Keep Your Skin Looking Good

A lot of people are surprised when they find out how old I am. And I get a lot of comments and compliments about my good skin. Here's a picture of me that I took myself on a trip in December 2008. I do have some eyeshadow and lipstick on, but my skin is bare: no foundation or powder. How old do you think I look?

I have evolved what I think of as a minimalist approach to taking care of my skin over the years. I don't do anything fancy, or expensive, working mostly just from regular ol' common sense and a space of personal comfort. Here are my tips for how to protect your skin from the worst type of damage it can get: effects from the sun.

You can't entirely erase what happens to your skin when it gets sun damage or sunburn. Even if you skin looks like it's healed or gone back to normal, the real damage happens to the lower layers of the skin you don't see and it accumulates over your lifetime. The worst damage tends to happen during your childhood and teen years, actually setting the foundation for what you skin will do when you are an adult. 

My #1 tip for taking care of my skin is protecting it from the effects of the sun. I can't tell you how many people ask me for advice on my youthful appearance who then become really crestfallen when I mention not getting tan as one of my major strategies. However, outside of your own inherited genetic factors, this is the number one environmental factor that can damage your skin.

If you want to avoid wrinkles, maintain a smooth surface appearance and make sure you don't start to have a leathery look to your skin, minimizing the effects of sunlight on your skin is essential. I started to avoid getting a sun tan when I was 16 years old. The term "gothic" hadn't been coined yet to describe black-wearing teens with bright hair, but that's the look I was going for and those were the girls I admired when I went to CBGB's in NYC on weekends. After a decade of this behavior, I could start to see major benefits. My roommate in college, who was just a year older than me, loved to lay out and get tanned and did so frequently. By our late twenties, the skin of her chest already had that funky leather texture. And that's the sort of thing that you can't reverse or fix...

Not getting sun tanned can involve multiple strategies:

1. Don't purposely get tan ever - stop laying out to get tan and don't use tanning beds or salons.
2. Wear a hat - For keeping your face looking good, this is a huge help! You want a hat with a large brim to make sure it casts shade across your entire face.
3. Wear sunscreen - Educate yourself about sunscreen and wear it. I don't like the feel of it on my skin, nor some of the chemicals that they contain, so I use a lot of the other strategies so that I can minimize my use of sunscreen. And when I do use sunscreen, I go for an organic product.
4. Wear protective clothing - instead of stripping down to your most skimpy fashions in the sun, switching to lightweight and light-colored clothing that is still covering. For true protection, there is clothing now made which blocks UV rays from penetrating.

A lot of people complain that they got a sunburn even though they applied sunscreen, and yet when you start to ask them questions, it quickly becomes clear they didn't use the product correctly so as to give themselves the most sun protection.

Sunblock needs to be applied liberally and reapplied later - If there's one area where people fumble their use of sunscreen, it's in the application or reapplication. Most people do not apply an appropriate amount of sunscreen initially.  What you want is to put on at least an ounce of sunscreen, which is the amount that would fill up a shot glass!  And you want to put on this much sunscreen every time you reapply, and you need to reapply about every two hours.  This becomes especially important if you are outside in water or doing activity that makes you sweat as it will wash off the sunscreen. You need to reapply even if you are wearing "waterproof" sunscreen as really it's just water resistant and its ability to protect you is greatly diminished after you've been in the water for a while. 

Be Aware of Peak Tanning Hours and Weather Factors - Peak tanning hours, cloud cover and haze can all contribute to getting a sunburn. Check what time of the day the sun is strongest for where you are going to be and make sure you are inside or extra protected during those times. An overcast day can amplify the sun's rays, so don't let a less than super sunny day fool you into thinking you can't get burned as easily: you can in fact get more easily burned!  Windy days with lots of sun will dehydrate and weather the skin even more.

Use A Multiple-Part Strategy For Long Days Outside - If you are going to be outside for a prolonged period of time in the sun, use more than one method to protect yourself from the sun. Hats, long sleeves and sunscreen can all work together to keep you unburnt all day long.