We’re overwhelmed by advice on anti-ageing skincare, with social media presenting a new way to reverse time every time you refresh your feed. Quite understandably, the instinct is to roll a sceptical eye, tune out the hype, and put our trust in what we already know to be tested and true. But are these old faithful rules really as reliable as we think?
According to leading dermatologist Dr Sam Bunting, far too many beauty beliefs are passed on without us questioning them, and they simply don’t stand up to scrutiny. At best, we’re wasting our time and money, but at worst, we could be harming our skin.
‘We should be more questioning of the origins of these diktats, since many are simply outdated or works of fiction,’ says Dr Bunting, whose skincare bible, Flawless, is available to preorder here now.
As a taster of her expertise, Dr Sam has given Good Housekeeping an exclusive extract from her book where she outlines 10 widely-accepted ‘rules’ for age-defying skin that actually don’t matter as much you’ve been told. ‘These are some of the beliefs and practices that I have little use for when building protocols for my patients,’ she says.
Prepare to be very surprised.
Dr Sam Bunting FLAWLESS: Your Ultimate Guide To Bright, Clear Skin
Dr Sam Bunting FLAWLESS: Your Ultimate Guide To Bright, Clear Skin
10 things that don't matter as much as you've been told
1 Drinking water
Beauty lore cites drinking water (eight glasses a day, specifically) as the cure for everything from acne to dull, dehydrated skin. Alas, water has no ability to flush out the toxins of acne (there aren’t any) and unless you address your skin barrier health, any extra water that makes its way to your skin will simply evaporate away. Drink enough for your general health and your skin will be fine.
2 Genes
Many people think that having ‘good genes’ means you will have better skin. I’m going to play devil’s advocate here... and say that genes don’t really matter. When it comes to ageing, our genetic blueprint governs about 20% of the process. That’s it. At least 80% of ageing is determined by what happens outside our bodies in the environment. This is such excellent news. It means that 80% of how we age is within our control.
3 Silk pillowcases
These feel nice. However, when it comes to wrinkles, the weight of the human head is the problem. It’s around 5kg (11lb), so when you sleep on your side or on your front, that’s a heavy weight squishing the skin of your face for around seven hours a night, creating those etched-in sleep lines. Every day, for years... No fine material can mitigate that, unfortunately. Training yourself to sleep on your back is the answer.
4 Facials
When people hear I don’t believe in facials, they often look as though I’ve told them there’s no Father Christmas. The thing with facials is managing expectations. If you have a problem like acne or rosacea, there’s a good chance you are at risk of making your problem worse with a facial. Inflammatory skin conditions do not like episodic pulses of new products; they like consistent application of correctly chosen ones that tackle the issues at their root cause. The friction from facial massage isn’t a great idea either when dealing with inflammatory skin issues.
Ultimately, little can be achieved by a monthly facial that can’t be done more effectively in a slow, steady and intentional way with the correct active ingredients administered by your own hands. Of course, for some, facials are part of their self-care habits and that’s great, as long as they do no harm. But if you want to be pampered, I’d rather you enjoy a massage.
5 Any home device that claims to lift your face
So seductive. But alas, anything that claims to lift is likely to be appealing to your hopes and dreams, and is probably going to leave them dashed. Lifting the skin without surgery is very hard, even within the confines of the doctor’s office.
These home devices have very little power and, most importantly, can’t make damaged elastin, our skin’s built-in spring, regain its recoil. This is the golden rule of elastin – you need to protect what you’ve got, because you can’t rebuild it when it’s gone. Elastin makes up only around 4 per cent of the protein in our skin (we have much more collagen), but once we reach puberty, we have received our lot.
6 Toners
Once upon a time, we used actual soap to cleanse our skin. However, the nature of soap is that it’s alkaline and leaves a residue behind that disrupts the skin’s mildly acidic pH (known as the acid mantle). This can damage our skin barrier, so liquid toners were developed to get rid of this residue and restore the skin’s pH back to a healthy level.
These days, cleansers are an entirely different beast – they are pH balanced and rinse clear. So, modern toners have been reinvented – they now deliver ingredients one might like to leave behind, such as an exfoliating acid, for example. I believe that we should be more intentional when applying ingredients to our skin and use measured amounts of leave-on products, so we know what dose we are depositing on the skin. That’s why I relegate toners to the bin of unnecessary products.
7 Physical exfoliation
Your skin sheds its surface cells naturally, all by itself, every single day. Scrubs and brushes attempt to hurry this along in a quest for smoothness, but they’re imprecise, often stripping away cells your skin still needs. That satisfying grit? It’s doing more harm than good.
8 Cellulite creams
It’s very hard to influence things that are due to essentially how we are made. Women’s bodies are equipped with a fibrous network containing fat cells layered under the skin on our thighs and hips. A bit like in a well-worn mattress, the fat eventually wants to poke out. Whether you are voluptuous or slender, that is the nature of this fat. It’s why almost all women have some degree of cellulite. It’s completely normal. No cream can reach this layer (nor should it – that would be dangerous), which is why cellulite creams don’t work.
9 Stretch-mark creams
Stretch marks are tears in the elastin fibres in the skin over areas like the stomach, hips and thighs. During a teenage growth spurt or pregnancy, rapid stretching leads to these tears. Again, I counsel patients that these are so common as to be normal, so save your money when it comes to stretch-mark creams.
10 Gua shas and jade rollers
Sigh. Another practice that many people enjoy as part of a self-care ritual. No bad thing, but they won’t sculpt a jawline or cheekbones, as many influencers promise. If you are prone to a little fluid retention, this might help clear it, but that’s about it. The skin has an excellent blood supply so these will probably do no better job than going for a run.
