Buying an anti-wrinkle cream can be a good investment (it’s your skin after all), but there are some far less expensive ways to treat your skin, making it look fresher and more youthful, as well as making it feel smoother and reducing wrinkles and frown lines.
A home-made treatment for dewy-looking skin
When you age your skin can begin to look dry and papery, but by using some simple food ingredients you can bring back the moisture.
Use three parts of fresh cream to one part of honey (use manuka honey, if you can; it’s extremely high in antioxidants, but comes with a price tag to match), and add some avocado, mixing it all in the blender until you’ve got a creamy consistency. Put it on your skin for an hour then rinse off. The fresh cream will moisturise and the avocado contains vitamin E and minerals too, as well as phytosterols which are thought to help repair damaged skin. Honey hydrates too, and it’s a good source of antioxidants.
Our guide to getting younger-looking skin
Overnight frown-remover
If you wake up every morning looking like you’ve had a bad dream with a mean frown line between your eyebrows, try special skin tape, such as Frownies, for an instant improvement. Before you go to sleep, simply spread the skin between your eyebrows with your two fingers so it’s taut, then stick a small piece of the tape there. As you sleep the crease won’t deepen even if you frown and, when you peel off the tape in the morning, you’ll be amazed at how much the frown line has reduced.
Instant wrinkle reducer
Head down to your nearest garden centre to buy yourself a pot; not of anti-wrinkle cream, but of the plant aloe vera.
In a study published in the Annals of Dermatology, aloe vera has been shown to reduce the signs of skin ageing, by eating just a quarter of a teaspoon of aloe vera gel a day. It’s also been shown to help skin heal after sunburn, too.
Drinking aloe vera (in a smoothie, for example) has also been shown to increase collagen production, making skin more elastic. To get the benefit from your plant you’ll need to cut off a ‘leaf’ then access the gel-like substance inside.
Or, if that sounds like too much bother, aloe vera is usually available in various forms at your local healthfood shop.
Get rid of wrinkles naturally
Age-spot remover
Lemon and vinegar are popular go-to ingredients to remove or lighten dark age spots. You can simply apply apple cider vinegar to the spot you’d like to lighten, leave it on for a minute then rinse off.
Or, if you have many age spots, you can try this scrub: cook some rice and mix in equal parts of lemon juice and vinegar. The rice works like a scrub to lift dead skin cells and the lemon juice and vinegar help to lighten the skin. Use this scrub only on your hands at first to make sure it’s not too harsh a treatment for your face and follow up with a moisturiser as it can be very drying.
Our top tips for skin disorders
A skin peel without the price tag
Expensive skin peels in salons help rejuvenate skin by removing old dead skin cells, making you look younger and your skin brighter. But you can experience the same effect at home with a lemon and some egg white. Simply mix freshly squeezed lemon juice with an egg white (one part lemon juice to one part egg white) and leave the mix on your face for ten minutes. Rinse off. You should notice the difference immediately and can repeat the procedure twice a week.
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