THE GOOD COLLAGEN & AGEING

Let’s start by understanding what good collagen looks and feels like!

This well nurtured and active, healthy skin is moist, resilient, firm. smooth, dewy, fresh, glowing and plumped with an even skin tone. It is healthy and looks just like baby skin and it has the potential to further improve.

Collagen is what we all chase! It is the holy grail in the skin world and that is the main reason why we use skincare, laser treatments, facial peels, PRP, micro-needling, or LED.

Collagen is the ingredient that holds our skin together and makes it firm and elastic, yet movable and functional. It is a label of health and youth.

Unbeknownst to most people, we do have different types of collagen: young potent and plump collagen, as well as hardened scar tissue collagen. The first one, which is the good one, gives you a youthful and desirable look, the latter is rigid and hard. It is the graveyard of collagen.

SO, WHERE DOES COLLAGEN COME FROM?

The production cells are called fibroblasts, they are the good guys. They produce the most important parts in the skin, including collagen, elastin and hyaluronic acid, which retains the water in your skin. Fibroblasts need nurturing, stimulation and juicing, TLC!

At the age of 25, they slow down and reduce in numbers. Therefore, each decade the activity decreases exponentially.  The really interesting part is that along with stimulating the production cells to multiply and produce amazing good, new collagen. The very same cells also produce elastin, which we need for snap (the opposite of laxity) and hyaluronic acid for hydration.

There are in fact many factors that slow down the collagen production process; for example overuse of moisturisers and sebum production in the skin, which causes chronic inflammation, pollution, lack of exfoliation and a really serious negative factor is exposure to UV, HEV and infrared light, which damages the DNA of the skin and directly cause the collagen and elastin to degenerate and harden with no abundant good collagen around.

The good news is that, it is possible to re-activate your production cells at any age and create lovely new healthy good collagen, elastin and hyaluronic acid.

HOW TO CREATE ORGANIC STIMULATION! 

• Most importantly, daily skincare routines, using a medical level skincare, which has the potential to make a noticeable difference. First establish skin health by reinstating the skin barrier, reducing sebum production and induce exfoliation. Then stimulate the fibroblasts either aggressively or slower according to your preference.
• Have regular facial peels to reinforce the activation of the fibroblasts at a deeper level.
• ‘Juice’ the skin with vitamins, amino-acids, enzymes and hormones, which are the building blocks needed for the production of collagen. This is best done with mesotherapy, where potent “juices” are directly injected into the dermis or with micro-needling, which mechanically penetrate the skin and break down hardened skin, which allow for active serums to penetrate via the many micro channels created.
• Have regular Profhilo injections, which is an organic, pure hyaluronic acid gel, without chemicals. Profhilo instantly induces hydration in the skin, and while the hydration initially lasts 4 weeks, there’s a long-term stimulation of the active ‘factory’ cells, to produce beautiful collagen, elastin and hyaluronic acid.

BEWARE OF DEGENERATIVE COLLAGEN STIMULATION  

Procedures that rely solely on tightening the existing collagen strands, which is the shortcut to induce skin tightening often cause a global effect in the skin layers, in which there’s an indirect and often minimal activation of the fibroblasts.

The existing collagen and elastin are being contracted by heat followed by a degeneration with risk of scar type collagen tissue build up. Therefore, the process rather relies on construction by destruction and often the collagen produced is not the desirable good collagen. A way to prevent this is by always having procedures done by a well-certified practitioner who will know which procedures can be done where, and how to reach the right layers of the skin.

Always remember, It is better to positively and organically stimulate cells to multiply and produce, rather than to rely on tightening procedures, which often have short term benefits and potential long term degenerative costs.

If you’d like to find out more please book a consultation (01372 465 277) to discuss how to improve your collagen levels.