The skin’s ageing process: Top tips for your 40s and 50s

Just because you’ve hit your forties it doesn’t mean you need to succumb to wrinkles and fine lines. While skin does change a huge amount during your forties and fifties, there are lots of ways you can reduce the appearance of aging skin – it just takes some time and dedication.

What happens to your skin as you age?

Once you reach your forties, a lot changes in your body – both inside and out. Hormones (or lack of!) are largely the cause of this along with other factors such as cell damage, which slows down the rate in which skin renews and repairs itself.

Your hormonal changes are down to the menopause, which reduces the amount of estrogen and progesterone in your body and consequently impacts on your skin. The decline in hormones reduces the synthesis of collagen and elastin in your skin – leading to thinning skin, dryness and even facial sag.

Top tips: While there’s nothing you can do to stop this process, you can treat what’s to come by ensuring good hydration and eating a good, balanced diet. Invest in a hydrating skin cream, designed especially for your age range – like Heliocare or Endocare, which can be purchased from the AP Skincare skin clinic. Keep drinking your eight glasses of water daily and encourage collagen synthesis with Vitamin A.

While some of our products are enriched with vitamin A, you could also take a supplement, or eat lots of vitamin A rich foods, such as carrots, broccoli, eggs and fish.

Skin inflammation at work

Another, less known, problem of aging skin is excessive inflammation. While you may not be able to see it yourself, the harmful free radicals are hard at work increasing cell damage and degrading the skin matrix – leading to dull, weakened skin. This gives way to those fine lines and wrinkles we all dread as the weakened dermis can no longer cope with the folding of the skin that occurs with facial movements.

Top tips: Exfoliation is key to getting rid of those dry, rough patches that emphasise wrinkles. Remember, don’t be too aggressive – otherwise you may end up with more problems than you started with!

That delicate, aging skin around your eyes, needs a good eye cream that hydrates the area and keeps skin tight. If you’re struggling to find the right eye cream let us know and we’ll do our best to recommend the right products.

If the changes to your skin are really getting you down you could also consider our anti-wrinkle injections – which are essentially Botox. The toxin we inject into your skin stops the signals between muscle fibres, creating a subtle or definite smoothing of your skin. Or for something less invasive, why not try one of our anti-aging facials?

To find out about any of the treatments we offer, or products we stock in the clinic, get in touch today. Together we can develop a skincare routine that works for you and gives you the confidence you to embrace aging. Contact us 01254 297 000 to find out more.