There are many creams out there that promise to fight or reduce wrinkles. You can find reviews for the most popular ones all over the Internet and Consumer Reports publishes one periodically. What do not get a lot of attention are creams that prevent wrinkles. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, so a good age-fighting strategy starts before your face even sees the first signs of aging. Does this Spark an idea?
Causes of Premature Aging
There are several things that cause your face to age prematurely. Smoking and alcohol have a negative effect on skin by causing cell damage and, in the case of smoking, by constricting the blood vessels of the face, which prevents nutrients from reaching the skin. Over-scrubbing and rough treatment of your face can keep your skin from getting the downtime it needs to heal properly. Squinting and other routine facial expressions can compound wrinkling. Of course genetics also plays a huge part in where and when you wrinkle.
Sun Exposure and Aging
The single biggest culprit in premature aging of the skin is sun damage, or photoaging. While exposure to the sun is necessary for our bodies to process certain vitamins such as vitamin D, too much exposure to the sun damages the skin cells and affects how they grow and develop. At the extreme end of the scale, too much exposure can lead to melanoma and fatal skin cancers.
Anti-oxidant Vitamins
Vitamins A, C, and E are well known for their beneficial effects of repairing photodamaged skin. Vitamin A, in the form of tretinoin, or its less-effective cousin retinol, has been clinically shown to repair skin cell function down in the dermis to mimic that of younger skin. Tretinoin is the active ingredient in the prescription creams Retin-A and Renova, and is the only ingredient approved by the FDA as effective against wrinkles. It does, however, make skin sun sensitive.
Vitamins C and E
Vitamin C is a powerful anti-oxidant known to fight sun damage both past and present. There is even evidence that it can prevent sun damage. Vitamin C is useful in keeping your youthful look when applied as an ingredient in a cream, as well as a supplement. Vitamin E is another effective anti-oxidant that stimulates the action of a compound called lycopene. Lycopene is one of the compounds that works hardest to repair cell damage due to sun exposure.
Sunscreen
The single most important ingredient any cream can have, especially for those who use tretinoin or retinols, is a minimum SPF 15 broad-spectrum sunscreen. The best way to ensure that your skin does not experience the effects of sun damage is to never be exposed to the sun while unprotected. Certain skincare ingredients may be able to help fight damage, but the less damage they have to fight, the more effective they will be in preventing wrinkles. The best cream for preventing wrinkles will have a strong sunscreen and contain vitamins C and E, along with retinol.
Tags: your face, cell damage, fight damage, ingredient cream, much exposure, preventing wrinkles, that prevent