Essay on beauty and skin health

The ultimate goal of beauty behavior must be to maintain skin health. All beauty methods that break away from the skin's physiological tolerance and destroy the barrier function, even if they can bring short-term aesthetic effects, will eventually cause irreversible skin damage, and the gain is not worth the loss.

Not long ago, I treated a 22-year-old girl. She had just graduated and saved three months’ salary. She bought a high-concentration retinol essence from a certain Internet celebrity brand. She also went to a small beauty salon every other week to apply fruit acid. Originally, she just wanted to get rid of the blackheads on her nose and lighten the sun spots on her cheeks. Less than a month later, my face turned red when exposed to heat, and I developed a dense rash with whiteheads. I went to the hospital and was diagnosed with rosacea. I spent nearly 20,000 yuan on repairs. The spots have not faded away, and even the ordinary moisturizer that I could use before now stings when I apply it. I have seen at least 40 to 50 cases of this kind in the past two years, and they basically fall into the trap of "prioritizing beauty over health".

To be honest, the differences in the beauty industry are actually much greater than ordinary people imagine, and there is no unified "standard answer" at all. The two most quarrelsome factions in the circle in the past two years are the "Hard Drug Party", which believes that high-concentration ingredients are the last word. If you put 30% prototype vitamin C, 0.5% retinol, and 2% salicylic acid on your face, you think that mild products are all IQ taxes. ； The other group is the "minimalist party", which advocates not applying anything except washing your face with water and Vaseline, because they believe that all additives will damage the skin. There are cases that can be used on both sides: I know a 35-year-old sister with city wall skin. She insists on using 0.5% retinol + strict hard sunscreen for three years. The dry lines at the corners of her eyes have indeed faded by half, and her skin is much firmer than her peers. ； There is also a girl who suffered from hormone facial. She stopped all effective products and only applied medical repair cream for a year. The redness and stinging problem was completely gone. But if you copy other people's experience, your chances of falling into a trap are higher than winning the lottery - I've seen girls with allergic skin imitate others to apply high-concentration vitamin C, and their faces swelled into pig heads on the spot, and I've also seen people with oily skin imitate others to apply Vaseline every day, and become sullen and silent.

What’s even more interesting is that the medical beauty industry and the skin care industry are often at odds. I was having dinner with a colleague who does medical beauty. He slapped the table and said that all skin care products are IQ tax. If you want to whiten your skin, you can just take whitening injections. If you want to lighten your spots, you can just do picosecond treatment. It will give quick results and save trouble. As a result, within half a month, he finished the photon treatment and became tanned without using sunscreen. He secretly asked me for the formula of the repairing essence. I won’t argue with him. After all, if I really encounter a customer whose barrier has been damaged, I will only make my face worse if I start a photovoltaic project.

Let’s get back to the essence. In fact, the physiological laws of the skin are there and do not tolerate any shortcuts: the normal replacement cycle of the epidermis is 28 days. No matter how expensive your whitening essence is, it cannot make you three degrees whiter in 7 days. Either it adds a fluorescent agent or peels off your stratum corneum to temporarily make you look white. However, it will either darken your skin or make your face look bad in the future. I often tell my customers that you think of the skin barrier as the exterior wall of your home, with keratinocytes as the bricks, intercellular lipids as the cement that fills the gaps, and the outermost sebum film as the waterproof paint. In order to make the wall look whiter, you scrape the outer wall with a shovel every day. Eventually, the wall leaks and water leaks, and no matter how expensive the decoration is, it cannot be hung. Many people say they have "sensitive skin", but in fact 90% of it is acquired. They apply facial masks every day until they develop hydration dermatitis, exfoliate frequently, and follow the trend of medical beauty programs that are not suitable for them. In the end, the transepidermal water loss rate is three times that of normal people. Everything they apply stings, and talking about beauty is all in vain.

I have encountered many pitfalls myself. I have combination skin, oily T-zone and thin cheeks. I followed the trend of using salicylic acid in the past few years. I applied it all over my face for half a month, and my cheeks became red for almost a month. Later, I changed it to apply it only on the T-zone. I used it once a week. Blackheads were reduced and my cheeks did not feel uncomfortable. Now when making plans for clients, I never recommend products or projects first. I first ask her to take photos without makeup for 7 consecutive days, record the amount of oil in the morning, whether there will be redness, and whether there is any tingling sensation after using skin care products. Then, combined with the transepidermal water loss and pigmentation data of the skin tester, I will come up with a plan: If you want to whiten dry and sensitive skin, you should first maintain a barrier for 3 months. ； If you have oily acne-prone skin and want to fight aging, you must first eliminate the acne inflammation, otherwise no matter how good the anti-aging essence is, it won’t be absorbed.

I had a conversation with a dermatologist from a public tertiary care department before, and he said that many people have a completely wrong understanding of beauty: healthy skin itself is the best state of beauty. If your pores are slightly larger and you have a few small sun spots, as long as your skin is stable and not red or acne-prone, it will look much better than those whose skin turns red at every touch and looks white and gray. After all, beauty is a matter of pleasing yourself. There is no need to follow Internet celebrities and talk about "cold white skin" and "zero pores". Only you know whether your face is comfortable or not. If you damage your skin for the sake of "looking good" in the eyes of others, then it's really not worth the gain.