Facial Wrinkles

As you go past your thirties and move towards middle age, the composition and structure of your skin changes, creating conditions that favor the development of facial wrinkles.

The two main substances responsible for making your skin look youthful are collagen and elastin. Collagen gives your skin its toughness, its capacity to withstand the extensive wear and tear that it handles every day in the normal course of life. Elastin is the stuff that gives your skin its ability to spring back to its original shape after you smile or grin. As you grow old, collagen and elastin become reduced so that you develop wrinkles and creases more easily on your face and body.

Everyone gets facial wrinkles, sooner or later. However hard you try, you cannot ultimately prevent wrinkles from happening to you, only delay them for some years perhaps.

So the issue is not how to prevent facial wrinkles. The issue is how to delay their onset. And in the case of people who are exposed to more than the usual levels of harmful environmental influences, the issue is how to prevent the skin from aging before its time – that is, how to prevent premature wrinkling and sagging, and how to treat facial wrinkles.

So what can you do to stop yourself from developing creases on your face before your time? What can you do to reduce facial wrinkles? Well, one approach would be to battle the causes of wrinkles individually. You should keep in mind that prevention is actually a lot better than cure in this case – treating facial wrinkles once they have formed is much more difficult than stopping or delaying their onset.

First, there is the harmful ultraviolet radiation, which is a part of sunlight. This is undoubtedly the greatest factor behind the premature aging of facial skin. A pigment called melanin that is found in human skin and hair can neutralize the effects of UV to some degree, but not completely. Light-skinned people have less melanin, so the effects of UV are more harmful on them.

In order to make up for this lack of pigment, fair-skinned people should try to avoid exposing their skin to direct sunlight as far as possible. If this is not possible, then you should at least try to limit your exposure to very short periods. Practically this may not be possible either and therefore protecting yourself should be a priority. You canprotect yourself by wearing dark sunglasses,a hat and applying sunscreen, especially on your face because the skin on your face is perhaps the most sensitive area of your body.

Free radicals are another important cause of premature aging. These are a certain type of free-traveling oxygen molecules in the body that, among other things, cause the skin's collagen to break down. The skin loses its toughness and becomes more sensitive to the aging process.

Modern research has found that certain types of anti-oxidants and vitamins (chiefly A, D and E) can capture most of the free radicals and thus help you prevent facial wrinkles for a while. Beta-carotenes are an important source of these anti-oxidants. Beta-carotenes are contained in carrots and tomatoes, among vegetables. So eating lots of those, along with supplementary doses of vitamin E, may help with preventing early age wrinkles.

The information in this article has been obtained from various sources. Contact the manufacturer directly for further information on any specific products mentioned in this article. Please be sure to check with your physician or dermatologist first before using any of the products listed above and/or implementing any skin care regimen or procedures, especially if you have existing skin conditions and/or are prone to rashes and/or have sensitive skin and/or are allergic to certain ingredients that may be included in any formulations mentioned above or are allergic to any components natural or synthetic that may be mentioned above.