Building healthy skin care habits early in life can help prevent skin damage and premature aging, but what if you’ve already incurred years of damage and are looking to reverse its effects? Even if skin has sustained aging and damage, reversing the biological aging process is possible. By building healthy habits and staying consistent with a science-backed skin health routine, you can both prevent and reverse skin aging.

What happens to skin as a person ages? Premature skin aging is most often triggered from sustaining damage, which inhibits skin’s ability to naturally regenerate. The biggest culprit? UV rays, which cause up to 80% of the damage that skin sustains.¹The greatest factor that accelerates skin aging is unprotected exposure to UV rays, which especially includes the use of tanning beds, as they expose skin to even stronger UV rays than the natural sun. In fact, tanning beds can produce up to 100x the amount of UV rays as the sun, which can severely damage skin and increase risk for skin cancer.²

A lesser known culprit of skin damage is makeup, especially if it is not gently removed after use. This is because many makeup products contain harsh chemicals that have been shown to damage skin. Because of this, doing research on the ingredients and potential toxins contained in your makeup products is highly recommended.³ Similarly, pollutants can cause skin damage if left to linger. The moral of the story? Be sure to cleanse your skin at least once per day (recommended nightly) to remove the build up of potential toxins and pollutants.

Finally, lifestyle habits such as use of tobacco and alcohol can cause premature aging in the skin and greatly accelerate damage to skin cells. Smoking can decrease blood flow, which prevents nutrients and oxygen from being able to reach the skin. Alcohol is dehydrating, which can cause dryness in the skin, as well as redness and inflammation.³Skin aging can be accelerated by many different factors. Here is a list of habits and products that can be detrimental to skin health and should therefore be avoided.¹

• Unprotected sun exposure: UV rays from the sun damage skin cells’ DNA
• Tanning bed use: Tanning beds expose skin to up to 100x the amount of UV the sun produces²
• Comedogenic makeup products: These products can cause breakouts and clog pores³
• Alcohol consumption: Alcohol has a drying effect on the skin, and is known to cause redness and inflammation.³
• Smoking: Tobacco and nicotine lowers blood circulation, preventing crucial nutrients from reaching skin.³
• Stress: Cortisol is released when the body experiences stress, which can cause inflammation and breakouts in skin.³
• Poor diet: Having a diet low in nutritious vitamins and minerals prevents the skin from receiving the nutrients it needs to remain healthy.³

Dehydrated skin is caused by a lack of water in the skin, and can occur with any skin type, inducing the formation of dehydration wrinkles. Symptoms of dehydrated skin include a loss of elasticity, wrinkles, and other premature signs of aging.⁴ One quick way to check if your skin is dehydrated is by performing a pinch test: Pinch a small section of skin on your cheek or the back of your hand and see how quickly the skin returns to its normal position. If it returns quickly, your skin is well hydrated. If it takes a few seconds to return to normal, your skin is likely suffering from dehydration. Dehydrated skin is different from dry skin, which suffers from a lack of oils.⁴ Some other physical signs of dehydrated skin include dark under eye circles, itchiness, or a dull appearance to the skin.⁴ Fortunately, there are some methods available to restore hydration to improve the health and appearance of skin.There are several ways to increase water levels in your skin. When it comes to choosing the proper skin care for aging skin, application of the following ingredients can help attract more water into skin and seal skin from water loss:⁴

• Hyaluronic acid: A natural occurring substance that can hold up to 1,000x its weight in water. Hyaluronic acid helps skin stay hydrated by attracting water molecules into skin and holding onto those water molecules. Pro tip: If you're using a skin care product that contains hyaluronic acid, try applying that product to slightly damp skin, so that there is water available to bind to. Otherwise, the hyaluronic acid could pull water out of your skin, which is the opposite effect of what you want.
• Glycerin: Glycerin is both a hydrating and moisturizing agent that occurs naturally in the skin. It is a humectant, allowing moisture to penetrate the skin and then sealing that moisture in, resulting in restored hydration and preventing dryness.¹¹
• Aloe: Aloe is an antioxidant that has regenerative and hydrating properties. This makes it both excellent at soothing sunburns and an effective natural moisturizer.¹¹
• Honey: Honey is a humectant with anti-microbial properties that makes an effective moisturizer. Due to its antibacterial and antimicrobial properties, honey can prevent breakouts as well as gently cleanse the skin.¹²
• Argan Oil: Argan oil has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, as well as moisturizing and healing effects on skin. This can reduce scarring and wrinkles on the skin.⁹
• Lactic Acid: Lactic acid has both exfoliating and hydrating properties, which can help mitgate fine lines, uneven texture, dark spots, and irregular pigmentation on skin.¹⁰
• Ceramides: Ceramides are long-chain lipids that are able to maintain skin structure and increase skin moisture content by over 100%. Ceramide levels drop with age, so adding ceramides into your regimen can also be effective for restoring smoothness to skin.⁹

Another highly effective strategy to restore hydration in the skin is using an ingredient that promotes skin’s natural ability to produce hydrating compounds, such as hyaluronic acid. OneSkin’s proprietary OS-01 peptide is scientifically proven to promote the activity of key genes associated with hyaluronic acid production in lab-grown ex vivo human skin models*.Skin aging is in part caused by a buildup of senescent, or aged, cells that linger in skin, causing inflammation, preventing regeneration, and accelerating the aging of neighboring cells. By removing these senescent skin cells, skin can become healthier for a longer period of time and exhibit a healthier appearance.⁵ The OS-01 peptide is scientifically proven to reduce the accumulation of senescent cells in skin**. It addresses skin aging on the molecular level, and has even been shown to reduce the biological age of skin***.Skin cell turnover slows down around the thirties, which causes buildup of older cells to accumulate, causing skin to appear less radiant. This natural slowing skin rejuvenation also prevents the top layer of skin from retaining moisture efficiently. Important proteins such as collagen and elastin also break down more quickly.¹² Therefore, an important step at 30 to begin tackling skin aging is to build a skin care regimen that thoroughly cleanses, delivers healing nutrients, moisturizes, and protects from damage. Here are some tips for establishing strong skin care practices in your thirties.⁶

• Cleanse: Usema gentle gel cleanser, such as OneSkin’s PREP, to remove dirt and debris and prepare the skin to receive the beneficial ingredients from the rest of your skin care routine
• Moisturize: Using a peptide moisturizer delivers hydrating ingredients and helps seal moisture in.
• Use ingredients and topical skin care products that specifically target aging: To target aging skin, consider implementing topical skin care products that contain ingredients designed to focus on the root causes of aging. OneSkin’s OS-01 peptide is scientifically proven to reverse the biological age of skin*** by targeting the root cause of skin aging.
• Protect your skin: Because most of the damage and aging in skin is caused by excessive sun exposure, using a sunscreen daily is crucial for preventing accelerated aging.

At 40, skin may start to lose its ability to maintain moisture, leading to the development of visible wrinkles. Therefore, moisturizing and hydrating skin becomes increasingly important at this age.⁷

• Daily moisturizers, such as OS-01 FACE and OS-01 BODY, deliver hydrating ingredients and are powered by the OS-01 peptide, which helps promote the activity of genes associated with hyaluronic acid production*.
• A healthy diet can also help the body maintain nutrients that keep the skin moisturized and hydrated. Some of the best foods for skin repair that may also help with moisture retention include green tea, soy, and fatty fish.⁸

As skin matures, the skin and moisture barriers have a decreased ability to replenish themselves. Hormonal changes also lower collagen and elastin content in skin, compromising skin elasticity and thinning the skin. Inflammation can also cause skin to become more sensitive and irritable. ¹³ Due to these changes, it becomes increasingly important to use products that are scientifically proven to target the root causes of skin aging and aid in cellular repair. OneSkin’s OS-01 peptide is scientifically proven to aid in cellular damage repair from UVB radiation*. Additionally, the OS-01 peptide promotes the activity of key markers associated with elastin and collagen production in skin*, helping to counteract the natural loss experienced at age 50+.

*Shown in lab-grown ex vivo human skin models
**Shown in in vitro fibroblast cultures from patient derived samples
***Measured by analyzing DNA methylation after exposing ex vivo human skin models to the OS-01 peptide, and using MolClock, a proprietary algorithm that predicts skin’s biological age based on DNA methylation

• Skin aging is a natural part of getting older, but can be unnecessarily accelerated by factors such as sun exposure and unhealthy habits, and decelerated by strong skin care habits.
• Dehydration wrinkles can be treated, and there are many ingredients that can be found in skin care products that hydrate skin and decrease the appearance of wrinkles.
• The OS-01 peptide is scientifically proven to reverse skin’s biological age*** and can be a powerful tool for restoring the appearance of skin throughout the aging process.

By Kylie Nicholson: Kylie is studying Biosystems engineering at the University of California, San Diego. She is passionate about scientific writing and women's health research.

References:

1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4344124/
2. https://health.clevelandclinic.org/tanning-bed-dangers/
3. https://www.foreo.com/mysa/skin-aging-causes/
4. https://www.healthline.com/health/beauty-skin-care/dry-vs-dehydrated
5. https://www.oneskin.co/blogs/reference-lab/what-is-senescence
6. https://oneskin.co/blogs/reference-lab/what-is-the-best-skin-care-regimen-for-aging-skin
7. https://www.aad.org/public/everyday-care/skin-care-basics/care/skin-care-in-your-40s-and-50s
8. https://www.oneskin.co/blogs/reference-lab/the-top-10-best-foods-for-skin-repair
9. https://www.provenskincare.com/blog/the-best-natural-skincare-ingredients-proven-by-science/
10. https://www.vogue.in/content/the-skincare-ingredients-you-should-look-for-according-to-your-skin-type
11. https://www.byrdie.com/honey-on-face
12. https://www.self.com/story/skin-care-routine-30s