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August
Women, and even men of a certain age are constantly looking for a magic bullet when it comes to anti ageing skin care. In fact, women in the UK are spending around 100 million per year, trying to look younger using anti aging cream as a non surgical facelift. The real problem is, that by the time they become of a certain age, they are always playing catch up. You have to start when you are young. Are you listening teenagers and twentysomethings?
The sun, although beneficial to health, is one of the biggest causes of skin ageing. People tend to be quite good at putting on high factor sun screen when they are on the beach but this is not the full story. When the sky is blue, you are mainly protecting yourself from the UV-A rays but it is when the sky is cloudy that the damage is done because the clouds filter out the UV-A rays but cannot filter the UV-B rays which are the real villains and are a major cause for skin ageing. You will realise that these are affecting you every time you go out doors every day of the year.
UV-B is hitting you as you walk from your house to the station, from the station to work and back again. It is there when you go for your lunch. This means that your first weapon to anti aging is sun blocker, all the time. Use it on your face hands and neck at all times possibly as a substitute for moisturiser cream.
We are bombarded with TV advertisements for anti ageing skin cream, many featuring hi-tech laboratories with actors in white lab coats pretending to be scientists. This is trying to show you that this particular cream has been rigorously tested and is not only safe but their technical advantages will make your skin look younger, guaranteed.
Can we really trust them though? It would appear that they may be stretching the truth a little, and the fact that the Advertising Standards Agency have had a couple of these adverts removed would seem so. Many of the new ingredients are in fact, quite old but have just not been used in skin cream before. Luckily this history means that the chemicals ought to be safe to use when it comes to a non surgical facelift. The new preparation is then tried out on some willing volunteers and if the results are half reasonable, they are on to a winner.
A typical type of ingredient is one that goes by the name of Retinol which is actually vitamin A. This has been known and used by the medical profession in the treatment of skin problems. It is used in a quite high dosage, which means it is only available on prescription from a doctor. The amount of Retinol you will find in any preparations you can buy, are going to be relatively small and therefore the effects will match. This doesn’t mean that you may not derive some benefit from using it but you may be better off spending your money in food that is rich in vitamin A.
One problem that is rarely mentioned is the time factor. Many of these active ingredients are unstable. That is, they degrade when in contact with the air or moisture or both. As soon as they are manufactured, the air begins to degrade the efficacy of the substances. There are no date stamps on the packaging so you don’t know how long it has been since your product has been made, which means you don’t know how long the product has been sitting on the shelf. After you buy your product, once you have opened it, the process of degradation is accelerated so you should take great care in the storage and don’t leave it hanging around or it turns into a very expensive cold cream.
The one thing these anti ageing skin care creams will have in common is that they all contain a moisturiser which is a very basic thing that can be bought quite cheaply. This will, to a minor extent, put water back into the skin but it will also act as a barrier to stop moisture leaving the skin. The rest of the expensive additives are going to be a question of hit and miss. Of all the chemicals added, very few have hard scientifically proven pedigrees because they are considered cosmetic not pharmaceutical and the levels of research are nowhere near as stringent. Your friend may find one that really works for her but it may not work for you so it is really a question of experimentation until you find one that can work for you. Another even cheaper alternative for a non surgical facelift cream, is to make your own. It is not as hard as you think and you are guaranteed that your ingredients are freshly prepared so are at their maximum potency so that you will see the benefits even sooner. It could be that you discover a new formula and become the next Elizabeth Arden.
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