Photoaging: what it is, how it affects us all, and what you can do

(They deal with it, too)

When I mentioned how helpful retinoids can be where photoaging is concerned, there was a little thought in the back of my mind: “Does everyone realize that photoaging affects them?”

So I wanted to tell you this today, just before the long weekend that marks the unofficial start of summer: unless you’re living in a deep, dark cave, developing very large pupils and possibly growing little mushrooms on your arms or something like that, photoaging affects you. Quite a bit. (Sorry. As my daughter said the other morning after asking me about her outfit, “Well, thanks a lot for stressing me out.”)

What is photoaging?

Photoaging, photodamage, and sun damage are essentially one and the same, and they all refer to the prematurely aging effects of sunlight and UV rays on our skin. Unlike the immediate effects of a sunburn, photoaging happens in the deepest layers of the skin, over the longer term; it’s cumulative, and its effects can take years to reveal themselves.

These effects can include wrinkles, roughness, broken capillaries, redness, pigmentation changes, and decreased elasticity—all of it. The Cleveland Clinic, the Skin Cancer Foundation, and other esteemed organizations note that photoaging is responsible for 90 percent of visible changes to the skin. (For the skeptics out there, here’s a good article from the Journal of Dermatological Science that reviews the literature and finds UV radiation to be the dominant driver of skin aging.)

Before you spin into the “Everything’s falling to pieces and I’m going to look like my face is melting off because of the sun?” void, I hope you’ll remember this: like many types of aging, photoaging is something that naturally affects us all to some degree. We go outside! Sometimes we don’t wear quite enough sunscreen! Sometimes, even if we do, those rays will get to us! And it’s OK. It’s all part of living a joyful life that is not spent entirely in a deep, dark cave.

What to do, what to do

Excellent news: there are a few things you can do to mitigate the effects of photoaging, and they’ll really make a difference.

#1: Use a retinoid, the gold-standard treatment for photoaging. (If you haven’t already read through it, check out this post about retinoids.)

#2: Protect your skin with both an antioxidant serum and sunscreen during the day so that it’s not stuck on a photoaging hamster wheel.

#3: Invest in a hat that you love for extra protection. (I’ve had this one for a few years: it’s packable, provides good coverage, and goes with everything.)

Easy!

Bonus tips

Ease is also, by the way, why I designed the Sea Serum and the Sea Retinal to work the way they do: they help keep things as simple as possible while also really covering all the bases. Agonizing over one’s skin, to me, is not part of living a joyful life, and I want us to suck out all the marrow of it while looking fantastic.

Bonus tip #1: To make things extra easy, I just added subscriptions to darakennedy.com, and they come with goodies! Order on that site if you want easy replenishment. (Subscriptions will come to aylabeauty.com eventually, too, but that website is a little more complicated.)

Bonus tip #2: Speaking of sunscreen, Marie Veronique’s Sheer Tint Zinc SPF 30 just rolled off the production line, and it’s marvelous—especially over a face oil, which gives your face a perfectly fresh-looking glow. I wear Sheer 03 (thank you, Marie, for making the new formula free of Vitamin E!); if you’re not sure which shade is right for you, I suggest going by the undertone.

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I hope you found this helpful. If you did, please like it and/or share it—and feel free to ask any questions you wish in the comments. Have a wonderful long weekend!

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