New products or procedures claim to help make you look years younger. But caring for your skin involves more than just what the latest and greatest product claims to do. It’s important to know what is in the products that you put on your skin and which of those ingredients are actually effective or which are purely snake oil.

Your skin

The largest organ in the body, skin makes up 15% of your body weight. It consists of 70% water, 25% protein and 2% lipids (or fats).

Skin has three layers: the epidermis, the dermis and subcutaneous tissue. The epidermis is the top layer of the skin, which receives the most exposure to the outside elements. This top layer is in a constant state of regeneration, sloughing off dead skin cells and making new ones every three to five weeks. 

The middle dermis layer is where wrinkles develop. Cells in the dermis synthesize the production of collagen and elastin, two important keys to maintaining the skin’s health, resilience and youthful appearance. As collagen and elastin decline with age, wrinkles develop.

The third layer is subcutaneous tissue, which consists mainly of fat. Loss of this tissue leads to skin sagging and accentuates wrinkles.

Self-care options to skin care

Your skin naturally gets drier with age. Dryness increases even more when estrogen levels start to decline during perimenopause and menopause. You can help slow this process by being proactive in your approach to skin care and avoiding things that can increase dryness.

The DON’T guide to skin care includes:

• Don’t wash your face with regular soap or detergents.
• Don’t use alcohol-based astringents, wipes or colognes.
• Don’t expose your skin to excess sun or wind.

The easiest and best thing you can do for your skin is to moisturize from the inside by keeping your body well hydrated. Also, avoid foods and beverages that cause excess water loss, such as coffee and other caffeinated drinks.

Protecting your skin from the minor day-to-day damage it receives from sun, wind, detergents, acne, abrasions and pollution can also help to slow the appearance of aging. When looking for anti-aging skin care products, the ideal product to restore your skin’s youthful appearance would:

• provide antioxidant protection, 
• repair damage by free-radicals,
• support the production of collagen and elastin,
• restore moisture content,
• enhance the skin’s healing mechanisms

Antioxidants effect on the skin

Topical application of antioxidants helps protect your skin from the damaging effects of free radicals. Free radicals are atoms that have at least one unpaired electron which causes them to react quickly and indiscriminately, inflicting damage as a result. 

CoEnzyme Q10 (CoQ10) is one of the more popular antioxidants that is included in anti-aging skin care. Also known as ubiquinone or ubiquinol, CoQ10 is sometimes called the “biomarker of aging” because it naturally occurs in your body but declines as you age. For most people over 30, declining levels of CoQ10 make it difficult to maintain healthy, young-looking skin. Added into your skin care products, CoQ10 not only serves as an antioxidant but also boosts skin repair and regeneration.

Look for these ingredients in skin care products that serve as antioxidants:

• Grapefruit seed extract
• Olive leaf extract
• Olive oil
• Gold flakes
• Green tea
• Vitamin É

Rebuild skin cells and stimulate collagen production

Skin cell renewal

Your young skin has the power to quickly repair and regenerate itself. As you age, however, the power of your immune system decreases, leaving your skin more vulnerable to damage.

While antioxidants clear the skin of the damaging free radicals, other active ingredients work to soothe skin irritation so that healthy, normal skin cells can regenerate. Beta glucan is one such active ingredient that increases the efficiency of the immune system to boost the natural regeneration of skin cells and slow the signs of aging. 

Look for these ingredients in skin care products that help soothe and regenerate skin cells:

• Vitamin A
• Aloe vera gel
• Allantoin

Support the production of collagen and elastin

Skin is made up of three important molecules: collagen, elastin and glycosoaminoglycans/proteoglycans. The health, resilience and youthful appearance your skin is dependant on the quality of these molecules.

Collagen gives skin its strength and durability. As you age, the collagen in your skin decreases, leading to wrinkles and thinning and sagging skin. Due to its large molecule size, lost collagen can’t be replaced by simply applying it to your skin. However, topical collagen can act as a moisturizing agent.

There are several active ingredients in skin care products that help stimulate collagen production. A patented peptide, Matrixyl 3000 is one of a group of amino acids produced by your cells that enhance skin protein by stimulating the production of collagen. Results of a four-month French study found that Matrixyl produced dramatic changes in the appearance of aging facial skin.

Look for these ingredients in skin care products that serve to synthesize collagen production:

• Vitamin C
• Copper peptides
• Pomegranate seed oil

Foods and supplements rich in the amino acids praline, hydroxyproline, lysine and glycine also may help stimulate collagen production.

Restore skin’s moisture

Moisturizers alone don’t reverse skin from aging. However, active ingredients that repair and regenerate skin cells aren’t as effective if the skin is dry. Dehydrated skin has a decreased capacity to repair and regenerate itself, making it more susceptible to damage and aging. 

Women with particularly dry skin may be better off using an emulsion based moisturizer, which includes an oil-water combination.

Oil-free moisturizers are based on humectants which trap and hold water. Examples include glycerin, hyaluronic acid, propylene glycol, collagen and colloidal oatmeal.

Hyaluronic acid is the most talked about ingredient in skin care today. It plays an important role in tissue hydration, lubrication and cellular function, and is able to hold more water than any other natural substance. Its unmatched hydrating properties result in increased smoothness, softening and decreased wrinkles.

Look for these ingredients included in skin care products that serve to moisturize the skin:

• Algae/Seaweed Extract
• Olive oil
• Emu oil
• Ceramides
• Cyclic Acid
• Lanolin
• Methyl Gluceth
• Sodium Hyaluronate

The importance of delivery systems

It’s possible for a skin care product to have many of the ingredients above and still not be effective in helping to slow the signs of aging. All the anti-aging ingredients in the world don’t amount to much if the skin care product doesn’t have a delivery system to get the antioxidant, moisturizing and collagen-producing properties into the deeper levels of your skin.

Delivery systems play an important role in the development of effective skin care products. They allow the active ingredients of anti-aging skin care products to penetrate the outer layer of the skin so that they can work on the dermis, where the wrinkles develop.

For example, some DermaFex^™ products use the patented Liposomal Matrix Delivery (LMD) system. This system uses liposomes which merge with cellular membranes and release the active ingredients into cells.

Some AMAVI^™ products use a unique delivery system called Nanochem™ that moves active ingredients deep into the skin.