Wrinkle Free, Healthy Skin

The skin is the largest organ in the body. It is the only organ we have that is viewed by the world. We work to make it attractive, sometimes actually harming it in the process by tanning, tattooing, and piercing.

Here are 5 easy steps to take to create your healthy skin.

1. Don’t Smoke. Smoking accelerates the normal aging process of the skin. The components of cigarette smoke, tars and nicotine, blocks capillaries, decreasing blood flow and depleting the skin of oxygen and nutrients. The damage to the collagen results in wrinkles and fine lines.

Even young people who have been smoking for ten years will have significant wrinkling.

Added to that, the repetitive pursing of lips from smoking causes wrinkles around the mouth.

2. Drink plenty of water, to hydrate your skin from the inside out. Drink at least 2 quarts a day. That is what it takes to replace what you normally lose during the day. If you exercise or work hard enough to sweat, you need more.

3. Hydrate the outer surface of your skin with gentle washing. Bathe daily with a mild soap and warm, not hot, water. Limit bath or shower time to 15 minutes. Bathing for too long or in too hot water strips the oils from your skin, leaving it dry and exposed to the environment.

You may need to avoid products with perfume and dyes if you have sensitive skin.

If you shave, do it while your skin is wet, using a gel and a clean sharp razor. Shave in the direction of hair growth.

Moisturize immediately after bathing, using an oil or cream with an SPF 15 and containing vitamin E. Vitamins can be absorbed through the skin and well as from within.

4. Protect your skin from ultraviolet light by staying out of the sun. Ultraviolet light damages the skin, causing deep wrinkles, rough dry spots, liver spots and cancer. Tanning beds are no safer than sunlight.

Avoid the sun between 10 am and 4 pm. If you must go out wear long sleeved shirts, long pants and wide brim hats. Tightly woven fabrics are more protective than loosely woven. Apply sunscreen before exposure to the sun and reapply every 2 hours or after coming out of the water.

5. Think carefully before piercing or tattooing. Be sure these procedures are done under sanitary conditions. The hepatitis and HIV viruses can be passed though instruments that have not been properly sterilized.

Are you sure you will always want that tattoo? It can be quite stunning when first done, but with age it changes. Colors fade. Skin wrinkles and sags. Do you want to be an 80 year old woman with a faded rose on your sagging breast?

Tattoos can be removed with some pain and risk. Piercing can be abandoned with nothing more that a little pock mark to mark the spot.

Health aside, your skin will stay wrinkle free and younger looking longer if you heed these rules.

Healthy skin care is crucial to healthy aging.