Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/146934
Special Advertising Section Aging Gracefully… With a Little Help Remedies to help you keep or find that youthful glow By Jennifer Bradley A ging is tricky business. Some women can spend their youthful years lounging in the sun, ignoring even a glance at a jar of moisturizer with seemingly no ill-effect. But these carefree habits can soon catch up with us in the form of blemishes and wrinkles that make themselves—and our age—known. Madison skin professionals say quality skin care needs to be a lifelong habit. While the majority of sun damage is already completed by age 20, the aging process shows its face on a woman in her 40s, says Wendy Jones, a registered nurse and office administrator at Lemke Facial Plastic Surgery. "Your skin is an organ," reminds Anne Hill, a registered nurse and owner of Radiance Skin Therapy. "It changes every day, for the worse or the better." Hill, who sees patients ages 13 to 78, says lifestyle has the biggest effect on your skin and its aging process, which actually starts long before the results make their debut. Smoking, alcohol, stress and sun exposure: "All those things create free radicals in the body, and when they attach to skin cells cause them to deteriorate," Hill explains. There are steps you can take now to slow or erase some of the aging process—and not all of them are radical. When it comes to selecting age-defying skin care treat- ments, Dr. Kevin Robertson, owner of Robertson Plastic Surgery, says it's important for patients to look natural and normal, and choose the right solutions to suit their needs. The age-defying processes, he adds, are as important as the results. And there are more solutions to help women than ever before—options that can, says Dr. Richard Parfitt of Parfitt Facial Cosmetic Surgery Center and AestheticA Skin Health Center, take women to a place where "they feel better [about their skin] than ever before." All-Natural Remedies Prevention is the first step in aging gracefully, and more than ever, people care that the ingredients in skin care products are natural. In response, the market is formulating many products naturally, says Hill of Radiance Skin Therapy. Professional product lines, she advises, provide better results than over-the-counter options because they offer the pH levels needed to actually penetrate the skin, and more appropriate percentages and labeling of ingredients Which products should you start with? Jones of Lemke Plastic Surgery says that the first thing anyone needs is a sunscreen, day in and out. "SPF isn't enough anymore," she adds, recommending women use a sunscreen with both UVA and UVB protection. Hill agrees, saying that the single most damaging factor to skin is the sun. They also agree that vitamin C is another important product for a woman's every day skin regimen, whether applied topically or taken orally. There are many options on the market for this antioxidant, which blocks the ability of the free radicals to attach to skin cells, says Jones. An exfoliating product such as Retin-A, Retinol or glycolic acid is the next recommendation in the all-natural category. Exfoliators help sluggish skin cells stay in motion and promote better absorption of topical products. Hill explains that an effective natural regimen usually depends on a few factors: age, extent of pigmentation and a client's willingness to apply a variety of products each day. Products that combine two or more "tasks"—such as exfoliating, moisturizing, boosting, etc.—have a decreased concentration, and thus decreased effectiveness, for each ingredient. That means, says Hill, an older woman with more and deeper pigmentation problems will need the higher percentage of each effective ingredient found in individual topicals, whereas a younger woman may be able to use a combined product. August 2013 bravamagazine.com 47