Factors that affect your skin’s health are more varied than you think them to be. Skin is the body’s largest organ. Amidst regulating body temperature, controlling moisture loss, and largely determining one’s self-confidence, the skin emerges as a true multitasker. However, is your skin fit to perform all of those functions optimally? There’s a range of factors that affect your skin – a chunk of which is controllable––let’s unpack them:

1. Age

Everybody ages. However, understanding the impacts that ageing has on your skin will help you heaps. With time, your skin:

  • Becomes thinner, making blood vessels prominent and pores larger
  • Shows slower signs of regeneration and renewal
  • Retains less water, thus drying up and dehydrating easily
  • Starts wrinkling and sagging
  • Slows down on collagen production, thus losing out on elasticity

The situation might seem pretty glum, and unfortunately, we have no happy surprises to throw your way. However, following a consistently efficient skincare routine will help ageing. We promise. Tip: Remember that skincare in your 20’s will largely reflect in later stages of your life.

 

2. Skin Type

skin type is the stepping stone to achieving flawless skin. It is also possible that your skin type changes with shifting seasons and environments. Irrespective, here’s how skin types affect your skin:

  • Dry Skin: Frequent itching and flakiness, roughness, tendency to crack especially around winters, earlier signs of ageing and wrinkling.
  • Oily Skin: Acne-prone, clearly visible and often enlarged pores, problems of hyperpigmentation.
  • Combination Skin: Flakiness in winter climates, clogged pores and acne, and a whole lot of confusion.
  • Normal Skin: Generally well-balanced; but often gets drier with ageing.

Know that irrespective of your skin type, there’s a right way to care for it.

 

3. Ethnicity

This one’s rather less spoken about, yet super interesting. Your ethnic origins influence the structure and appearance of your skin and how your skin reacts to the sun, causing different levels of sun damage.

It has been shown that darker skin (think people of Hispanic, African origins) contains more melanin – the pigment that gives skin its natural skin tone. This acts as both a blessing and a curse – on one hand, the skin is better protected from UV rays, thus delaying signs of ageing. On the other, pigmentation problems become more profound.

Conversely, age spots are more visible on Caucasian and Southwest Asian skins than on darker skin types. Furthermore, due to their desire for tanning, risks to skin cancer are higher.

 

4. Natural Skin Tone

A trip to the beach might make you wonder why some people get sunburns, and some get suntans. Your natural skin tone is one of the key factors that affect your skin. Let’s talk about melanin once again.

  • In darker skin tones, a higher melanin content protects the skin from sun damage and causes it to tan. This is why darker-skinned people usually turn darker or tan on spending hours in the sun.
  • In lighter skin tones, a lower melanin content leads one to turn red or burn when they go out in the sun.

Irrespective of your skin tone, we’d urge you to never let go of your beloved sunscreen bottle. Sometimes, clingy is great! 😉

 

5. Stress

Today, we’re quite aware of the undeniable link between the mental and the physical. When stress takes over you, your body is bound to respond. Unfortunately, the skin is no exception. Stress leads to hormonal changes, which in turn cause acne breakouts. Furthermore, things are often made worse by excessive perspiration, overconsumption of dehydrators like coffee and alcohol, insufficient sleep, and a neglected skincare routine.

 

6. Sleep Cycle

Skincare experts have always stressed on the importance of sleep. We’d like to reiterate that by saying – beauty sleep is real. While you’re sleeping away in glory, your skin is on to some serious work. Growth hormones help repair and renew damaged skin cells, and hydration and collagen levels are restored. Furthermore, lack of sleep also accelerates skin diseases like eczema and psoriasis. So, the next time someone calls you a sleeping beauty, tell them why you love your sleep.


7. Water Consumption

This magic potion called water is literally one of the main things that affect your skin. On average, the human body is 60% water. Large quantities of water are lost from the body on a daily basis. If the adequate replacement doesn’t take place, serious problems come to the fore. Consuming enough water (at least 8 glasses a day) will eliminate your need for a number of skincare products. Fewer wrinkles, clearer complexion, faster healing, smaller pores, tighter skin, reduced puffiness, less acne, and the list goes on.

 

8. Your Environment

Where do you spend most of your day? Is it confined to air-conditioned spaces, or outdoors – in the sun? Not many may know this, but the environmental factors that affect skin are pretty harmful.

  • Outdoors: Long hours of UV exposure can cause sunburns, rashes, redness, and higher risks of skin cancer. Also, note that the sun is never not there. SPF sunscreens are your best friend even on overcast days.
  • Indoors: An air conditioner operates by drawing out heat from the air inside the room, and throwing it outside. Unfortunately, it isn’t equipped enough to differentiate between moisture in the air and that on your skin. This makes the skin dry, tight, and dehydrated.

9. Lifestyle Factors

We’re all different individuals, and so are our lifestyles. Here’s how certain kinds of lifestyles manifest themselves in our skins’ health.

Frequent Travelling: Travel is a lot about dealing with changes – be it your schedule, the air, the weather, or your skincare routine. This is why breakouts while travelling are pretty common.

Diet: You really are what you eat. Consuming foods rich in nutrients and antioxidants will show on your skin. Doubt us? Try it!

Work Out: Sweating it out helps release toxins and impurities from the body. This is certainly great for the skin and helps achieve clear complexions. However, it is necessary to cleanse the skin post working out.

Alcohol: In addition to being a fun addition to parties and social gatherings, alcohol is also a known dehydrator. Excessive consumption of booze strips the skin off of the moisture that it needs.

Smoking: Everyone who smokes regularly is aware of its harms. For obvious reasons, smoking also causes considerable damage to the skin. It has been long associated with premature ageing, wrinkling, dehydration, and in more severe cases, skin cancer.

 

10. Makeup

For some, makeup use is only occasional. However, many use it on a daily basis. Excessive use of makeup accelerates problems of acne, premature ageing, allergies, and discolouration. Irrespective of whether you use makeup occasionally, often, or every day, make sure you take necessary precautions. Keep brushes clean, avoid harmful ingredients, know your skin type, and befriend facial cleansers.

You see, your skin is made to put up with a whole lot of stressors. This can certainly make it hard to predict what exactly your skin needs. Thus begins a chapter of endless experimentations.

To relieve you of all the guesswork, we at Yours have come up with matching your skin needs with a personalized skincare routine. Our products are backed by real science and are 100% cruelty-free. Furthermore, they account for all of the above-mentioned biological, environmental, and lifestyle factors.

About the Author

In-house skincare expert, loves books, tea, and dancing. Currently starring in her own reality show titled, A Modern Monroe; One Girl’s Search for true love.

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