Introduction
Have you ever wondered whether people with acne or oily skin age less than dry skin individuals? Let’s find out.
Types of Skin Ageing
Firstly, I'll cover some of the signs of skin ageing which are:
- Skin thinning
- Wrinkles
- Skin Sagging
- Sunspots
- Uneven skin colour or pigmentation
Before I go through what the research shows, it's worth noting that there are very few studies that have looked at this and these are fairly recent. So, this is a new area of research.
Determining Your Skin Type
So, how do you determine what skin type you have, this is probably fairly obvious to most people but specifically, dry skin tends to:
- Visibly flake off
- Look scaly
- Crack easily
- Looks matte and not shiny
Oily skin is to the contrary of those factors.
What the Research Says
I’m going to cover 3 different studies, their findings and what was measured.
So, the first study looked at 60 women between the ages of 39 and 55. They divided these women into two groups, the first being dry or normal skin and the second being oily skin. They took measurements of their skin.
What they found was that the women with dry/normal skin had thinner skin than those with oily skin. Which is one sign of ageing and could suggest they age quicker. But they didn't find any difference in the wrinkles between the groups [1].
The second study looked at pairs of female twins and used a questionnaire to establish whether they had acne currently or previously and then they took samples of their blood and skin to perform genetic tests to look for cellular ageing.
What they found was that the females that had been acne free showed more genetic signs of ageing than their counterparts [2].
The third study looked at skin samples from men and women who had died at different ages. Specifically, they took these samples from two areas of the face the forehead and outer eye areas.
They compared two factors, how many skin glands were present and the depth of the wrinkles on the face, what they found was that those with more skin oil glands on the forehead also had shallower wrinkles in this area. But in the outer eye area where there are fewer oil glands, they found that the wrinkles were deeper [3].
Again, this highlights that those with oilier skin seem to age less.
Now clearly some of these studies have some limitations such as using a self-reported questionnaire to determine whether someone was an acne sufferer or using only female subjects or using visible inspection as opposed to quantitative measurements.
Summary
But they do still come to the same conclusion which is that those with oilier skin seem to age less. This seems to make sense, but is it the skin oil itself that protects the skin from ageing or is the fact that oilier skin tends to derive from higher levels of male androgens/hormones and this also leads to a thicker epidermis (outer layer of skin) and this thickness may prevent the skin from ageing as much. But I’ll leave that for further research to be done.
If you want to keep your skin youthful, it is incredibly important that you protect its outer layer and keep it hydrated. The Aqneeq products have been designed to not only draw moisture to all the layers of skin but also provide a protective barrier to prevent it from damage and dryness.
If you found this post useful, please help us by sharing this post using the social media buttons below.
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29441614