Age and Your Skin

We're all getting older every day, but our skin ages differently, depending on heredity, general health, and how you have taken care of your skin. There are, however, some general stages in our skin's life.

Young people's skins are more delicate and thinner than those of adults. Infants with diaper rash and young children who are covered with scrapes, scratches, and bruises have less protection from the outside world than the adult whose skin has become toughened to handle the nicks and bumps of everyday living. The teenager whose oil-producing glands are increasing their activity will develop oily skin, oily hair, and acne.

When you get old, your skin becomes very thin and fragile, just as it as when you were a baby. Bumping your skin even a little bit can cause large bruises and blemishes. As your skin ages, it becomes saggy. Changes in hormones cut down the skin's oil supply and the skin becomes rough and dry, and "age spots" develop.

Heredity and Your Skin

Heredity plays a big part in what your skin is and what it will be. If you are black, your skin is stronger than that of your white friends. Black skin is thicker and tougher, has greater protection from the sun's dangerous rays, and wrinkles much less-and much later-than fair skin.

Black people, even when they're seventy or eighty years old, usually have fewer wrinkles than white people who are in their fifties. And, if a black person hasn't been in the sun a lot during his or her lifetime, you may never see a wrinkle.

If you are blue-eyed, blonde, and fair-skinned with Scandina­vian or Irish relatives, your skin will usually be thin and delicate. This type of skin can't take exposure to the sun, wind, cold, or other harsh weather. It also develops wrinkles sooner than darker skin does.