What Does Your Skin Texture Tell You?

As we get older, our skin naturally change and evolve and reflect the life that we’ve had. At Ayurda, we believe that ageing is inevitable and is in fact a beautiful process: your face reflects all the laughs, love, and life you’ve lived. Like a great oak in the forest, each line in the bark and each ring in the trunk is a testament to its long history. We don’t want to erase that — instead, we want to focus on healthy ageing. 

Considering that your skin is the largest organ of your body, keeping it healthy is also a huge factor in your overall health. That’s why here at Ayurda we place such weight on self-massage, sunscreen, and natural products. For those people who have taken good care of their skin from a young age, the 40s/50s is when they really start to reap the benefits of diligence. However, not all of us have been raised to wear sunscreen, drink enough water, or get enough sleep — and that’s okay! The human body is endlessly resilient, and your skin has a powerful ability to amend and heal itself. If you haven’t been the most diligent about your routine, don’t fret.

That being said, your skin’s ability to rejuvenate itself is not infinite. By understanding the type of ageing apparent in your skin, you can pinpoint the cause and take simple, easy, everyday steps to minimise and in some cases, even reverse the unnecessary damage!

THIN SKIN

One of the key signs of ageing, and distinct from normal wrinkling in that this is mostly about the texture of the skin. Thinning skin will happen to us all — that’s just the natural march of time. However, if you find your skin becoming finer, frailer, and saggier before it reasonably should, then it’s often a sign that your skin is losing collagen and elasticin quickly, likely due to a myriad of factors, including sun damage and pollution. Thankfully, although it does break down with age, collagen is something you can eat back into your skin. Bone broth as a food has one of the highest concentrations of collagen, and is also rich with vitamins and glycine. It’s been clinically shown to increase collagen production and lessen the appearance of crepey skin. For vegetarians and vegans, try making a nutrient dense broth with parsley, carrot, seaweed (for that delicious umami) and the secret ingredient — potato skins. Simmered for hours, this is a broth dense in collagen production boosting properties that can, over time, be as beneficial as bone broth. Whatever your preference, make a big batch at the beginning of the week and incorporate as an appetiser to your main meals — you’ll be surprised at the difference! 

UNEVEN TEXTURE

Again, this is more of a textural thing than specific wrinkling. Colloquially called ‘orange peel skin’, this describes shiny — possibly oily — skin with enlarged pores and tiny divots in the surface. This is often due to issues in the deeper dermal layers — either muscle contractions, the size of the sebaceous glands, or loss of elasticin. Our pores become larger due to the loss of collagen and elasticin, which keeps pores closed and smaller-looking. Your pore size are largely determined by factors outside your control: how oily your skin is and how much pollution you encounter daily. You can’t change your pore size, but you can minimise it by making sure they are not held open by excess dirt, sebum, and build up. A weekly mask such as our cooling and rejuvenating AYURDA GEL SCRUB can help lift grime out of your pores and minimise their appearance over time! 

THE UNDER EYE

Bruising, lining, shadowing… this is the most delicate and thinnest area of your face, and the first place where signs of ageing show up — whether it be due to sun damage, pollutants, or lifestyle choices. Here at Ayurda, we’re only concerned about ageing that comes from adverse effects, not the natural ageing that shows the life you’ve had. As far as we’re concerned, smile lines and crow’s feet are good: they’re evidence of a life lived, laughs had, and joys experienced. Wear them with pride. However, if you suffer from thinning under eyes and lining from your tear duct area, these are not usually due to emoting throughout the day. The main causes of this sign of ageing is the accumulation of free radicals — corrupted cells which result from exposure to air pollution and smoking, which can begin a chain reaction that infects other healthy molecules in the area. To counter the accumulation of free radicals, incorporate adaptogens into your diet — Ayurvedic herbs like ashwagandha are powerful allies that can help neutralise free radical stress and help rejuvenate the delicate under eye.

SLEEP WRINKLES

Most of us have a preferred sleeping position — on our sides, flat on our backs, and some even face down. We don’t often think about it, but in any other circumstance, we’d avoid having our face mushed up against something for 8 hours in a row. Our sleeping position can impose an unique type of wrinkling, especially in the nighttime when our skin is clinically shown to be more absorbent — not for nothing do dermatologists recommend heavier creams at night, when we’re able to absorb it more. You might imagine the same goes for adverse pressure: indents, lines, creases, pillow marks… When you’re young, high collagen levels allow your skin to quite literally bounce back, but of course as your collagen levels decline, so does your skin’s bounce back ability. To counter accumulated sleep wrinkles, boost your collagen and antioxidant levels by ingesting the foods we’ve suggested above. Additionally, try sleeping on your back, investing in a memory foam pillow (which is also a godsend for neck pain), and a silk pillow case, which has more slip than linen and cotton. These measures should minimise compression on your skin, and ease the appearance of sleep indentations in the long run!