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Heredity • Age • General Health • Medications • Diet • Exercise & Rest • How You Take Care Of Your Skin • The Amount Of Sun Exposure You’ve Had • Female Or Male
hat does good skin look and feel like? Does the face or body of a fashion model or entertainment star pop into your head? Actually, glamour has nothing to do with it. You can’t tell good skin by magazine photos or movie close-ups since photographers and make-up artists are trained to trick the eye.
Many psychological studies support the fact that people who are considered to be above average in attractiveness, and those who have clearer skin, earn more money, attract better-looking and more successful mates, hold higher positions and find more opportunities than their less-attractive counterparts.
Your skin. Underneath it all, healthy skin is smooth, soft, elastic, fresh, and clear of blemishes. If that’s not what you see when you look in a mirror, there may be a lot of reasons why not.
The way your skin looks and feels, its condition and health, depend on the following factors, some of which you can’t control:
Heredity plays a big part in what your skin is and what it will be. If you are black, your skin is stronger than that of your white friends. Black skin is thicker and tougher, has greater protection from the sun’s dangerous rays, and wrinkles much less - and much later - than fair skin.
Black people, even when they’re seventy or eighty years old, usually have fewer wrinkles than white people who are in their 50s. And, if a black person hasn’t been in the sun a lot during his or her lifetime, you may never see a wrinkle.
If you are blue-eyed, blonde, and fair-skinned with Scandinavian or Irish relatives, your skin will usually be thin and delicate. This type of skin can’t take exposure to the sun, wind, cold, or other harsh weather. It also develops wrinkles sooner than darker skin does.
We’re all getting older every day, but our skin ages differently, depending on heredity, general health, and how you have taken care of your skin. There are, however, some general stages in our skin’s life.
Young people’s skins are more delicate and thinner than those of adults. Infants with diaper rash and young children who are covered with scrapes, scratches, and bruises have less protection from the outside world than the adult whose skin has become toughened to handle the nicks and bumps of everyday living. The teenager whose oil-producing glands are increasing their activity will develop oily skin, oily hair, and acne.
When you get old, your skin becomes very thin and fragile, just as it was when you were a baby. Bumping your skin even a little bit can cause large bruises and blemishes. As your skin ages, it becomes saggy. Changes in hormones cut down the skin’s oil supply and the skin becomes rough and dry, and “age spots” develop.
Your skin actually mirrors what’s going on inside your body. So to have healthy skin, you must be in good physical and emotional health.
Many diseases, infections, and illnesses show up on the skin in several ways. For example, diabetes can cause dry skin, itching, pigment and nail changes, and yeast infections. Hepatitis and other liver disorders may create terrible itching or hives. Gall bladder trouble and some blood disorders will cause your skin to turn yellow. Hormone imbalances can change your skin color or make you lose your hair. Or cause you to grow too much hair. Certain blood diseases can cause itching, hives, and shingles, while lack of vitamins can bring on cracked lips, hair loss, dry skin, and mouth ulcers.
Stress, worry, and other emotional problems can show up as changes in your skin, such as acne pimples, hair loss, or differences in your skin’s color, texture, or elasticity.
Taking vitamins, diet pills, and many other medications can change the appearance of your skin, hair, and nails. Very dry skin can result from taking thyroid medication and high doses of vitamin A.
Hives can develop from hundreds of medications, usually aspirin, penicillin, and sulfa drugs such as those used for bladder infections (Bactrim and Septra to name only two). Acne and oily skin are frequent side effects of low-dose birth control pills, anti-epilepsy medication (Dilantin and Lithium are common offenders), and cortisone-like drugs. You can develop sun poisoning if you get too much sun while taking sulfa drugs, high-blood pressure pills, oral contraceptives, or medications of the tetracycline family. A rash that looks a lot like measles can show up if you’re taking penicillin, ampicillin, sleeping pills, or scores of other medicines (See chapter on Drug Rashes). Low-dose birth control pills, thyroid medication, male hormones, high-blood pressure and lipid-lowering drugs, as well as most of the medications used to treat cancer, all can cause hair to fall out.
All of these side effects shouldn’t discourage you from taking your medicines, but you should know what might happen when you do. If you think you are developing an unusual reaction from some type of medication, check with the doctor who prescribed it.
Since the living cells that produce your skin, hair, and nails depend on what you eat for their supply of nutrients, it is important that you feed your body well. In other words, “eat a well-balanced diet.”
Poor eating habits can cause temporary hair loss, cracks in the corners of your mouth, and changes in your nails. Your skin may bruise easily, heal slowly, and look dull, drab, and “ashy.” A good diet keeps your skin healthy, helps your skin have good tone, texture, and color, and protects your skin from disease. You shouldn’t have to take vitamin supplements if you eat properly. There is no proof that swallowing extra vitamins or minerals does anything good for your skin.
Rashes and other problems can occur when you eat certain foods. If you’re allergic to penicillin, some cheeses (such as Roquefort and blue) can cause hives. If you like seaweed salad, you should know that kelp could cause zits. Eating too many carrots, oranges, or tomatoes can turn your skin yellow. Quinine (in quinine water) can cause bruising, blisters and hives. Seafood, chocolate, strawberries, and many other foods can bring on bouts of cold sores on the lips.
Regular exercise is an important part of staying healthy. It takes care of boredom, tension, and anxiety, keeps your body in good shape, and enhances the color and texture of your skin. Exercising improves the circulation of the blood that then provides nourishment to the skin to build new cells, helps it get rid of impurities, and keeps the skin looking healthy and glowing.
When you don’t get enough rest, circulation is cut down and the skin receives less oxygen and nourishment. As a result, your skin may look dull and sallow, acne zits can flare up, and dark circles can appear under your eyes. Suggestion: get your beauty sleep.
How You Take Care Of Your Skin
The number ONE rule for having good, clear skin is to clean it the right way. A clean skin is a healthy skin.
Proper cleansing removes the irritating and poisonous agents and germs that could hurt your skin or, by absorption through the skin, actually cause harm to other parts of your body. There are many ways to clean your skin, but the good, old-fashioned soap and water routine is really the best, most efficient, and least expensive method.
What are some of the things you want to wash away to keep your skin clean and healthy-looking?
First of all, you have substances produced by your own body:
Regular washing with soap and water rinses and flushes this skin garbage away, cleans the pores, reduces odor, and cuts down the risk of infection and disease. Your clean skin will look soft, glowing, and healthy. Its circulation will improve, encouraging the growth of healthy cells, and your skin will breathe better. All this, by just washing you face three times a day.
A word on cleansing creams used mostly to remove make-up. While your make-up seems to disappear, you’re actually left with an irritating combination of cream, leftover make-up, and other impurities that were already on the skin. This leftover mess not only irritates your skin but also can clog the pores, leading to blackheads and whiteheads. If you try to remove it with tissues, you only further clog up the pore openings.
Let’s face it; only soap and water will really get your skin clean. Washing your face three times a day with a mild, gentle soap is the most important advice I can give. If you want to take off make-up with a cleansing cream, follow it up with soap and water to get rid of all that mess than can only cause problems.
The kind of soap you use on your face is a matter of personal choice, but watch out for the ones that are irritating or can’t be completely rinsed off. The so-called cold cream soaps, although they are fairly mild and gentle, always leave a film of cold cream, plugging up the oil glands that are already working hard to get rid of their normal oil supply. The deodorant and antibacterial soaps can be especially irritating to facial skin because they leave a residue of chemicals on your skin to destroy germs. If you have a body odor problem, use deodorant soaps only below the neck.
Do your face a favor and use a mild, gentle soap or cleanser that does its cleansing job well, rinses off easily, and leaves nothing behind. Try any of the following:
Aquanil Cleanser
Cetaphil Cleanser
Cetaphil Bar
Moisturel Cleanser
Neutrogena Bar
The Amount Of Sun Exposure You’ve Had
To keep your skin healthy, you must learn to protect it. And the most harmful agent you must protect it from is the sun. Damaging sunrays can cause wrinkles and skin cancer as well. They’re really hard on people with light hair, blue eyes, and fair skin.
A golden, bronzed body is beautiful! We think it’s healthy and desirable. But a tan is nothing more than your body’s marvelous defense against the dangerous effects of the sun’s harmful rays, the ones that lead to early aging of the skin, wrinkles and, ultimately, skin cancer.
You absolutely cannot tan without damaging your skin. Sun damage is cumulative and irreversible. Your skin is like a sponge and a bank: it soaks up all those rays and stores them. Forever.
The best protection from the sun is to avoid it completely. Second best is to apply a good sunscreen with a Sun Protection Factor of at least 15. (Please see chapter on Sun.)
Finally, the health of your skin, its color, texture, and strength will depend on your sex.
The next time you’re at the shopping mall or in a crowd, take a look at white couples in their fifties or sixties. If the man and woman are about the same age, you will probably notice that the woman looks about ten years older than the man. Her facial skin will appear drier and less elastic, and she’ll have more wrinkles. Why? Several reasons:
If you understand all of these conditions that affect the health of your skin – and what you can and can’t do about them – you’ll be on the right road to taking care of that marvelous organ we call skin. And you really should . . . it has to last you a lifetime.
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