The anti-aging plan for your exact skin tone

The anti-aging plan for your exact skin tone

Caucasian skin:

Sun damage is by far the biggest ager for Caucasian women.  

Use a basic gentle cleanser.  A simple cleanser will help keep your skin soft by not stripping it of moisture.

A.M.  Put on sunscreen or moisturizer with SPF 30.

P.M.  Use a retinol treatment, alternated with a peptide cream.  Many Caucasian women use harsh scrubs to exfoliate, but the better, gentler choice is adding a retinol treatment to your regimen, which both increases collagen production and helps to get rid of dead cells by speeding up your skin's natural exfoliation process.  If you have very sensitive skin that can't tolerate retinol even a few times a week, you can use the peptide cream alone, which is gentler.  

Latina:

Latin women have a wide spectrum of skin colors, but the majority have olive complexions.  They experience a mix of both pigment problems and loss of firmness. 

A.M.  If your biggest issue is blotchy skin, try a moisturizer containing niacinamide.  Also known as vitamin B3, this ingredient helps to even skin tone and keep the skin's barrier - which is the skin's outermost layer - thick and healthy so it can protect skin better from moisture loss and the elements.  

P.M.  Use tazarotene, a retinoid available in the prescription cream Tazorac.  It's gentler than other retiniods, so it's less likely to cause dryness or irritation. 

African American:

Dark skin has a large amount of melain, which means it has more built-in sun protection from surface sun damage.  As a result, African American women generally get fewer wrinkles - which appear about a decade later than they would on fair skin.  Melanin has a down side.  Excess pigment often causes dark spoits and uneven skin tone starting around the late 30s or early 40s.

Use a gentle, granule-free cleanser.  Anything with granules, even if they're superfine, can signal the skin to pump out more melanin if you overuse it.

A.M.  Start with a moisturizer with vitamin C.  It's one of the best ingredients for clearing up dark spots and blotchiness.  Then put on a broad spectrum sunscreen.

P.M.  Begin with a retinol treatment.  It kicks up collagen production, breaks up spots and even helps to control oil - without upsetting the pigment in dark skin.

Asian:

This skin type produces more melanin that Caucasian skin when it's exposed to the sun, so brown spots are typically the first sign of aging, appearing around the early 30s.

A.M.  Layer on an antioxidant serum.  Antioxidants are essential, and a serum form is less likely to irritate touchy Asian skin than a cream one.

P.M.  Use a retinol treatment.  If your skin is irritated by retinol - or if you have just a few lone spots - use a dark spot treatment, which breaks up pigment and slows melanin production.

Indian:

Indian skin is very prone to irritation.  So picking at a blemish or waxing a facial hair may leave dark spots and scars that don't fade for years.

A.M.  First, put on a kojic acid serum.  This ingredient helps lighten dark spots without causing irritation.  Follow with a moisturizer containing salicylic acid.  Salicylic acid exfoliates pores gently, which is key for our reactive skin, and it helps prevent ingrown hairs from waxing or tweezing facial hair.

P.M.  Use a retinol treatment diluted with a rich moisturizer.  Retinol is a must for building collagen, but can cause dryness and peeling.  Instead, use your retinol product only two to three times a week, and mix it in your hang with equal parts moisturizer first. 

Skin Care Glossary 

Antioxidants:

Molecules that protect cell in 

your body from being 

damaged by free radicals

Free Radicals: 

Toxic molecules that form in the body when it's exposed to environmental stresses such as the sun's ultra-violet rays and pollution. Free radicals can damage all types of cells including skin cells.

Melanin:

Skin's pigment. The more you have, the darker your skin color is. 

Peptides:

When collagen beaks down, it forms certain peptides in your body that signal your skin to make new collagen.  Synthetic forms of these peptides in topical products can "trick" skin into making more collagen.

Retinoids:

Vitamin A derivatives that are available in presctiption creams such as Retin-A and Renova.  They boost collagen production by speeding up the skin's exfoliation process (the more the skin sheds, the more collagen it pumps out to make up for the lost cells).

Retinol:

A form of Vitamin A that's available in over the counter skin products.  Like retinoids, it helps to speed up the skin's natural exfoliation, but the effect is milder.