Children and Skin Care - Preventative or OTT?
What is the "Evidence-base" behind your skin care routine?
TikTok is pretty addictive and I’d be the first to put my hand up. I was watching some videos with my wife who showed me some clips of mothers explaining their childs skincare routine.
Some of these children are as young as 6 years old and the argument is that starting early prevents wrinkles. Even Dior has recently launched a product line specifically for children (it’s £95 per pop of moisturiser) and even our favourite shops such as Selfridges, Harvey Nichols and Sephora are now surrounded by young teenagers buying skincare products.
Think about the “day in the life of….” videos you watch on Youtube. There’s always a few seconds on skincare. I mean… what’s a Korean skincare routine? I have googled it but it does look incredibly time consuming…
For the record, I do believe in ageing gracefully but I feel that young people don’t wish to age at all. I sometimes look at adverts and wonder how people have such glass-shiny skin but have to remind myself that it is a mixture of make-up, studio lighting and lots of photoshop editing.
So why am I making such a big deal about this? It’s because I recently sat in a seminar with a dermatologist who explained why “overdoing” it with skin care products could be terrible for ones skin.
He explained that whilst products are pumped with collagen, hyaluronic acid and other useful compounds, simple hygiene, moisturising and sun protection are probably sufficient.
Too much collagen (which strengthens skin) can result in skin overstretching and eventually hardening. So those laughter lines people wanted to prevent may become a reality much quicker than expected.
So What Should We Do?
Being advocates for proper skincare in people of all ages is a must. Not only does it keep people looking well but it also aids in conditions such as eczema as well as helping to prevent cancer.
Patients tell us all sorts of details which we might not pay attention to but they can become our entry to install some important concepts. For instance, my patients often tell me that they’re going on holiday so I often add “make sure you use good quality sunscreen.”
No-one should tell parents how to parent their child but dispelling rumours is important. Just like we tell patients to stay away from “anti-diabetic pills,” we should warn patients about skincare products that do not have an evidence base. Whilst we recognise how important appearance is to the younger generations our attitude towards good, evidence based skin care should be the same as advising someone about diet and exercise to prevent cardiovascular disease.
As you can see, the interventions are really simple so let’s try and institute these in our practice. Keep it simple (and I don’t mean the brand).
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