The Most Effective Ways To Combat Aging

From time immemorial, one of the main problems in the beauty industry, and one which indeed occupies at least some of the thoughts of women of a certain age, is how to combat and even eradicate the onset of wrinkles. Nobody wants to get older, and for some people, this can lead to dangerous obsessions in pursuit of the retention of youth. One particularly saddening story which came to light relatively recently is that of a Chinese lady who tried to iron her face to remove her wrinkles.

Although we have seen Amanda Platell espousing the virtue of wrinkle irons in the Mail, I’m afraid that cosmetic wrinkle irons are a very different proposition to applying a clothes iron to your face. The outcome for the Chinese lady was all too predictable, and rather than making herself (in her eyes) more beautiful; the opposite effect was swiftly achieved.

In the modern-day, we hear about dermal fillers and Restylane, botox, and skin-tightening lasers – these could all be considered part of the miracle of technological progress and have all helped thousands of women (and men) feel immeasurably better about themselves. We should all be thankful for that as the wrinkle treatments used do work. What people need to avoid is trying treatments that do not work – or more simply, to avoid being conned out of hard-earned cash.

So, we know to avoid clothes irons. What should we be looking for in terms of attacking the cause of wrinkles (as opposed to the effects), and what else should we dismiss? The first point to mention is that wrinkles are caused by skin cells losing collagen over time. A treatment to help with this needs to stimulate the cells to produce more collagen; this can be achieved in several ways. Retinoic acid creams have been shown to work, though they take time to be active and aren’t useful for deep folds.

Hyaluronic acid injections fool the cells into making more collagen and are much more useful than retinoic acid creams. The most effective treatments involve lasers to resurface the skin and stimulate collagen production. In the past, this meant you would have to go into retreat and apply lotions often – such treatments honestly left people’s faces a mess for weeks – but the modern versions use micro pulses to precisely target wrinkles rather than blast the whole face at once; this means that the after-effects are much less inconvenient, and clear up in a matter of days.