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The steadfast search for the perfect skin care regime can help one feel beautiful and confident. Sure, all the creams, serums, pills and needle pokes can be overwhelming, so it may be helpful to look at the cellular, biological level in order to become confident when choosing a skin care routine. A great place to start is collagen, the primary protein that, for the sake of simplification, helps make our skin look and feel the way it does. The good news about collagen? We already have it throughout our entire body.
Think of collagen as flexible scaffolding; it gives strength to our cells – but it also gives elasticity. At first thought, we associate collagen with our skin, hair and nails, but collagen is found in our tendons, blood vessels, cartilage and even bones.
Zooming in with that microscope, we find that collagen is composed of nothing more than proteins forming fibrous strands or connectors which are themselves intertwined just beneath the skin’s surface. But over time, those strands become thin and weaken, leading to a loss of elasticity, thus creating the appearance of wrinkles. This is when most people reach for those special serums and crafted creams, but what if you could revive those weakened strands?
“Collagen is a building block for skin repair,” said Alice Bohannon with The Skin Care Center at Gulf Coast Plastic Surgery.
Bohannon said their office, like many skincare centers intown, offers an array of treatments that go deeper than, well, skin deep.
“Everything we do in our office is to improve the appearance of the skin. This can be facials and routine use of products to microneedling and deep lasers as well as injectables under the skin,” she said. And, yes, you heard that correctly: lasers. “We have numerous types of lasers at our office. CO2 lasers are a type of ablative laser which actually break the top layer of skin or the epidermis. The results are not only collagen stimulation but also smoothing and tightening and resurfacing the top layer of skin. All the different types of lasers operate at different energy levels.
”Even though some of us feel that time is marching across our faces, it is important to manage the expectations we have for results.
“This process does not happen overnight,” said Bohannon.
Results will certainly vary from client to client, but the important thing is despite one’s efforts to thwart time, it does take some to achieve the results you are striving for.
“It may be weeks before a difference in the skin is apparent,” said Bohannon.
This also goes for injectables which are popular since some non-collagen treatments like Botox can achieve results within days. However, remember that collagen skin treatments are aimed at reviving your own collagen, and if your unique path for skincare includes harnessing and accentuating your own beauty from within, collagen might be a better fit for you.
“There are also many different types of injectable products, and they have their own unique mechanisms but they too will stimulate collagen under the skin,” said Bohannon.
