Now that school has resumed, parents have a little more free time.  It is a great opportunity to use some of that time to care for yourself.  It’s a good time to rejuvenate your look, and reverse some of the sun damage that has accumulated from your summer vacations.

To improve your skin, start with the basics and work your way up.  Remember, no matter what you wear, you wear your face everyday.

Grade School (Good Skin Care)

A good skin care regimen is one of the more basic steps in the skin rejuvenation process and is a good beginning step.  You should include a gentle exfoliating product containing glycolic acid or salicylic acid to smooth the upper layers of the skin.  This may also be accomplished using a Retin-A product obtained with a prescription.

You should also include antioxidants such as vitamin C and green tea extracts to protect your skin. Most importantly, one should use a product with growth factors to stimulate the growth of collagen and elastin, the building blocks of young healthy skin.

No matter how careful one has been, collagen and elastin in the deeper layers of the skin diminish with age.  Building them back up helps to firm the skin and fill in fine lines.

High School (Erase Years
By Erasing Lines)

You can take years off your looks by improving skin texture and diminishing lines. Microdermabrasion helps by gently removing the upper rough layers of skin cells and cleaning out pores.  This also makes it a nice treatment for those suffering from acne.

For improvement in deeper lines Botox is a safe, quick technique, which is excellent for smoothing lines around the eyes.  For lines in the lower half of the face, Juvederm XC or Radiesse may be used to fill in both fine and deeper lines.  Part of the beauty of erasing lines and years with these techniques, is keeping people guessing as to how you did it.

College (Erase Years By
Erasing Sun Spots)

For those who are more serious about rejuvenating their appearance, reversing sun spots is key.  An even complexion, free of sun spots and broken blood vessels is essential for a youthful appearance.

A great new peel called the VI Peel can help remove sun spots on any skin type with just a few days of peeling skin.  Results are even more dramatic when done in a series of three treatments.  This peel helps to give a smoother, more radiant complexion and minimizes the appearance of pores.

Treatments with an Intense Pulsed Light (IPL) device (think of it as a laser) can remove unwanted brown spots and dilated blood vessels.  The treatments are a relatively quick and painless way to remove sun damage.  In order to reverse sun damage even quicker, a light-absorbing medication may be applied to the skin prior to IPL treatment.  This state-of-the-art therapy has the added benefit of diminishing pore size, improving skin texture, and has even been used to treat difficult acne cases.

For help with your “skin education program”, seek the advice of a board-certified dermatologist.