Is smoking ruining your looks?
Its common knowledge that smoking can adversely affect your health resulting in lung, mouth and throat cancer. However, we know less about how smoking can steal your looks and add years to your appearance.
We look at the surprising ways smoking can affect your looks. Smoking can cause additional wrinkles to form and cause skin colour and quality to change. All this can add together to rob you of your natural beauty. As such one of the most important recommendations I can make to help improve your natural glow and youthful appearance is to reduce or ideally give up smoking.
A single cigarette contains a volatile cocktail of damaging chemicals. These include chemicals with a vasoconstrictive effect that cause the blood vessels to contract, limiting the healthy blood supply to the area. It is the blood, and the micro/macro-nutrients carried in the blood that helps keep skin looking youthful.
When you starve the cells of nutrients, the end effect is a reduction in collagen production, resulting in dry and discoloured skin. This negative effect further increases the action of carbon monoxide contained in cigarette smoke, as this displaces oxygen from your skin.
Nicotine which is found in cigarettes also damages the fibres and connective tissue in your skin. This results in a loss of elasticity and a reduction in skin strength and volume.
Aesthetics treatment for smokers
Smokers lines are deep wrinkles etched around the mouth area by the puckering of lips around a cigarette. These lines are notoriously difficult to remove and can often only be lessened and softened rather than completely removed.
Treatment is generally via a combination of either laser re-contouring or microneedling. This can be followed up with the use of anti-wrinkle injectables. These injections gently relax the muscles responsible for the puckering of the lips and the formation of those vertical lines.
The toll smoking takes on your looks
Staining of teeth, lips and fingers can add years to your features. Smoking itself is an expensive hobby, but when combined with the need for professional whitening and regular scale and polishes it can pack a financial punch. By cutting out cigarettes, you not only help gain that more vibrant look but also put a few extra pounds back into your pocket.
Nothing ages you more than missing teeth. As mentioned previously smoking reduces blood flow, and this includes blood flow to the gums. This masks gum disease as your gums are unable to bleed indicating that active gum disease is present. Blood contains white blood cells and neutrophils that are responsible for fighting off infection. It means gum disease can progress more rapidly and aggressively as your body’s ability to fight infection is reduced. This results in gum disease being more likely to progress to periodontitis and the eventual loss of the tooth.
Make an action plan to help you quit
By now, it should be clear that to have flawless, smooth and vibrant skin you need to stop smoking. Why not make an action plan to quit today? Take a look at UK governments smokefree for further tools and advice on how best to quit smoking.
After you have successfully made a plan to quit why not book in to Rejuvenate at North Street. A free consultation will be given to see precisely how we can help restore your natural beauty. We have a range of tailored treatments specifically to help tackle your problem areas.
