Are anti-aging skin care products really useful? At what age is it appropriate to start using them?

It can be clearly said that anti-aging skin care products with active ingredients from regular brands are really useful, but they only target mild to moderate aging problems, and there is no so-called "age line where you must start using them." Whether and when to use them all depends on when the aging signals of your skin appear.

A while ago, a post-2000s blogger complained that the anti-aging cream he spent thousands of dollars on was an IQ tax. After using half a bottle, there was no change. A bunch of people in the comment area agreed that anti-aging was all brand marketing. In fact, it's not that the product is useless, it's that her face was so full of collagen at that time that she couldn't even find half of the dry lines. Of course, there is no immediate effect from using anti-aging products, just like if you put a tempered film on a new mobile phone that has just been shipped from the factory, you can't drop it. Of course, you can't feel the effect of the film. You won't know that the film was not in vain until one day when your hand accidentally slipped on the ground. I have a surfing instructor who was born in 1998. He stays outdoors in Sanya all year round. He used to dislike wearing sunscreen on his face. When he was 24 years old, he suddenly came to me and complained. He said that dry lines are particularly obvious when he smiles, and the pores on both sides of the nose have turned into droplets. This is a typical sign that the collagen in the dermal layer has begun to lose. No., I asked her to replace her previous ordinary moisturizing lotion with a facial cream containing 30% Bose, plus a hexapeptide essence, and she was forced to wear high-power sunscreen when going out. When I saw her after more than three months, the dry lines had basically faded to the point of being invisible, and the drop-shaped pores had become much rounder. She herself lamented that it was really not an IQ tax.

Of course, this does not mean that anti-aging skin care products are omnipotent. I know a sister who is over 40 years old and has obvious static nasolabial folds and apple muscles that have moved down. With the mentality of "expensive skin care products can replace medical beauty", she has used tens of thousands of anti-aging products and has not seen any significant changes. For this kind of moderate-to-severe aging and sagging, the active ingredients of skin care products can only penetrate into the upper layer of the dermis and cannot hold back the soft tissue that has moved down. At this time, saying that skin care products are useless is actually because the expectations for it are too high. You can't expect cold medicine to cure cancer, right?

The “25-year-old anti-aging dividing line” that many people talk about is actually not so absolute. Another friend of mine who works as an administrator never stays up late from 9 to 5 and never leaves her hand with a sunscreen umbrella all year round. She is 32 years old and has not even a single static line on her face. Her skin is as tight as a girl who just graduated. She only uses basic moisturizing essence until now, and her condition is better than that of many people who started stocking up on high-end anti-aging products at the age of 28. On the contrary, some people who often stay up late, like to drink high-sugar milk tea, and frequently go out in the sun without any protection have problems such as smile lines that won't go away for a long time, complexions that stay dark and yellow for several days after staying up late, and loose pores in their early 20s. At this time, they insist on waiting until they are 25 years old before starting anti-aging. In fact, they are depleting the skin's collagen reserves. It is much harder to eliminate wrinkles after they have grown in size than to prevent them.

Many dermatologists will also remind people with sensitive skin or a weak skin barrier to not blindly follow the trend of using anti-aging products early, especially anti-aging products with high concentrations of A-alcohol and complex acids. On the contrary, it is easy to damage the skin barrier, and the risk of a bad face is much higher than the benefits of anti-aging. For this group of people, moisturizing and hard sunscreen is the most cost-effective anti-aging. It is not too late to consider adding functional ingredients after the skin condition is stable.

I have been struggling with skin care for so many years, and my biggest feeling is that there has never been a unified timetable for anti-aging, and I don’t have to listen to other people’s anxiety that “it’s too late if you don’t fight aging after the age of 20”. After washing your face every day, take an extra 30 seconds to look in the mirror. If you find that you have finished laughing, If the lines take a few seconds to disappear, the dullness of the face recovers slower and slower, and the face feels less firm than before, then you can arrange it. If the skin is always plump and translucent, there will be no problem. There will be no problem if you wait for two more years. The rhythm that suits you is the best.