While you may have found the perfect skin care routine a decade or two ago, times change, and so does your skin. In order for your skin to continue to thrive and look its best as the years go on, it’s important to adapt and adjust your skin care routine. Here are X reasons why…

To Slow Down the Loss of Collagen and Elastin

Collagen and elastin are the two main structural proteins that lie beneath your skin. These fibers act as a sort of scaffolding, holding your skin up from within and giving it its structure and firmness.

Both proteins are naturally produced by the skin, and in very large amounts while you are young. This is why babies are known for having such soft, smooth, and bouncy skin.

However, as you age, collagen and elastin production both slow down, decreasing more and more as the decades go on. Not only that, but there is so much out there that also breaks down the existing collagen and elastin fibers in the skin, such as:

• Sun exposure
• Certain foods, such as sugar and alcohol
• Smoking
• Stress

What happens when you don’t have as much collagen and elastin in your skin?

Without enough collagen and elastin fibers to hold your skin up from within, your skin will soon start to wrinkle and sag. This is clearly not what anyone wants, which is why it is so important to incorporate collagen and elastin-building ingredients into your skin care routine. The decline usually starts in a person’s 30’s, making this a great time to look into anti-aging skin care products.

Wondering which ingredients are best for boosting collagen and elastin production back up?

Some of the most powerful include:

• Peptides
• Retinol
• Vitamin C
• Amino acids
• Niacinamide

If you are not yet using a product to help rebuild your skin’s collagen and elastin, one to look into would be the 24K Termica Completion Cream. It has been designed to reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles by encouraging natural collagen and elastin production, making it a great formula to have on your side as your skin ages.

To Counter an Uneven Skin Tone, Dark Spots and Hyperpigmentation

While you may have enjoyed a clear, even, and bright skin tone in your earlier years, chances are that this will change as you age.

Why?

For a few different reasons…

To begin with, environmental damage, especially sun exposure, can lead to dark spots appearing on the skin. This is caused by damage that builds up over time, which is why you likely won’t know that it is happening until the dark spots make an appearance. It all comes down to your skin producing excess melanin, which is the pigment that gives your skin its color, in order to protect itself from UV rays. Over-production often causes melanin to cluster in certain areas of the skin, leading to those dark spots, which are also known as age spots and sun spots.

If you have ever experienced acne, or any other type of skin injury, this can lead to an uneven skin tone too. This is due to scarring, which is a natural reaction after the skin has been injured. Hormones can play a part in skin tone too, especially with women who have either been pregnant or are taking contraceptives, leading to hyperpigmentation.

Most do not tend to worry about these things while they are young, which is understandable since they only really make an appearance with age. However, as soon as you do begin to notice dark spots and an uneven skin tone, it’s time to take action.

How?

By incorporating brightening ingredients into your skin care routine. Some of the best ones to look into include:

• Vitamin C
• Niacinamide
• Kojic acid
• Vitamin E, especially when combined with vitamin C
• Licorice extract

Look into skin care products that are designed to brighten up the complexion, such as the 24K Bio-Brightening Collection. If you don’t take the right steps now to counter your dark spots, they will only get worse, which is why it is worth considering a multi-pronged approach when dealing with them. This means making use of multiple brightening skin care products, as each one will target different levels of your skin.

To Repair Environmental Damage

The environment around you can be surprisingly harmful to your skin. Let’s begin with sun exposure, which you likely already know can be extremely detrimental. In addition to breaking down collagen and causing dark spots, sun exposure can also trigger the development of different skin cancers.

Pollution is another big problem – in addition to having the same effects as UV rays when it comes to dark spots and collagen degradation, some pollutants also enter into the skin and increase the size of the blood vessels within, which leads to redness, and possibly also rosacea.

So, how do you counter environmental damage?

Well, the very first step is to focus on your cleansing routine, something that becomes increasingly important with age. Ideally, try to cleanse your skin at the end of the day rather than in the morning, as this gives you the opportunity to clear away all of those pollutants that have built up on your skin during the day.

While regular cleansing will help to prevent more environmental damage from occurring, it isn’t going to fix what has already been done. For this, you need to turn to antioxidants.

Antioxidants are fantastic for healing environmental damage, and also do so much good for your skin in other ways too. Even better is the fact that their power is increased when combined, meaning that a skin care product that contains multiple antioxidants could really make a huge difference.

To Speed Up Skin Cell Turnover

Skin cell turnover isn’t something that many pay attention to when they are young, and, again, this is understandable. After all, cell turnover functions optimally in a person’s youth – it’s only once aging sets in that cell turnover is affected.

What exactly is skin cell turnover?

It refers to the rate at which your skin sheds its older and dead skin cells that have been pushed up the surface layer of the skin. Once these are removed, they are replaced with the younger and fresher skin cells that lie beneath.

When you are a child, skin cell turnover usually happens every 14 days, with this increasing to every 21 to 28 days once you reach your teenage years. After this, it continues to slow down every decade – once you’re in your 40’s, the skin cell turnover process takes between 30 and 42 days, and can even slow down as much as 84 days after another decade or two.

As you can see, that’s a huge difference!

Wondering what happens when skin cell turnover slows down?

All of those older and dead skin cells on the surface of your skin stick around, rather than being naturally shed. This then leads to a rough and dull complexion.

So, how do you speed skin cell turnover back up?

The best way is through exfoliation. Not only will this actually remove those older and rougher skin cells from the surface of your skin, but it will also encourage your skin to naturally shed those cells more frequently on its own, while speeding up the production of new skin cells deeper within.

There are a couple of different ways in which you can exfoliate:

• Physical exfoliation, which makes use of an abrasive substance, such as a scrub
• Chemical exfoliation, which makes use of a naturally-derived acid

While physical exfoliation is fine when you are young, this is best avoided as you age.

Why?

Because it creates friction on the skin, and also means that you are likely going to be pulling and tugging at your skin. Older skin doesn’t cope with this well – the friction can lead to micro-tears, while the tugging encourages and exacerbates fine lines and wrinkles.

This makes chemical exfoliation the better option – while it may sound a little scarier, it’s actually much more gentle than physical exfoliation, so long as you choose the right formula.

The 24K Multi-Vitamin Deep Peeling + Mandelic Acid is a good exfoliant to look into, since mandelic acid, which comes from apples, is considered to be one of the gentlest chemical exfoliants out there. This formula also contains a selection of powerful anti-aging vitamins, making it great for tackling other issues too. It is designed to be used once a week, and this is something that you should definitely make the effort to do regularly. A one-off exfoliation won’t have an impact on skin cell turnover – consistency is what you need.

To Add Extra Moisture

If you have noticed that your skin seems to be getting drier as you get older, there is a reason for this…

The outermost layer of your skin is designed to lock in moisture by preventing it from evaporating. As the skin ages, this layer weakens, making moisture retention a challenge for the skin.

This then leads to dryness, which, as it so happens, also increases the visibility of fine lines and wrinkles, as well as any other skin issues you may be dealing with.

Even those who may have had oily, acne-prone skin when young are likely to end up dealing with dryness as they age, which is why your skin care routine needs to be tailored to deal with this.

How should you be adding extra moisture into your skin?

There are a few different ways in which you can tackle this…

Many immediately turn to a moisturizer, and while these are great, you need to pick one that not only provides instant hydration, but also helps to strengthen that natural protective layer to encourage your skin to better retain moisture on its own.

One of the best moisturizing tips for extra hydration is to always apply your moisturizer onto damp, rather than dry, skin.

Why?

Because one of the roles that a moisturizer plays is to form a thin film over the surface of the skin. This basically mimics the function of your skin’s natural protective barrier, trapping moisture in. If you apply this onto damp skin that already contains extra water molecules, then all of that extra moisture won’t be able to evaporate out of your skin, giving your skin an extra boost of hydration.

A hydrating serum can also be extremely helpful. Unlike a moisturizer, which tends to be quite thick, serums are much lighter in consistency. This means that they are able to penetrate into the deeper layers of your skin, and these are usually the cells that need the extra moisture the most.

Look for a serum that contains a variety of plant oils – these are fantastic for hydrating, and are also loaded with antioxidants that have their own anti-aging effects. One example would be the 24K Rejuvenating Skin Serum – it contains hemp seed oil, which has recently earned the reputation of being one of the most hydrating botanical extracts out there.

In addition to taking the necessary steps to adapt your skin care routine to your skin’s ever-changing needs, you should also be taking a close look at your lifestyle choices. Everything from the food that you eat to the stress that you feel to the amount of time you spend in the sun can have a huge impact on how your skin ages. While skin care can help with this to a certain extent, there are several different factors that come into play if you really want a vibrant and youthful complexion, making it important to take this all into consideration when coming up with a game plan to improve the health and appearance of your skin.