Skin Care Tips - What Makes Our Skin Age

As we age, it becomes more important to follow all those natural happinesslifetime.com skin care tips we keep hearing about, but never really paid much attention to. Keeping our skin healthy is very similar process to keeping our body healthy - in fact if you're eating healthily, you're well over half way there to healthy skin.

In our thirties, damage from the sun, pollutants, bad diet and misuse of alcohol make skin changes more noticeable. The epidermis shows signs of wear and tear: you develop an uneven, dull complexion and fluid retention. The stratum corneum thickens as cell turnover begins to slow, and therefore the skin becomes less elastic and unable to bounce back. Facial expressions become etched into wrinkles, and this is when we start an interest in anti-ageing and happinesslifetime.com skin care products.

As we progress through our forties, cell production takes longer and the basal layer (where new cells are made) and the epidermis become thinner. Cells begin to lose their ability to hold water, as a result of which the skin becomes more dry and sensitive.

The stratum corneum thickens even more, sebum production declines and more dead cells accumulate on the surface, causing uneven pigmentation. It is at this time that thread veins appear on the scene.

Through our fifties, the menopause and the subsequent drop in estrogen levels results in lower sebum production. With less oil available to protect the skin, more water evaporates from the surface, resulting in dry, flaky skin. The epidermis is now 20 per cent thinner than in the teenage years, and sun damage may appear as dark patches. Lower-level tissues have unevenly distributed cells, less collagen and elastin, allowing excess fat to form into deep furrows and droopy jowls.

Ageing, like everything in life, is subject to the forces of gravity, which means that everything eventually starts dropping. Throughout our sixties and seventies, we shrink as our bones naturally lose their bone mass. The skin around our bones sags and our muscles get thinner (increasingly so if they are not used regularly). Weight loss causes the face to look longer, particularly around the jowls, eyelids and the nose. Skin becomes increasingly dry, often paper thin, with age spots, blemishes and unevenly distributed pigmentation.

Discover how to turn back time and look 10 to 15 years younger with simple and effective natural skin care tips.

Our current understanding of our skin's cellular structure is so advanced that it's possible to turn back the clock on the aging process without resorting to costly skin care products or skin treatments. By following an all natural skin care regime each day you really can help your skin to retain it's youthful appearance. Natural skin care is all about working with your skin to help it look good starting on the inside, rather than covering it with cosmetics that only affect your external appearance. On Michelle's all natural skin care blog, she recently wrote about her all natural allnaturalskincaretips.com/oily-skin-care-tips oily skin care tips - plus there's more information on how to keep your skin looking great regardless of what type of skin you have - why not try her allnaturalskincaretips.com/homemade-skin-care homemade skin care creams and scrubs..