Skin Care Tips for Your 20’s to Your 50’s
Oprah.com has a nice summary of cleansers, moisturizers, and nighttime treatments for women in their 20’s, 30’s, 40’s, and 50’s.
It’s a straightforward guide to what your skin needs and doesn’t need through the decades.
Want to Be Successful? First Be Beautiful.
Life is better if you are beautiful. Totally unfair but somewhat true. A recent article in The Economist explored the economics (fittingly) of this timeless truism.
[W]hen all other things are taken into account, ugly people earn less than average incomes, while beautiful people earn more than the average. The ugliness “penalty” for men was -9% while the beauty premium was +5%. For women, perhaps surprisingly considering popular prejudices about the sexes, the effect was less: the ugliness penalty was -6% while the beauty premium was +4%.
There might be some biologic basis to our attraction for attractive people:
[Certain] aspects of beauty … are indicators of health. Skin and hair condition, in particular, are sensitive to illness, malnutrition and so on (or, perhaps it would be better to say that people’s perceptions are exquisitely tuned to detect perfection and flaws in such things).
Is it any wonder that cosmetics is a $250 billion dollar industry?
Photo of Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen from www.celebspin.com.
Skin Care Myths: Drinking More Water Will Hydrate Your Skin
This is a popular one, perpetuated by fitness and fashion magazines.
Only one study ever linked drinking water with skin hydration. That study used expensive mineral water, not plain bottled or tap water, and the study didn’t have a control group.
No study has ever shown regular water has any impact on your skin and no controlled study has ever shown that any type of drinking water has an effect on your skin.
From a physiologic perspective, drinking water could only have a negligible impact on your skin’s hydration. In fact, patients who have too much water in their tissues (edema) do not have healthy skin. For example, patients with venus insufficiency who have swollen, fluid filled legs have skin that is often dry, itchy, and scaly.
The amount of water in your skin after a 5 minute shower is magnitudes higher than you could achieve by trying to hydrate it from the inside out. The key is to apply a cream or ointment when your skin is still wet to seal in the moisture.
Then drink as little or as much water as you like.
Bacteria Secretes Sticky Glue, Causing Acne
Propionibacterium acnes (P.acnes) is the bacteria found in acne. A new study in the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology has shed some light on how it wreaks its damage.
P. acnes lives in a biofilm, an aggregation of bacterial organisms and sticky extracellular substance, that allows it to stick to the wall of the hair follicle. This sticky substance also causes the skin cells to stick together, limiting their ability to shed. These stuck-together skin cells (keratinocytes) then block the hair follicle, forming a keratin plug and trapping the natural oils (sebum) below the surface. When the pressure from this trapped oil builds up, a pimple is born. The acne bacteria then live happily encased in their protective biofilm, trapped in the follicle.
This is why combination therapy is most effective against acne; if you don’t break up the keratin plug on the skin’s surface, then antibacterial medications cannot penetrate and won’t work.
Proactiv® works by employing an mild acid to break up the plugged pores and an antibacterial to kill the P. acnes. Prescription acne therapy works similarly. I often prescribe a retinoid, like Retin-A, to break-up the keratin plugs and an antibiotic, like benzoyl peroxide or clindamycin, to kill the bacteria.
Unfortunately, even with the appropriate combination therapy, it still takes up to 12 weeks to clear up your acne. On the up side, if you follow this regimen daily, you really will see results.
Burkhart, CG and Burkart, CN. Expanding the microcomedone theory and acne therapeutics: Propionibacterium acnes biofilm produces biological glue that holds corneocytes together to form plug. J Am Acad Dermatol 2007;57:22-4
Itchy Henna Tattoo
A patient of mine presented last week with an itchy tattoo. He had been on a cruise and had this temporary henna tattoo placed on his right arm. A few days later when everyone else’s tattoos were fading, his got darker and became itchy. The redness and itching became much worse over the next week. What happened?
My patient is allergic to para-phenylenediamine (PPD).
PPD is a coloring that is used in permanent hair dyes. It is also sometimes added to henna to create a dark color, or “black henna,” for temporary tattoos.
Contact dermatitis is a delayed type hypersensitivity reaction; it’s the same type of allergy that occurs after exposure to poison ivy or poison oak. It takes 1-2 days to develop the rash from an allergen, and the response can last weeks.
If you are allergic to hair dye, then you should be weary of getting a henna tattoo. PPD can also been found in printer inks, black rubber, and photodevelopers.
What is more problematic (especially for those studying for the derm boards) is that PPD can cross-react with sundry other things, causing an identical allergic reaction. These include PABA sunscreens, azo dyes (found in fabrics), benzocaine anesthetics, and sulfa drugs.
My patient was treated with topical corticosteroids and the itchy rash resolved. Some patients actually need oral steroids to treat this; consult your physician if you think you are having an allergic reaction to your tattoo.
And don’t get a tattoo that you wouldn’t want your dermatologist (or mother) to see.
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A new dermatology blog from Dr. Benabio.
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