Your Skin and Menopause
February 19, 2012
In our teens we worry about pimples; in our thirties we start to notice crows feet and laugh lines and become acquainted with terms like antioxidants and SPF levels. Our forties bring the consumer forth and we buy products with anti-aging labels in an attempt to stop time cold. Then menopause strikes and our skin turns into some new alien species that terrifies us and makes us unrecognizable to ourselves. Ever hear the term batwing? Lift a twenty-something's arm up and check out the tone in the under arm. Now lift your own and flick the skin? I can practically give myself a black eye when I do that, the sagging mass flops back and forth so violently.
Everyone who knows me knows that I am a fanatic about skin care. I don't go out in the sun EVER, and if I have to be out in it I always have a hat on. Let's face it ( pun!): freckles are cute when you're 17, but when you try to convince yourself that those brown spots you used to call freckles are now really age spots, it's time to get serious about skin care. I buy every new product that gets marketed to women of my age and I am a constantly on the lookout for a better eye cream, more emolient moisturizer and tougher skin toner. I buy the hype and pay dearly for it because - and I've said this before - I don't mind getting old, but I refuse to look it!
As we age, our skin ages as well. What? Did you think it didn't? Our outer shell becomes thinner, more delicate and fragile. It becomes especially intolerant to external stimuli such as sun, cold and dry air, and to internal changes such as mild dehydration and hormone imbalances and depleations. Remember what happens to our estrogen in menopause? When estrogen levels go down and cease production, our bodies' natural oils also get depleted. These oils are responsible for keeping our skin moist, lubricated., flexible and supple. Loss of estrogen also leads to loss of collagen and elastin, which aids in keeping our lovely bodies firm and well toned. Because of this loss of elasticity our pores actually appear to be bigger. Sometimes we even get hair in places we've never had it before, like faces. The skin also gets more sensitive to the sun, so we can get sun spotches or random pigment changes in the skin
This paints a pretty picture, doesn't it? A fiftysomething woman with cavernous pores, flaky dry skin, hanging jowls and batwings, and a thick ugly hair protruding from the end of her spotty chin.
Lovely.
Okay, so it's not as gross as I'm describing, but these charges are noticable. You can see them in the mirror and the general public can see them when they look at us.
So what, aside from having a Dermatologist on speed dial, can you do about all these changes.
First and foremost : eat healthy and drink a lot of water. Fruits and vegetables are loaded with antioxidants - the same kinds you are paying for to be put into your expensive moisturizer. Getting them naturally into your system is cheaper, quicker acting, and yummier. ( Have you ever tasted moisturizer? Not pleasant. Much more enjoyable to have an apple.) Drinking a lot of water sounds like a no-brainer, but in reality, the old-school cures are the best. Water hydrates. A lot of water hydrates A LOT!. IF your skin stays hydrated it will look plumper, fresher and refreshed. Dry, papery-thin, scaly skin that flakes off when you touch it, like you see on severely dehydrated or very very old people, is not what you want to see on your face and body. Most of the eye creams sold commercially now claim to not only hydrate the skin of the eyes, but to "plump up" the area as well. This plumping, for lack of a better word, is what makes younger women and children's facial skin so attractive and healthy looking.
I said this in my last blog, but it always bears repeating: another thing you can do to improve your skin right now is Stop Smoking. Hello??!! It's smoke! What is smoke, but dry, coarse and smelly ash! And it's floating all around your face. All that puckering you need to do with your lips when you smoke actually causes the skin around the mouth to pucker, dry, split and wrinkle mucho faster that it does in a non-smoker. Cigarette smokers are never attractive, cool, or fun to be around, and cigarettes hate your skin. Period.
Use A LOT of moisturizer and try to get one with an SPF of at least 30. Mine has a 60 in it and if I have to go out in the sun I actually have a sunscreen that is 100spf. Most people think I'm nuts and that anything more than a 30 spf doesn't really protect you with any greater strength. Speaking only for myself here, when I go out in the sun, I burn within 5 minutes if I am unprotected. With a 30 or 45 block I burn within 15-20 mins. With the 100 block I have been out in the sun for up to 3 hours and never even gotten a red patch. When I go in the shade my skin looks like it wasn't even exposed to the suns rays. I may never have a tan, but I don't care. That's what makeup is for. I'm just saying...
More on skin next time.
In our teens we worry about pimples; in our thirties we start to notice crows feet and laugh lines and become acquainted with terms like antioxidants and SPF levels. Our forties bring the consumer forth and we buy products with anti-aging labels in an attempt to stop time cold. Then menopause strikes and our skin turns into some new alien species that terrifies us and makes us unrecognizable to ourselves. Ever hear the term batwing? Lift a twenty-something's arm up and check out the tone in the under arm. Now lift your own and flick the skin? I can practically give myself a black eye when I do that, the sagging mass flops back and forth so violently.
Everyone who knows me knows that I am a fanatic about skin care. I don't go out in the sun EVER, and if I have to be out in it I always have a hat on. Let's face it ( pun!): freckles are cute when you're 17, but when you try to convince yourself that those brown spots you used to call freckles are now really age spots, it's time to get serious about skin care. I buy every new product that gets marketed to women of my age and I am a constantly on the lookout for a better eye cream, more emolient moisturizer and tougher skin toner. I buy the hype and pay dearly for it because - and I've said this before - I don't mind getting old, but I refuse to look it!
As we age, our skin ages as well. What? Did you think it didn't? Our outer shell becomes thinner, more delicate and fragile. It becomes especially intolerant to external stimuli such as sun, cold and dry air, and to internal changes such as mild dehydration and hormone imbalances and depleations. Remember what happens to our estrogen in menopause? When estrogen levels go down and cease production, our bodies' natural oils also get depleted. These oils are responsible for keeping our skin moist, lubricated., flexible and supple. Loss of estrogen also leads to loss of collagen and elastin, which aids in keeping our lovely bodies firm and well toned. Because of this loss of elasticity our pores actually appear to be bigger. Sometimes we even get hair in places we've never had it before, like faces. The skin also gets more sensitive to the sun, so we can get sun spotches or random pigment changes in the skin
This paints a pretty picture, doesn't it? A fiftysomething woman with cavernous pores, flaky dry skin, hanging jowls and batwings, and a thick ugly hair protruding from the end of her spotty chin.
Lovely.
Okay, so it's not as gross as I'm describing, but these charges are noticable. You can see them in the mirror and the general public can see them when they look at us.
So what, aside from having a Dermatologist on speed dial, can you do about all these changes.
First and foremost : eat healthy and drink a lot of water. Fruits and vegetables are loaded with antioxidants - the same kinds you are paying for to be put into your expensive moisturizer. Getting them naturally into your system is cheaper, quicker acting, and yummier. ( Have you ever tasted moisturizer? Not pleasant. Much more enjoyable to have an apple.) Drinking a lot of water sounds like a no-brainer, but in reality, the old-school cures are the best. Water hydrates. A lot of water hydrates A LOT!. IF your skin stays hydrated it will look plumper, fresher and refreshed. Dry, papery-thin, scaly skin that flakes off when you touch it, like you see on severely dehydrated or very very old people, is not what you want to see on your face and body. Most of the eye creams sold commercially now claim to not only hydrate the skin of the eyes, but to "plump up" the area as well. This plumping, for lack of a better word, is what makes younger women and children's facial skin so attractive and healthy looking.
I said this in my last blog, but it always bears repeating: another thing you can do to improve your skin right now is Stop Smoking. Hello??!! It's smoke! What is smoke, but dry, coarse and smelly ash! And it's floating all around your face. All that puckering you need to do with your lips when you smoke actually causes the skin around the mouth to pucker, dry, split and wrinkle mucho faster that it does in a non-smoker. Cigarette smokers are never attractive, cool, or fun to be around, and cigarettes hate your skin. Period.
Use A LOT of moisturizer and try to get one with an SPF of at least 30. Mine has a 60 in it and if I have to go out in the sun I actually have a sunscreen that is 100spf. Most people think I'm nuts and that anything more than a 30 spf doesn't really protect you with any greater strength. Speaking only for myself here, when I go out in the sun, I burn within 5 minutes if I am unprotected. With a 30 or 45 block I burn within 15-20 mins. With the 100 block I have been out in the sun for up to 3 hours and never even gotten a red patch. When I go in the shade my skin looks like it wasn't even exposed to the suns rays. I may never have a tan, but I don't care. That's what makeup is for. I'm just saying...
More on skin next time.
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