Are you afraid of getting old? As you age, looking in the mirror can feel like you’re looking at a different person. The wrinkles, creases, or dryness are alienating. If it’s only starting, then the fear of how bad it can get can keep you up at night. As such, many people are always on the lookout for how the anti aging facial process works. They want to know what steps to take, how it works, and if it’s effective.
The good news is that the process isn’t as difficult to explain as first thought. It all comes down to understanding that collagen is at the root of our skin’s health. Likewise, UV rays are often at the root of skin damage.
Most treatments will boost your natural collagen to keep your skin healthy. For a comprehensive breakdown of how anti aging facials work, read on.
Understanding Why We Wrinkle
There’s no easy way to say this, but as we age, our skin isn’t as youthful as it once was. It starts to wrinkle and sag and lose some of its glow. The reasons for this are biological, and the good thing is we know how to treat them.
Your skin creates a number of chemicals and compounds. The most important of these is collagen. Collagen is responsible for your skin’s ability to rejuvenate and restore itself.
Throughout our lives, our skin is always in the process of shedding and regrowing. This happens on a microscopic level, so we don’t usually notice it. The higher our collagen production, the faster this regrowth is.
When we’re young, it’s so fast that we’d only notice how quick it is if we suffered severe damage. Things like UV rays from the sun can cause this damage, which can overwhelm our skin as we age. We’ll reach a point where our natural collagen levels aren’t up to the task – and this is where the battle turns into a war.
Sun damage, in particular, causes more than wrinkles. It also leads to dark spots, dryness, and problems with our elasticity. There is a variety of available treatments that you can do at home or at a MedSpa.
Anti aging facials can help you combat damage. They do this by boosting your collagen and elasticity. The earlier you start, the more effective they will be at restoring your skin’s health.
How Anti Aging Facials Help
Anti aging facials can help in preventing wrinkles if you start early enough. As mentioned, wrinkles come when your skin’s natural restorative abilities start to wane. The anti aging process is all about restoring this ability and reversing the damage.
Your best defense against wrinkles, dryness, creases, and volume loss is you. Collagen and elastin are the two compounds that do the majority of the heavy lifting for helping you look young. It’s for this reason that every anti aging facial on the market will work to trigger production.
In general, anti aging facials try to do the following things:
- Provide much-needed moisture to dry skin
- Exfoliate dead skin
- Trigger your skin to rejuvenate naturally
- Try to restore any lost volume
- Work to restore your natural elasticity levels
- Deal with visible damage, such as sun spots, and
- Try to give your skin its natural glow back
It’s important to go into more detail about how anti aging facials achieve these goals.
Exfoliation and Rejuvenation
We’ve talked a lot about collagen and elastin, but we haven’t explained how exactly facials help. You see, collagen production requires a trigger to begin. Often this trigger is skin damage, such as via the sun or natural shedding.
As we age, our skin doesn’t shed and create new skin cells anywhere near as often. This gives our old cells plenty of time to suffer UV damage. The problem is our skin can’t rejuvenate fast enough to avoid wrinkles and other signs of aging.
So one of the first things anti aging facial treatments do is exfoliate. Exfoliation has two fundamental goals. The first is to unclog your pores and eliminate all the excess oils and dead-cell build-up.
The second goal is the one that’s crucial for anti aging. By removing that build-up, we slightly damage our skin. It’s enough not to be visible but also to cause our collagen to go into overdrive.
The main ways we achieve this exfoliate are as follows:
- Via collagen stimulating retinoid facials
- Through exfoliating chemical peels
- By using physical brushes and scrubs
- Using Light Therapy
- Relying on microdermabrasion
You can get many of these more full-scale treatments done at any reputable Medspa.
Collagen Creams, Serums, and Retinoids
Retinoids are compounds that derive from Vitamin A and help replenish your natural collagen levels. They’re found in many creams and serums and the majority of facial masks. What retinoids do is gently damage your skin to trigger new collagen growth.
Vitamin C and Vitamin E are key ingredients that many often use alongside retinoids for this same purpose. Vitamin C is stronger and, as such, can sting a bit for some people. It’s often used to help lighten pigmentation issues and guard against UVB and UVA rays.
Vitamin E adds extra protection from those rays. On top of promoting collagen, Vitamin E also fights free radicals.
Retinoids, Vitamin C, and Vitamin E are useful in stimulating and maintaining new collagen growth. They’re simple, non-invasive, and can become incorporated into any home routine.
Chemical Peels and Physical Scrubs
Chemical peels are much more powerful than most at-home anti aging facial remedies. They involve applying what is, in essence, a low-grade acid to your skin in order to slough off all the old and dead cells. We aren’t talking about anything dangerous or crazy damaging.
That said, a noticeable sting and initial redness are pretty common. Once the old skin is gone, a hydrating and soothing facial will be next to restore moisture while you heal.
For those who are allergic to chemical peels or don’t like them, there are physical options as well. The most common is the facial scrub. This involves using some form of abrasive, like a rough sponge or sugar scrub.
You then exfoliate your skin by hand using friction. This is a treatment you can do at home and has a lot of devoted fans. Like with chemical peels, physical scrubs don’t stop at exfoliation.
The key is to get the surface level of skin off so it can grow back more healthy and even. This has the added benefit of getting rid of any surface wrinkles. By clearing your pores of debris and gunk, any future skincare you apply will also work better.
Light Therapy and Microdermabrasion
Light therapy uses powerful LED light to trigger skin rejuvenation. It’s not the same as a laser, but in principle, you can think of it as similar. This therapy uses heat to damage your old surface skin rather than chemicals or friction.
For some people, light therapy (or phototherapy) has proven more effective than other methods. In particular, it’s helped improve skin texture and sun spots.
Microdermabrasion is a physical or mechanical method that goes deeper than scrubs. It involves pricking the skin with tiny needles to stimulate collagen growth. The needles are extremely fine and reach a deeper level of skin than most surface treatments.
As such, the cell turnover is also more significant. For this reason, it’s helped many reduce creases, wrinkles, and dark spots. But, like with chemical peels, this is an anti aging facial treatment best left to the pros.
The Process That Goes Into Proper Skincare
Anti-aging skincare is a full-routine process. On top of your serums and creams, you must do things like wear sunscreen. There’s also a reason why so many anti aging facial treatments are big on exfoliation.
You have to cleanse your skin and pores every day. Doing that helps your other skincare work better. It also stops excess oils and gunk from making your skin look older.
Hydrating and moisturizing is also super important, especially for anti aging. You should always look to incorporate it into any facial treatment. Extreme dryness can lead to cracking and visible damage, as well as leave you more at the sun’s mercy.
Even the best anti aging facial treatments are only as good as your routine. If you don’t keep up with it and do everything you can to succeed, it won’t matter. You need to reduce UV exposure, keep your skin healthy, and stick to your routine.
No serum, cream, or mask will ever work after one or two uses. Real skin care is a process. It takes weeks or months to get going, but with benefits that will last as long as you keep doing it.
Like many things in life, consistency and persistency are the keys.
Learning How an Anti Aging Facial Works
There is a simple answer to how an anti aging facial works. It seeks to stimulate new collagen growth by getting rid of your dead old skin. Collagen is what triggers your skin’s natural rejuvenation capacity.
There are many viable methods, including creams, serums, peels, scrubs, needles, and heat. This requires consistent work and routine to contribute to the skin you deserve. Skin Envy Boutique Med Spa has all the extra info you need, so contact us today.