Aging and Your Skin: The Best Ingredients for Your Daily Routine

As you age, the signs of aging begin to show on your skin. Every time you went outside without sunscreen or walked through the city on a particularly windy day, the dust, debris, and other elements of your environment were etching themselves onto your face, neck, and shoulders.

Luckily, it’s never too late to start a new skincare regimen that helps you look younger and feel healthier. Of course, that means finding products that contain some of these anti-aging ingredients to combat aging skin.

Aging and Your Skin: The Best Ingredients for Your Daily Routine

Retinol

Created from vitamin A, retinol boosts your body’s collagen production. Collagen then works to fill in the fine lines and wrinkles on your skin, plumping it out to create a more youthful appearance.

Retinol (or its stronger counterpart, tretinoin) can also improve skin tone by reducing redness or dark spots. Because retinol is a drying ingredient, it’s best to use it at night and use moisturizer the next morning.

Caffeine

If you’re like most adults, you’re already putting plenty of caffeine into your body, but are you putting any of it on your face? A natural antioxidant, caffeine can help reduce the definition of fine lines, especially those that appear as “crow’s feet” around the outer corners of your eyes. You can find caffeine in some lotions and creams.

Vitamin C

Vitamin C has been touted as one of the best products for your skin over the last few years. When you add an antioxidant like vitamin C to your skincare regimen, you’re boosting collagen and elastin, making your skin more supple and more flexible. This helps to minimize fine lines as well as scarring. You can purchase vitamin C in lotions or creams, or you can buy it as a serum.

Coenzyme Q-10

Also known as CoQ-10, coenzyme Q-10 is an antioxidant that your body makes naturally to get rid of free radicals. Unfortunately, as you age, you produce less of it. Adding it to your skincare routine via toners or gels can help to reduce wrinkles around the eyes.

Peptides

Peptides are perhaps the least understood ingredient on the list. Peptides are strings of amino acids that work with other antioxidants your body produces to help you maintain collagen and a more youthful appearance.

As you age, you lose about 1% per year. There is a range of peptides, some of which include carriers, enzyme inhibitors, and neurotransmitters. Each one has its own job, which could be to provide trace minerals, to block the release of “bad” chemicals, or to slow down the breakdown of collagen.

While you can get these through skincare products such as lotions and creams, some doctors recommend peptide therapy. This treatment is more aggressive because it involves injections. However, it also helps the peptides to work more quickly and for longer.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to age gracefully. But if you’d like to reduce the signs of wrinkles on your face, using the above ingredients may help you do so. Remember to create both a morning and evening skincare routine, as well as using sunscreen daily, for the best results.