Sensitive skin isn’t doomed to aging faster.
It feels like that though, since all the famous antiaging powerhouses, like Vitamin A or glycolic acid, are off limits for your skin. They irritate it like crazy and turn it into a red, flaky mess.
But that doesn’t leave you out of anti-aging options. You just need to lower your doses and look for gentler alternatives your delicate skin can tolerate.
We’ve got you covered. Here are 5 anti-aging ingredients sensitive skin can use to fight wrinkles, boost collagen and fade dark spots:
Protect With Mineral Sunscreen
Does your skin turn lobster red and itch like crazy every time you put on sunscreen? It’s enough to make you want to give up sun protection for good.
Don’t. Sunscreen is the #1 ally in your antiaging arsenal. It keeps UV rays from wreaking damage - like wrinkles and dark spots - on your skin and protects you from cancer to boot.
The catch? A lot of synthetic UV filters like Octocrylene, Cinnamates and Benzophenones (to name a few) are well known for their irritating potential.
Instead, look for zinc oxide and titanium dioxide on the label. Zinc oxide and titanium dioxide are two white minerals that protect you from the entire UV range and are so gentle, even babies can use them.
Plus, they don’t irritate skin. But they may leave an unsightly white cast behind. That’s why our SPF 40 Age-Defying Mineral Sunscreen comes both in an untinted and a tinted version that layers invisibly under makeup.
P.S. It’s water-resistant up to 80 minutes.
Prevent With Antioxidants
Free radicals are your skin’s worst nightmare.
They roam through your body bent to causing all kinds of havoc. They destroy elastin, break down collagen and damage your cellular DNA, leaving an ugly mess of wrinkles and dark spots in their wake.
They’re everywhere. The sun, pollution, smoking, and a sugar-laden diet are just a few of the things that cause free radicals. Heck, even breathing and metabolic processes produce their fair share of free radicals. But it's not like you can just stop breathing.
Luckily, your body has a police force especially created to destroy free radicals: antioxidants. You can give it a helping hand and send reinforcements every day just by using antioxidant-rich skincare products.
Vitamin C tops the list for effectiveness but the pure form, L-Ascorbic acid, is too irritating for sensitive skin. Instead, opt for a gentler derivative like Magnesium Ascorbyl Phosphate. It’s just as powerful against free radicals and non-irritating. You can find it in our MAP Vitamin C Serum.
But just one antioxidant, no matter how powerful it is, won’t do. The more antioxidants you feed your skin, the more free radicals it can destroy. Look for skincare products that are full to the brim with antioxidants, like our AntiOx Organic Antioxidant Toner. It has green tea, vitamin E, licorice extract and plenty more wrinkle-fighters!
Smooth With Low-Dose Acids
Is the word “acid” enough to send your skin into panic mode? Calm down and hear this out.
High concentrations of acids, like glycolic acid, can irritate sensitive skin and leave it a dry, flaky, red mess. Your skin is right to panic here.
But that doesn’t mean acids are totally off-limits for your skin type. You just have to choose one that’s sensitive-skin friendly.
A low-dose acid cleanser like Glycolic Acid Clarifying & Resurfacing Facial Cleanser fits the bill perfectly. It contains only 2.5% glycolic acid that stays in contact with the skin for only a couple of minutes.
Translation: that’s too little glycolic acid to cause irritations - but still enough to remove dead skin cells, wash away discolourations and soften fine lines.
For best results, use it only once or twice a week. Your skin type doesn’t need more exfoliation than this.
Firm With Peptides
Peptides are the biggest revolution in the skincare world in the past few years. They’re made up of amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, like collagen and elastin. Do you see where this is going?
Loss of collagen is a sure recipe for wrinkles. When skin starts losing this all-important protein, it starts to sag and wrinkle. Without elastin, it loses elasticity.
Enter Matrixyl 3000, a new peptide that can stimulate collagen (types -I, -IV, and -XVII, to be exact). Matrixyl pumps up your skin’s collagen production a notch or two, greatly reducing both sagginess and wrinkle depth by 68%! Matrixyl 3000 is our jam. Our very first product ever contained it, and we still love it to this day.
We have two great serums you can choose from; our forever popular Peptide Potion, a potent Matrixyl 3000 serum, and our Firming Argireline Serum with Matrixyl 3000, a combo serum. In the Firming Serum, Matrixyl 3000 is used together with Argireline, a fellow peptide that causes facial muscles to contract with less force. This helps reduce wrinkles caused by frequent movements, like those stubborn ones around the mouth.
Peptides are like antioxidants. The more you use, the better.
Brighten With Bearberry Extract
Wrinkles ain’t the only thing that can give away your real age. Dark spots can betray you too.
Up until now, hydroquinone was pretty much the only thing that could send them packing. But that’s way too harsh for your sensitive skin (plus, it's not all that safe to use).
A better alternative is bearberry extract. Derived from the leaves of the Uva Ursi plant, bearberry extract contains arbutin, a skin-lightener that can fade away brown spots, melasma and freckles.
Arbutin works by inhibiting melanin production. Melanin is the pigment that gives your skin its colour. But, sometimes, your skin pumps up too much melanin in certain areas. Cue dark spots.
By stopping the production of melanin in those areas, arbutin makes sure the excess pigment wears off, giving your skin a more-even toned appearance.
The best part? Bearberry extract is loaded with antioxidants that help you fight free radicals, too.
P.S. Arbutin is considered a derivative of hydroquinone but it is NOT hydroquinone. It has the same benefits but without the side effects.
Here’s to younger-looking skin - without irritations!