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- As we age our skin starts to lose it's firmness and elasticity.
- But there are things we can do to slow down this process and help our skin remain plump.
- Dr Des Fernandes shares tips on keeping healthy, and the things we need to avoid.
It's common for people to start thinking about skincare further on in life when we begin to see the effects of ageing. However, founder of award-winning South African skincare brand Environ, Dr Des Fernandes, explains that we actually start losing collagen around 18 or 19 years old.
"And then the first effects you start to notice when you're about 29, little fine wrinkles developing. But at the same time, roundabout from the age of 30, you also start to lose fat. Partly from damage, but also part of this natural process where you sort of de-bulk the skin, you lose the bone," Dr Des says.
"So from about 30 onwards, we should start to compensate for this loss of hyaluronic acid, the loss of fat, and then also the loss of collagen."
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There are several things you should start doing to keep the skin looking plump and healthy.
Dr Des says amongst the things that people don't know, the most important is that their vitamin A is destroyed every day they go out into the light - even on a cloudy day.
"You can be walking in the shade with reflected light on you, and you still will destroy your vitamin A, of course, to different degrees," Dr Des says.
"So we have to put that vitamin A back because that vitamin A is a controller of cellular health. It controls how the DNA works. So that's why we've got to supply that every day and the antioxidants; these are such important things."
There were many ageing secrets Dr Des shared that I was unaware of, which made me wonder, what else are we doing to our skin that we should not be? And what are some things we should be getting a head start on from a young age?
READ MORE | Top tips for protecting your skin
Things you should stop doing:
Over-exfoliating the skin
"The first thing that I think that people can make a mistake on is exfoliation. It's been sort of drummed into people that you have to exfoliate because your skin mustn't get its layer of dead cells," says Dr Des.
"Those are people who don't understand that skin is supposed to get a layer of dead cells, because that is your barrier against the atmosphere, against oxygen."
He explains that the air would be toxic to our bare skin because those cells work on a much lower level of oxygen than the oxygen in the air.
"That's why we've got the lungs there to get enough oxygen from the air, get it into the blood at the concentrations that tissues can use. So you've got to have a good thick outer layer of the so-called dead cells. And the way that you make it a healthy outer layer is with vitamin A."
READ MORE | 3 foods proven to boost skin health
Using soap in the morning
"The second thing is, many people wash their skin too many times. I think what we should do is at the end of the day, when we come home, we need to get rid of the grime on our face that we've accumulated during the day. We need to clean the skin, certainly in the evening," says Dr Des.
"But when you wake up in the morning, you haven't got makeup on; you shouldn't have. And the other thing is that you haven't dirtied your skin. So, we just need water to treat our skins in the morning to freshen up. That's all. We don't need soaps. And I discourage people from using soaps in the morning."
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NOTE FROM THE EDITOR: This editorial article has been updated to remove any reference to a specific product.
