Skin magic

All of us dream of acquiring a healthy, soft, glowing and fair skin. Some of us are fortune to be blessed with a skin of this nature, through inherited genes. But for some, healthy glowing skin is something to be gained by sticking to meticulous regimens of beauty therapy.

We can maintain or acquire healthy glowing fair skin by obtaining a knowledge about our skin and other external processes having a bearing on maintaining and acquiring a healthy skin. We should also have a good understanding of the skin structure, action and causes for blemishing and wrinkling of skin.

Your skin acts as a guardian against harmful chemicals. bacteria, ultra-violet rays of the sun and other harmful substances entering your body. The other most important function of your skin is retaining water and other essential fluids in your body.

Controlling your body temperature in warm conditions by producing sweat to aid evaporation and in cold conditions by decreasing the blood supply is another important function of the skin. The skin protects you from getting badly wounded or burnt by signalling the brain instantly.

Skin is made up of 3 different layers of tissue:

1. Epidermis (the uppermost layer)

2. Dermis (the middle layer)

3. Subcutis

During the period of about 6 months of age till 12-13 years, the blood supply to stratum curneum is supplied with a plentiful supply of blood.

And the pigment melanin is evenly distributed. The cells of the subcutis are in top form. The dead cells slough off with ease. Skin moisture is maintained with ease. The hair follicles do not get blocked by natural oils generated by the skin. Any damages by exposure to sunlight is easily remedied. New cells get manufactured fast to replace dead cells.

During youth, the skin maintains a clear, healthy glow. But, the condition of the skin changes later. After puberty, the hormonal action of the body increases. Sebum secretion accelerates. This excess sebum gets mixed with dead cells and begins to clog the hair follicles. This is the first action in the process of degeneration of skin condition. This mixture of sebum and dead cells cannot be removed by applying soap.

After some time, some clogged follicles get infected by bacteria. They turn a reddish colour and become pimples. Other blocked follicles that are not infected by bacteria become blemishes after some time.

After adolescence when you are in your twenties, most of these pimples and blemishes disappear. If they persist, medical treatment becomes necessary. The main reason for this is the retention of dead cells.

With the expansion of the field of beauty therapy, facial treatments are able to clean the skin of the face by removing dead cells and cebum embedded in hair follicles and body-scrubbing treatment is able to do the same to other parts of the body. Both these procedures are followed at beauty saloons in Sri Lanka at present.

The skin gradually begins to lose its healthy glow. This condition can be alleviated by using soap or a cream with alpha hydroxy acid (AHA). AHA is a chemical compound used in beauty products. International beauticians have discovered that AHA has a miraculous ability to loosen and remove layers of dead skin, however strongly bounded it?s to the skin. You can now buy a soap named Bee pollen white soap with AHA in Sri Lanka. During this age, the collagen and elastin fibres are not bounded together as before.

So, when you laugh or frown, the layer of fatty tissue in the epidermis gets deeply impressed into you expression lines. This condition aggravates gradually, decreasing the elasticity of the skin. Wrinkling of the skin starts because of this. So it becomes apparent that wrinkling of the skin does not start at middle age.

This process starts when you are in your twenties and thirties. But wrinkling can be avoided for years through beauty therapy technology. When you are in your forties, the production of cebum decelerates.

Then the skin becomes dry. When dead cells stratify on your skin the stratum curneum thickens, making your skin thicker. If you want to take the condition of your facial skin back to it?s youthful looks rather than slow down the effects of ageing, you should use facial creams with Retinoit compounds.

And you should go for electronic wave treatment and heating treatment that enhance wrinkle smoothing powers of the skin. The fact impression into the expression lines of the face also get halted by this treatment. Furthermore, during this age limit, the ability of the skin to tightly adhere to the spider web of capillaries gets reduced.

The capillaries begin to be faintly discernible during this age. Remember that there is treatment for this condition also in beauty therapy treatment. When you are in your fifties, the damage done to your skin during the past by UV rays in sunlight becomes apparent.

But, you will be astonished to hear that if you protected yourself from sunlight and used sunscreen products on your skin and obtained the right beauty treatment, your skin will retain the look it had during your twenties and thirties.

by Chamiliya Ramanayake, NVQ Beauty Therapy Specialist London

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