn over on average every 28 days. As we age this cycle can slow right down to 80- 120 days before we see new cells reaching the surface. This means as we age we are left with old, tired cells sitting on or face for too long.
Old cells don’t really have too much benefit to us, they can leave our skin looking dull, thickened and rough in texture and when this occurs we are more likely to have un even skin tone, fine lines and wrinkles, hyperpigmentation, an increase or decrease in sensitivity and even pore size enlargement.
The skin consists of multiple layers that all function differently, the bottom layer has cells that are shaped like columns, these cells are alive and have collagen, elastin and nucleuses in them, as they divide they push cells into higher levels. Once cells move higher and higher they start to flatten, loose their nucleus and die. It is these dead cells that form the outer most layer of our skin that is in direct contact with the environment. It is these cells that should shed approximately every 2 weeks. As we age these are the cells that can sit too long on our skin and create a build up of dead cells that as said early give a dull, rough skin texture. The alive cells that are filled with all those goodies that we associate with youthful skin like collagen and elastin are dividing less, so we end with ‘aged’ thicken skin made up of mostly dead cells.
If you can imagine putting moisturizing creams over a sheath of thickened dead skin cells what will happen? Not a lot! You will wet some dead cells for 24 hours but not create any sustainable anti-ageing changes.
What is needed is stimulation to those skin cells underneath, that divide and have all those wonderful collagen and elastin bundles to help plump out fine lines and wrinkles.
Top 3 tips to help turn back the clock:
1-Use cosmeceutical vitamins! Vitamin A- retinoids are a speeding up cell cycle miracle in a bottle! Vitamin A tells our skin cells to continue to turn over and not sit for too long. This vitamin is amazing for anti-ageing but can be quite harsh on the skin, so must be used with care. Make sure you seek advice from qualified therapists. You don’t want just any Vitamin A going on your skin.
Even Vitamin B&C with the appropriate delivery systems can penetrate and stimulate collagen and elastic reproduction whilst also providing your cells with vital antioxidants.
2-Get dermal treatments! All dermal treatments are designed to cause a controlled wound in the skin, triggering a natural wound healing response for cell stimulation and turn over. This means that we can develop more alive cells and decrease the lack lustre dead cell build up on the surface.
3- SPF! You must invest in a good sunscreen! The worst trauma you could put your skin through that prematurely ages you is UV exposure.
