Skin care grumble

[beautyanarchist]

Hi everyone,

I've read and enjoyed this forum for nearly a year now. I especially love AIBU, the meal ideas and mums sharing stories about their teenagers (I have two girls 17 and 14)

This is my first post though, and I hope you forgive me for just turning up like this and launching into a big rant, but I've been studying the face and skin for many years now, since I was an ancient-looking 38 year old, and it drives me mad that so much unhelpful and misleading information is affecting how we treat our faces.

I'm waging a one-woman battle on the skin care advice we all grew up with, which is quite shocking... not just feeble and outdated but plain wrong, and it's been out there for decades with nobody saying anything about it.

I'd be more than happy to debate any of the things I'm going to say with anyone involved in the beauty industry, or a doctor or a dermatologist. I used to think understanding it was beyond an ordinary person, but It isn't actually rocket science, it's entirely sensible and logical.

I found out from women who do it that pulling and squeezing at the face gets it stronger, just like any other organ of the body. It's not a leather handbag in need of special creams. It repairs itself just like muscles or lungs do.

The other thing I've found is that the skin is not a hammock holding up your facial muscles. The muscles of the face are holding the skin up. The face as a whole drops downwards and inwards as the supporting muscles lengthen. Since the skin is attached to the muscle it does the same.

You need to tighten the muscles so that the flesh sits high on the bone structure, skin and all.

Botox is used on wrinkles because creases in the skin aren't caused by creasing it like a piece of paper, the skin is wrinkling because the muscle it's 'glued' to has become bumpy . It's like pulling on the corner of a tablecloth. In addressing the muscle the practitioner achieves overnight what months of eye-cream and serums have not done.

So, I'd like to ask, why are we spending so much money on 'skin care' when the products are targeting the wrong thing and don't have much effect on the things they're supposed to treat? I've got nothing against the beauty industry as such, but if I'm spoiling myself I'd rather buy some expensive mascara or get my hair done, things that are going to make a noticeable difference to how I look.

Thanks for letting me get it off my chest!

Love from BG

This sounds very much like a weird ad for one of those facial exerciser thingummies that they used to sell years ago...

FWIW, I think science has proven that the vast majority (something like 90% or a very very high figure close to it) is actually caused by sun damage, so wearing a sun block every day is the best thing you can do to keep your skin looking youthful.

HTH

Does a puzzled look at OPs thread to excercise face muscle.

What an interesting first post, OP.

Oh just get some Liz Earle.

Thanks for your replies.
Emsyj, those face exercisers do work, but there's no need to buy one. There are plenty of facial exercises free on the net. Sun exposure is the biggest factor in skin ageing, but my post was saying that the condition of the skin isn't all that important for the appearance of the face. Sun damage will give you bad skin texture and fine lines, but the things that make your face look really bad, sag and deep wrinkles is losing the muscles underneath. Botox deals with the muscle, not the skin.
It's just like the rest of your body. You wouldnt firm up your thighs with toning cream. We've been so used to hearing the usual beauty advice from cosmetics counters that we think it must be true. It's only when you start to look at women who exercise their faces that you see how much better you can look by doing things differently.

BG

Not sure I agree either op.

Skin ages, loses laxity, collagen breaks down, skin sags, fat loss from the face is a normal ageing event. All of this before you add in all the sun damage most of us have. There are muscles overlying the bone structure but I don't know what muscles you're referring to in your post. What muscles are you talking about?

Would that it were so easy to maintain skin.

Then how do you explain Joan Rivers OP?

After many years of flapping her jaw she still needs a tonne of stitches to stop her chin skin dragging on the floor.

I rest my case and am proceeding to get my coat.