How to Care for Your Skin in Your 60s + 70s

Let’s ditch the anti-ageing sentiment, hoomans – we're all about pro-ageing! Growing older is a gift, and skin ageing is a natural by-product that we can learn to embrace. There’s no turning back the clock but caring for our skin and understanding its needs can achieve our healthy, nourished skin goals. Not bad, huh?

Are you happy in your skin? We love that! But if you’re curious about treating any areas of concern when you’re in your 60s + 70s, we’ve got all the nerdie skinfo.

Swot up on skin ageing

We’re kicking off with the science-y bits. Ageing skin can manifest itself in many ways based on internal and external factors, we call this intrinsic and extrinsic ageing. Put simply, intrinsic skin ageing is genetic and completely natural. For example, as we get older our ability to regenerate cells at the standard rate slows down and our inflammatory response gets delayed, so wounds heal slower. The inevitable hormone changes that occur as we ripen falls under intrinsic ageing, too.

Extrinsic skin ageing is influenced by our lifestyle choices and environmental factors such as smoking and UV damage. A surprising statistic from an article published in Cell Transplant (2018): exposure to UV radiation accounts for about 80% of facial ageing. Cue us applying Skin Shield SPF PA+++ every single day even when we’re having a duvet day with all the curtains closed.

Free radical activity bucks the trend because it can be classed as intrinsic and extrinsic skin ageing. To go full nerd, free radicals are unpaired electrons that attack and damage healthy cells, known as oxidative stress. As we get older our cells become less efficient at repairing the DNA damage caused by free radicals. The culprits? That could be breathing and eating (surprising right?!), as well as stress, pollution, UV exposure, and smoking.

There’s no rule to ageing but older hoomans often have dry, lax, and thin skin, with lines, wrinkles, and hyperpigmentation. We’ve gone over a few below!

Dry Skin

Our skin gets dryer with age because our sebaceous glands, which produce sebum (aka oil), and sudoriferous glands, which produce sweat, start to slow down. That’s because oil and sweat secretion is influenced by androgens (our male hormones) which deplete as we get older. Without our good pals, sebum and sweat, we don't have as much natural moisturiser to hydrate and protect our skin.

Bad news incoming: the skin’s supply of hyaluronic acid also depletes with age. Hyaluronic acid is a hydrating hero that’s capable of holding 1000 times its weight in water, it gives collagen and elastin a helping hand in our skin’s elasticity stakes, too. Unsurprisingly, extrinsic factors slow down production of hyaluronic acid.

Fine lines, wrinkles + skin laxity

Fine lines and wrinkles appear, and our skin becomes less plump because collagen and elastin production naturally reduces with age. But collagen degradation can also be caused by UV exposure and smoking, boo! In essence, they’re the structural proteins in our skin that provide tensile strength, elasticity, and hydration to the skin, we want to keep those around.

Dark spots or hyperpigmentation

Noticed pigmented patches of skin? That’ll be solar lentigines: they’re tan, brown, or black in colour and are caused by UV exposure. UV damage stimulates a build-up of melanocytes in a localised area which overproduces melanin, the pigment in our skin, to create darker patches of skin. They’re often called age spots or liver spots, which is very misleading considering they’re caused by UV only.

More nerdiness: What Makes Skin Look Older 

Holy grail skincare in your 60s + 70s

Now for the fun bits! An article published in the Dermato-Endocrinology journal in 2012 states that “while natural aging is genetically determined, extrinsic aging can be prevented”. Ageing is a continuing process, which means you can lessen its effects with the correct skincare and lifestyle choices. Woop.

Cleanser

Avoid soap-based products, nerds! These cleansers are alkaline and can strip your skin of moisture – a big no-no when your skin’s already dry, dry, dry. May we suggest our creamy, dreamy PreProbiotic Cleanse? It nourishes as it cleanses with prebiotics and probiotics to balance our skin’s microbiome, and polyhydroxy acid (PHA) to gently lift away dead skin cells. It’s for all hoomans, all skin types and formulated without irritating fragrances and alcohols.

Our Cleanse Off Mitt is a gentle, microfibre mitt that can be used to clean the most sensitive skin without irritation. Don’t forget it’s a dab hand at cleaning your bod, too!

Serum

Antioxidants are huge players in the pro-ageing game and serums are the best way to serve them to your face. They combat cell degradation by neutralising the free radicals that are moving freely around the body by giving them an electron back, how heroic.

Vitamin A is a powerful antioxidant that deserves a special mention as it acts “directly on the collagen metabolism and stimulates the production of collagen and elastic fibres”, according to the Dermato-Endocrinology article.

Our Skin Protein serum is crammed full of antioxidant goodness including vitamin A, C + E, rooibos tea extract, and green tea extract. Its introductory amounts of vitamin A, our rock star ingredient, speeds up cell renewal, while giving a brighter, tighter, smoother effect to the skin. It also contains a clinically proven pro-collagen peptide to reduce the depth of fine lines and wrinkles.

The Skin Veg serum contains fruit, veg and botanicals for antioxidant protection, but it’s real rockstar ingredients is hyaluronic acid. The hydrating elixir replenishes our skin’s natural supply of hyaluronic acid to give a plump, dewy effect. It also contains polyhydroxy acid (PHA) to gently exfoliate the skin and help actives penetrate deeper.

We like to mix both serums together and apply from the nipples up – your neck and chest want the good stuff too! Nerdie tip: we also like to apply leftover serum to our hands.

SPF

Since we all know sun damage is a major cause of extrinsic skin ageing... here’s your reminder to apply a broad-spectrum SPF every AM. Since preventing sun damage is much, much easier than tackling it, slathering on your daily SPF is a smart move – ½ a teaspoon is enough to cover your face, neck and ears.

Our Skin Shield SPF 50 PA+++ uses zinc oxide, a mineral that works as a physical SPF filter to provide protection from sunlight, pollution and blue light emitted from screens. Wowzer. It also contains niacinamide (vitamin B3) which is an antioxidant that improves skin tones and texture, and vitamin E, another powerful antioxidant that protects from free radical damage.

Moisturiser

Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. We hope that’s sunk in! Fortifying our skin to prevent moisture loss is super important which is where ceramides come in. Ceramides are lipids (aka fats) which are the naturally occurring building blocks in our skin’s barrier. It’s their job to bind healthy cells together and help retain moisture, which keeps skin plump, and supple.

Enter Skin Good Fats! It’s an uber nourishing moisturiser and night cream with skin-native lipid ceramides and shea butter to take the place of oils your skin ain’t making. The barrier-repairing buttery balm is healing, hydrating, and anti-inflammatory, with a clinically proven, patented anti-irritation ingredient to kick the itch that comes with dryness.

Some skincare do’s + don’ts

• Do moisturise daily.
• Do apply SPF + avoid sun exposure.
• Do keep an eye out for changing lesions on the skin.
• Do follow a balanced diet and drink lots of water.
• Don’t overuse exfoliating agents.
• Don’t forget your neck, chest, and hands.