How Can You Look Younger?

By Nicole Hayre, MD

Cosmetic Dermatology Center

. http://www.cosmetic-dermatology-center.com

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How Can You Look Younger?

Youthful beauty begins with healthy radiant skin. Skin reflects the health of individuals, so in order to begin to take care of your skin, you must take care of yourself. In fact, all of the familiar health craze slogans urging you to exercise, take vitamins, drink more water, and not to smoke, are good advice for healthy skin.

As most of you know, tanning and especially sunburns are harmful to your skin. But did you know that the damage is exponentially increased in those who tan and smoke? Regardless of the past care or current condition of your skin, improvements can be made.

Good Skin Care

As stated, good skin care begins with taking care of yourself, but you also need to care directly for your skin.

A good skin care regimen includes a gentle exfoliating product containing glycolic acid or salicylic acid to smoothen the upper layers of the skin. This may also be accomplished using a Retin-A product obtained with a prescription. Another product in a good skin care regimen includes antioxidants such as vitamin C and green tea extracts to protect your skin.

Most importantly, one should use a product with growth factors in it to stimulate the growth of collagen and elastin, the building blocks of young healthy skin. No matter how careful one has been, collagen and elastin in the deeper layers of the skin diminish with age. Building them back up helps to firm the skin and fill in fine lines.

Erase Years By Erasing Lines

Take years off of your looks by improving skin texture and diminishing lines. To achieve smoother skin with a beautiful radiance, microdermabrasion helps by gently removing the upper rough layers of skin cells and cleaning out pores. This also makes it a nice treatment for those suffering from acne.

For improvement in lines which go beyond rough textural changes, botox, collagen or Restylane may be beneficial. Botox is a safe, quick technique which is excellent for smoothening lines around the eyes. For lines in the lower half of the face, collagen, Restylane, or Juvederm may be used to fill in both fine and deeper lines. Part of the beauty of erasing lines and years with these techniques, is keeping most people guessing as to how you did it.

For a longer term solution, a cutting edge device called the Portrait can erase even deep lines. This new resurfacing tool does cause some down time, but results, in general, are impressive.

The Portrait can remove lines, shrink pores, tighten the skin (even eyelid skin), and remove most sun spots. Two low energy versions of this treatment, with little to no down time, is a nice option for those just starting to notice some fine lines.

Erase Years By Erasing Sun Spots

An even complexion, free of sun spots and broken blood vessels is essential for a youthful appearance. Treatments with an Intense Pulsed Light device (think of it as a laser) can remove unwanted brown spots and dilated blood vessels by targeting specific elements in them.

The treatments are a relatively quick and painless way to remove sun damage. In order to reverse sun damage even quicker, a light-absorbing medication may be applied to the skin prior to intense pulsed light treatment. This state-of-the-art therapy has the added benefit of diminishing pore size, improving skin texture, and has even been used to treat difficult acne cases.

For healthy, youthful, beautiful skin, take good care of yourself, apply a good skin care regimen daily, and wear sunscreen. For more personalized help with skin care or possible services, consult a board-certified dermatologist.