End of summer check list

Living in Colorado means we have a huge amount of sunshine year round, sometimes it is accompanied with heat and at others snow. Sometimes even in the same day! One thing is for certain though, the light is bright and intense due to the altitude, not to mention the arid air with little humidity.

When true summer arrives so does the heat. So what does that do to our skin here? First of all most people don’t just wear sunscreen in the summer, they do it all year because they know their skin will freckle and darken. Of course people who don’t tan will not suffer the freckles and age spots but they still experience sun damage to their DNA. Remember that sunscreen is not just about stopping pigmentation, it is about stopping DNA damage that leads to lines, wrinkles, thinning, coarse rough skin.

Hands down after smoking, the sun is the biggest ager of skin. So let’s say you have been diligent, using good mineral sunscreen (which reflects the UVA and UVB rays off the skin before they can wreak havoc inside the skin), you’re wearing sunglasses to protect the delicate eye area, you use hats and even a UV umbrella. You think you are safe but when you look in the mirror at the end of summer and see some damage. Now that could be because you didn’t reapply sunscreen often enough or mistakenly thought using tinted foundation or moisturizers containing sunscreen might help. They do not.

Either way without being a hermit it is hard to have the same clear skin you have during the winter! So when the weather starts to cool and the sun is a little less intense I recommend a series of chemical peels. They can be the milder and more gradual glycolic peels that don’t shed skin but are peeling at a micro level. Or we can do the ViPeel® Precision Plus that is dedicated to age spots and freckles.  I think this time of year is the perfect time to peel.  I will also suggest Lumecca™ IPL which has multiple uses. It grabs red pigments from broken capillaries caused by summer heat, it latches on to brown pigments of freckles and age spots, it also helps increase collagen to tackle the fine lines that come from parched summer skin. Best of all after 1-2 treatments your skin will be ready to go into winter healing mode and be ready for the spring!

Now is the time to baby your skin by adding extra moisture in the form of specialist facials such as the Oxygenation facial that can revive and brighten dull lifeless skin. So even if you think you might have overdone outdoors (who can blame you we have some gorgeous places of interest for nature lovers and adventurers) we can undo the skin damage!