Say NO to Prune Face! Preventing Wrinkles in Your 30s

My grandmother started badgering me to wear moisturizer from the time I was twelve. She insisted there would be no help for my skin as I aged if my regime of care did not start NOW! Nanny (my grandmother) said prevention was the only method to have beautiful, soft, wrinkle free skin. As this came from a woman with the most beautiful, baby soft skin you would ever see, in a family of women who looked amazingly young... I figured she knew a bit about the subject. But, as twelve year-olds do... I neglected to utilize my elder's lessons and have been playing "catch up" ever since.

During our twenties we look and feel so good we start to think we are invincible. We look in the mirror and only see ourselves, young, vibrant twenty something Gods/Goddesses of mankind....not a child, but not old. And then - we turn thirty. The reality is not completely set in until the night you go to the nightclub and you think the bouncer needs to recheck all those little kids I.D.'s because obviously they are all too young to be there! Or the first time someone calls you "Ma'am". Argggghhhhhh! "I am not a Ma'am....I am a Miss!" you think. But that night...you take a good hard look in the mirror and you see it. Not any old it....but IT....the "wrinkle!"

When "the WRINKLE" first visited me I of course called my Nanny and said "What do I do???" She naturally replied "I told you!" I was expecting this when I called her but as no one except me could see the wrinkle and no one would take it serious, I called the one person who started seeing my wrinkles when I was only twelve. After an hour long lecture on "stay out of the sun, moisturize morning and night, never use a cloth, never ever rub your body with a towel"....I felt ready to take on the world of wrinkles.

I looked at my mother who was easily one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen and had managed to stay beautiful through raising seven nightmare children and working harder than anyone I ever knew. My mother never drank (more than a bit of wine, as she is French), never smoked other than one attempt at "looking hip" when she was fifteen, seldom wore foundation or fancy creams on her face, and spent countless hours in the sun. Her five main beauty secrets she told me to always arm myself with...water, olive oil, Coppertone Suntan Lotion, vitamins (especially A,E,& C), and good hard work to sweat the impurities out of your body.

The benefits of Olive Oil have been considered for many years. Olive oil treatments on the hair give you strong, vibrant, shiny locks. Olive oil treatments on the body do the same for your skin. Any woman or man in their thirties should keep a bottle of high grade Olive Oil around the house not only to cook with for health from the inside out, but also for health from the skin in. An old belly dancer trick for silky, shiny, smooth skin is to pour a few tablespoons of Olive Oil in a container and dump in salt to make a body wash. Before your shower rub your whole body vigorously with the mixture. Tingling and redness are good...so don't worry! It goes away. Then bathe as normal (Caution! The shower/tub will be slick from the oil so you must wash it out immediately!). Doing this scrub once a month is sufficient. My mother also uses olive oil to remove her eye makeup each night. My mother started using suntan lotion as moisturizer when I was little and continued to do so most of my life. She knew then what the beauty industry did not start doing until years later...SPF importance for protecting the skin from sun damage. The suntan lotion also was gentle to her face and one lotion she found that would not break out her skin.

Washing your face in clear water morning and night is really all your skin needs and helps sensitive skin avoid allergic type reactions to many soaps and cleaners. Nanny's method of not rubbing your skin with a rag or towel makes sense to me. Exfoliating occasionally is beneficial but, according to Nanny, constant rubbing on your skin breaks down the skins cellular structure which can cause loss of firmness. When I hit 30, (better late than never!)with a desperate desire to avoid Godzilla skin, I faithfully began using my olive oil treatments, and quit rubbing with my towel and started "dabbing" the water off my skin.

As is my way, I kept learning new methods to take care of my skin....when I remembered. Ok, so I have not been as vigilant as Nanny would have liked me to be...but I did learn a few tricks along the way. Every woman in her thirties would be her skins best friend if she began taking Fish Collagen with natural Hyaluronic Acid in capsule form each day, ingest foods high in Vitamin C and/or take a supplement, and as mentioned in my article on Vitamin C...put the C directly on skin as it is one vitamin the skin can absorb.

Exercise is extremely important for keeping healthy, youthful looking skin. The act of sweating alone removes toxins from our bodies. Toxins make skin dull and dry to the touch and give us that wonderful lizard look so popular in the middle of the desert or on a purse but not so desirable at the office. By the time we are 30, if we think about everything we did in our 20's....detoxification of our entire bodies starts looking like a very good plan! It may take us another ten years just to cleanse ourselves !

The one trick I learned for helping our skin and preventing wrinkles in our 30's that has been the hardest for me to follow...is how we sleep. I had always been a stomach sleeper, or a curled up on my side fetal sleeper. But I noticed the skin on one side of my face was showing more wrinkling than the other. I realized that side was the one I always lay on. I read up on this and sure enough the experts all suggested sleeping on your back. So...I learned to sleep on my back (or at least to fall asleep with good intentions of sleeping on my back!) and noticed a great improvement. Relaxation is also a key to great skin.

Before bed, remove makeup with pads soaked lightly in olive oil, wash your face with plain water, "dab" dry, moisturize with the moisturizer of your choice (by 30, most people have figured out which one works best for them and what they personally like), then lay on your back propped up on pillows or flat whichever works for you. Gently massage your face smoothing in an upward manner. Get a chart on the pressure points of the face and utilize acupressure in your massage. Regardless of how you feel about the use of pressure points, you will feel first a great relaxation of your face then literally a tightening of the skin as it responds to the acupressure.

Truly though, the most important advice to give someone, not only in their 30's but at every age, to just "Say No To Prune Face"....is it all starts with ATTITUDE! Our attitude controls our expressions and there really is something to be said about the old "do that too long and your face will stick like that" threat our parents used to tell us. If you frown for too long, your face will form frown lines, if you draw your brow together in anger or cruelty, you will form lines which permanently etch your attitude onto the canvas called your face. Wrinkles - like the lines in our hands - tell our life story and our attitudes in a way words never will. So...don't be a Prune! If you have a good attitude throughout your life, your smile lines and "wrinkles" will be just another part of your beauty at every age of your life!

Sources:

Life experience