Throughout my almost 12 years of being an Esthetician, I have been able to help a lot of different age ranges in my clients. The 20-30 age range has been the one that I have been closely able to relate too, since I am in my 30’s. You start to realize how much your skin has changed over the years. Instead of breakouts, I was seeing fine lines around my eyes, I was seeing dark circles and puffy bags under my eyes and I started noticing dark spots “sun damage” in certain areas. Your skin during this time completely changes. You are no longer in your teens, but you might still be experiencing breakouts, along with all of these other not so fun things that are coming along with this age! Your skin is in another bracket. What use to work, no longer does and what you are now focusing on, like an eye cream or neck cream was never in your thoughts during your teenage years. Now it’s time to understand what the heck is going on with your skin!
Your skin cell turnover slows down in your early 20’s. This means dead skin cells start accumulating on the surface of the skin. You might start to notice that you skin is rougher in texture or even dull looking. Exfoliating 1-2 times per week will be something that should be on your MUST DO list! This will be a manual exfoliation that will rid the old, dead skin cells and promote new healthy skin cells. Doing this will reveal brighter, and newer skin cells from underneath. Your skin will be glowing and will allow for serums and moisturizers to penetrate deeper into the skin.
Another pesky frustration with cell turnover happening more slowly now at this age is the dryness that you start experiencing. The production of hydration factors in the skin, such as hyaluronic acid slows down. A hydrating serum and moisturizer with hyaluronic acid will add moisture back to your very dry skin. Your serum will always go underneath your moisturizer. The molecules in a serum are smaller and can penetrate into the dermis of the skin. You will need to make sure that you are drinking water on a consistent basis so that you can hydrate from the inside/out.
With cell turnover slowing down, this means that our skin doesn’t recover as quickly from inflammation. We start noticing that our skin doesn’t look as plump as it once did. This is because our collagen and elastin is starting to break down faster. Forehead wrinkles, crows feet, bags under your eyes and more prominent laugh lines more noticeable.Something that is very important to remember is wearing an SPF of 30 or more daily. This will help to make sure that your collagen and elastin are not being damaged by the harsh UV rays. Even if you have SPF in your makeup, it is not enough to protect your skin. You still need to wear an SPF under your makeup to fully protect against the suns rays.
You thought as you got over your teen years and definitely into your 30’s that you would not ever be experiencing breakouts ever again. This is sometimes not the case at all. In fact, some people can experience Cystic Acne during this time, which is painful, very large pimples under the skin. They take forever to come to the surface of the skin, they hurt and they can sometimes leave scars after they are finally gone. This is something that maybe you have never experienced in your life. Unfortunately, for some, due to high levels of hormone changes, the skin can have what we call hormonal acne. Your hormones have gone haywire due to many different things. It could be, discontinuing birth control pills, pregnancy, or even just the stressors from everyday life. So how can we combat acne and all of the other aging things that are happening with our skin?? If you are having problems with cystic acne during this time, then it might be beneficial for you to add a nightly cleanser with Salicylic acid in it and a hydrating cleanser in the morning. This will help with that annoying cystic acne and during this time we can still focus on fine lines and dryness that you are experiencing as well.
When you start to notice dark spots that seem to pop up overnight. You wake up one morning, look in the mirror and see those dark spots staring back at you. What happened?? I’ve never seen this spot before. You try and conceal it with makeup but it seems to make it appear darker and more noticable. These spots that you are noticing were from years of being exposed to the sun and has caused damage to your skin. This is when you are going to benefit the most with Retinoids, which are going to help lighten sun damaged areas. Wearing your SPF 30 or more daily will help to prevent more sun damage from happening and will help existing sun damage to not get darker.
Of course you are now more than ever going to want to add an eye cream to your daily and nightly routine as well. This will help with fine lines around the eyes, dark circles and puffiness. For puffy eyes, I love to have my clients get some tea bags, either green tea, which is loaded with antioxidants or a tea with caffeine. Boil them, bag them in a freezer bag and freeze them for the next time your eyes feel tired and puffy. You will still need a daily and nightly eye cream or serum to help smooth out those fine lines and wrinkles routinely. Once you see the amazing results that you can get from an eye cream, it will become your new favorite must have in your makeup bag at all times!
During this time, you will want to pay attention to your neck more than you ever have. Applying your serum and moisturizers to this delicate area will help to tighten and firm this tender area. It’s also going to give it nice moisture for a radiant glow. Remember, everything you do to your face, should be done to your neck. Applying these serums and moisturizers in an upward motion. We want to defy the law of gravity!
Being in this age bracket of the 20’s-30’s skin is not a bad thing. It just is something that is different and that requires a few more steps to your daily and nightly routine. Starting early and being preventative in the aging process will be something that your future self will absolutely thank you for. Your skin might be going through some very different changes but as long as you stick with your routine and find some great products that will be most beneficial to your skin, then you see the changes that happen. You will love the way your skin feels and looks. And it’s especially nice when you get carded at a restaurant or people are shocked to learn your age! Then you know that your skin care and preventative measures that you are taking are working! This is a glorious time when your skin can GLOW and be more radiant! Your skin will be with you for a very long time, Protect it and care for it now!
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