Essay on the relationship between beauty and skin health

Beauty and skin health are not an "either/or" antagonistic relationship, nor are they a negative correlation where "beauty must mean harming the skin." The essence is a two-way dynamic effect based on the physiological laws of the skin - reasonable beauty behaviors that adapt to individual skin types and comply with metabolic cycles are positive gain items for skin health, while excessive/wrong beauty practices that violate the logic of the skin barrier and blindly follow the trend are the core incentives for damaging skin health. The relationship between the two always fluctuates around the core variable of "adaptability."

Last month, when I was working as an auxiliary consultation in the dermatology beauty clinic that I cooperated with, I met a 22-year-old girl who had just graduated and was looking for a job to make her skin more translucent. I heard a blogger say that "deep cleansing is the first step in skin care." She went to the beauty salon every week for three consecutive weeks to do small bubble + fruit acid peels, and she also used a home scrub to rub her face every day. When she arrived, her cheeks were covered with red pimples that hurt when touched. She was already suffering from rosacea secondary to moderate barrier damage. She had red eyes and asked, "I just want to be more beautiful, but my face is ruined instead." In fact, this is the most typical misunderstanding: putting the blame for "wrong beauty" on the beauty itself.

In the past ten years or so, traditional dermatology doctors generally held a very conservative attitude towards "beauty and skin care". They felt that apart from the basic trilogy of gentle cleansing, moisturizing and sun protection, other functional ingredients and beauty items were redundant and would even increase the burden on the skin. The old professor I followed when I first started in the industry always said, "Don't use it blindly, just wear sunscreen properly" when I met patients who asked if they could use whitening essence. As an aside, I once met a 60-year-old aunt who used a few yuan of baby cream all her life and always wore a wide-brimmed hat when going out. There were very few fine lines on her face. Her skin was in better condition than many 30-year-olds who apply five or six layers of essence every day. Do you think she didn’t do beauty treatments? In fact, sun protection itself is the most cost-effective beauty behavior.

In the past few years, you will find that the trend has changed. More and more dermatologists have begun to proactively recommend compliant and effective skin care products and light medical beauty projects: low-concentration photorejuvenation for spots, and supramolecular salicylic acid peels for acne. As long as the operation is compliant and suitable for skin type, it can solve many problems that cannot be solved by self-healing of the skin. I have previously followed 30 patients with moderate acne. On the basis of regular medication, they underwent a compliant 20% concentration supramolecular salicylic acid peel every two weeks. The recurrence rate after the treatment was 27% lower than that of the control group who only used medication. This data is real and cannot be questioned.

Of course, controversies have never stopped. Take the most controversial issue now, "Is anti-aging beauty a tax on IQ?". One group says, "You can't replenish your face even if you drink collagen. Thermage is all about marketing." There is nothing wrong with both sides, but the premise is not clearly stated: For people over 35 years old with mild to moderate facial sagging, Thermage can indeed stimulate the proliferation of collagen in the dermis as long as the energy is sufficient and the operation is compliant. However, if you let a 20-year-old girl with a face full of collagen do it, it really has no big use except burning money.； The same is true for collagen peptides. You should choose collagen peptides with a molecular weight below 2,000 daltons. Drinking more than 3g of them every day can indeed improve the moisture content of the skin. If you buy a Sanwu product with a molecular weight of tens of thousands of daltons, it will only turn into amino acids after drinking it, which is no different from eating a boiled egg.

I have a friend who is a beauty editor. She is born with dry and sensitive skin. In the past, she did not dare to touch any functional products. When the winter wind blows, her face turns red like an apple, and her skin peels off to the point where the powder is not stuck. Later, after listening to the dermatologist's advice, I didn't buy any repair essence worth thousands of dollars. I just made gentle oil compresses twice a week: apply pure squalane oil all over my face, apply it with a warm towel at about 40 degrees for 3 minutes, wipe off the excess oil, and then apply an ordinary ceramide cream. She persisted for more than three months. The last time she went for a skin test, the transepidermal water loss value dropped from the previous 38g/(m²·h) to 22g/(m²·h), which is already the standard for healthy skin. Now she says to everyone, "It turns out that beauty is not about piling expensive things on your face. What suits you is better than anything else."

Don’t think that medical beauty treatments are safer than daily skin care. I’ve seen too many people go to unqualified studios for cheap and get hydrating injections. They can’t even figure out what ingredients are injected into the skin. In the end, their faces are swollen like steamed buns and they come to the hospital for help.； There are also many people who are superstitious about "pure plant" and "additive-free" Internet celebrity skin care products. We have sampled a batch of such products before, and many of them have added a large amount of irritating preservatives in order to prevent them from deteriorating, and even illegally added glucocorticoids. After using them, they will be glowing in the short term, but after a long time, they will become hormonal. On the contrary, it will cause more damage to the skin than using compliant open-shelf skin care products.

After dealing with skin for so many years, my biggest feeling is that beauty is never the enemy of skin health, nor is it a necessity. It is more like a "special meal" for your skin: for people with good foundation, basic care is enough to maintain health.； If you have clear needs such as whitening, anti-aging, and acne removal, find a method that suits you. Proper beauty care can actually improve your skin condition to a higher level. What I fear the most is that I don’t understand my skin type at all. Today I hear someone saying that acid is good, so I use high-concentration acid. Tomorrow, I hear someone saying that anti-aging should be done early, so I go for Thermage. In the end, the barrier is damaged, and I call "beauty is all a lie." Oh, by the way, if you are really not sure what is suitable for you, go to the dermatology department of a regular hospital for a skin test that costs more than 100 yuan. It will be more useful than blindly trying ten bottles of essence worth thousands of dollars.