Home » LASER » DO wear 1½in heels. DO wear Makeup. Amazingly simple ways to stay young according to experts

DO wear 1½in heels. DO wear Makeup. Amazingly simple ways to stay young according to experts

Posted Wednesday January 17th, 2018

In AESTHETIC TREATMENTS, DOCTOR SAYS, HAIR GROWTH, LASER

We religiously slather on anti-ageing face creams, and spend hours at the gym trying to maintain a youthful physique, but it’s daily life that can accelerate the ageing process without us even noticing. We speak to top doctors to share their top anti-ageing tips — from how you dry your hair, to the shoes you wear, and even where you live — based on years of experience in their fields and received some surprising advice!

WEAR MAKEUP WITH SPF

What aesthetic doctors say: Our skin is constantly under assault from sun and environmental pollution. Naked skin affords no protective barrier as our skin comes into direct contact with all sorts of allergens and offending dermal ‘agers’.

New age makeup is formulated with skin enhancing benefits in mind. SW1 Beach hat for example, is a tinted SPF50 sunscreen that’s literally oil-free— a lifesaver for many oily and acne-prone types, yet has enough coverage to give a sheer, translucent finish. This means you not only look better while wearing this, you are doing something positive for your skin! Choosing skincare that uses non-comedogenic ingredients is very important, says Dr Low Chai Ling, founder of SW1 Clinic and the SW1 range of cosmeceuticals. Over and beyond selecting safe ingredients, be proactive about your makeup choices and use makeup that serves dual function of a cosmetic and a skin saver.

Besides sunscreen, pigment erasing superstar Special Effects from SW1 is also highly popular for their skin lightening benefits as well as the ability to deflect and reflect light, making it ideal for use as a makeup primer. It multi-tasks intelligently, instantly giving the illusion of pigment coverage and lightening skin benefits.

Beauty Save: Whatever makeup you wear, as long as you clean your skin thoroughly at the end of each day, your pores will be left clean and refreshed. Dr Low recommends using a non-foaming, pH balanced cleanser as her philosophy is to use a cleanser that is closest to your skin barrier so as not to disrupt your skin balance. Try Skin Gym, a self-heating gel cleanser that dissolves oil and debris with ease before rinsing off easily with water. Once a a week, makeup wearers should give their skin a detox by using a fine particle scrub to thoroughly deep cleanse pores and exfoliate dead skin cells. She recommends Crystal Healing which is a dual-purpose mask cum scrub, for a refreshing skin treat you can do even at home.

THROW AWAY YOUR CONTACT LENSES AND SAVE YOUR EYES

What eye doctors say: Wearing contact lenses age your eyes in a number of ways. First, everyone who wears lenses will have some inflammation of the eyelid — known as blepharitis — as a contact lens changes the way the body produces tears.

This causes a red rim around the eyes which people often put down to age or not sleeping. It can also cause swelling of the skin around the eye and inflammation that makes the whites of the eye less white.

Putting in and taking out your lenses can also cause problems. Depending on your technique you may pull on the lower or upper lid and this can cause the tissues around the eyes to get looser. Hard lenses also make it more difficult for the top lid to move over the surface of the eye, and over time the muscle that is supposed to lift the lid and keep the eye open can become weak and droopy.

Beauty Save: Glasses are an alternative, but these days vision correction surgery can treat everything from astigmatism and reading vision to long or short-sightedness, so you really don’t have to wear glasses or contact lenses at all.

Read more: WHAT YOUR FACE SAYS ABOUT YOUR HEALTH

GO SUGAR-FREE

Age Management expert Dr Julinda Lee says: Sugar has a bittersweet reputation when it comes to health. A study published in 2014 in JAMA Internal Medicine found an association between a high-sugar diet and a greater risk of dying from heart disease. Over the course of the 15-year study, people who got 17% to 21% of their calories from added sugar had a 38% higher risk of dying from cardiovascular disease compared with those who consumed 8% of their calories as added sugar.

Link between a high-sugar diet and a greater risk of dying from heart disease

Consuming too much added sugar can raise blood pressure and increase chronic inflammation, both of which are pathological pathways to heart disease. Excess consumption of sugar, especially in sugary beverages, also contributes to weight gain by tricking your body into turning off its appetite-control system because liquid calories are not as satisfying as calories from solid foods. This is why it is easier for people to add more calories to their regular diet when consuming sugary beverages.

The effects of added sugar intake — higher blood pressure, inflammation, weight gain, diabetes, and fatty liver disease — are all linked to an increased risk for heart attack and stroke.

Beauty Save: According to Dr Julinda Lee, a lot of honey is adulterated. Artificial sweeteners do not come up any ‘sweeter’ either. One concern is that people who use artificial sweeteners may replace the lost calories through other sources, possibly offsetting weight loss or health benefits. Dr Lee recommends that the only way to stay youthful and healthy longer is to train your taste-buds to do without the taste of sugar.

Read more: BEAUTY TAILORED FOR YOUR FACE SHAPE

DITCH YOUR BALLET PUMPS

Podiatrists say: People think of flats as a ‘safe option’ but they’re as bad as very high heels because in a flat shoe, your foot is bearing weight on a very flat surface.

When we were evolving we walked barefoot but that was on soft terrain where our feet could mould to the surface to redistribute the weight and pressure on each foot. But now we almost always walk on hard, flat surfaces which feet can’t mold to and we need a small heel — an inch-and-a-half is ideal — to push off naturally.

Without one, the result is damage to the soft tissue and muscles in the soles of the feet in the form of plantar fasciitis and heel pain. But as the muscles are attached to bone, the damage goes right the way to the bone, deforming them, creating bunions and even breaks in the heel bone. And it’s not just the feet that are affected.

If you have no arch support, as is the case in many flat shoes, such as ballet pumps, you can end up with knee, hip and back pain which can affect posture, making you look prematurely stooped and old.

Beauty Save: Try wearing inch-and-a-half heels to avoid damaging the soft tissue and muscles in feet. We love Prada’s Pointy Toe Pump for its wearability and its timeless style.

CHUCK OUT YOUR POWERFUL HAIRDRYER

Beauty Doctors say: Dr Chua Han Boon is a consultant physician with SW1 Clinic which specializes in medical aesthetic and plastic surgery. With a special clinical interest in alopecia and hair loss he says that hair loss or hair thinning is a common problem for women after the menopause, when the change in hormone levels can contribute to hair thinning. The temptation is often to blast you hair with a dryer to get more volume at the roots, but actually that’s the last thing you should be doing.

Too much heat close to the hair, which is more fragile when it’s wet, can damage the fibre causing it to break, making it look as if you have even less hair. I’d advise using a hairdryer on a cool setting, or gently removing moisture with a towel.

Beauty Save: If you are concerned about hair loss, you should seek professional advice. You’d be surprised at the huge difference small treatments can add up to. Try Keramax Scalp Program which uses Revage 670 laser to rejuvenate the scalp and vitamin infusion to strengthen hair root, reversing hair loss and fortifying weakened follicles. Even a few sessions of Revage 670 will result in hair thickening that create the illusion of thicker hair.

GIVE YOUR TEETH A POWER SHOWER

Leading celebrity dentists say: We all know that staining and yellowing of the teeth is very ageing, and that if you lose teeth, you can lose the structure of your face. But people don’t realise you can lose bone density without losing your teeth, and that can make your face appear narrower, and cause sagging.

This can happen naturally as we age — most of us know that over time gums recede, but the bone underneath the gums can also recede — and it’s a process that is accelerated if you have gum disease, so maintaining healthy gums is crucial.

That means regular dental and hygienist check-ups, and maybe seeing a gum specialist as well.

Cleaning between the teeth is important because if bacteria builds up here you can get gum disease. Regular dental checks does more than just cosmetic improvements, it actually improves gum health and prevents disease, both aging in the long run.

Beauty Save: Supplements such as Coenzyme Q10 can help maintain gum health.