November was National Healthy Skin Month – 5 Tips for Healthy Skin

November was National Healthy Skin Month.  So what exactly is “healthy” when it comes to skin?

A number of companies, people, websites and influencers would love to sell you their product or system to optimize your skin health.  But today, we’ll share some tried and true tips and tricks for healthy skin.

1- Avoid unnecessary UV exposure.  I often say to patients… we want you to live life and have fun, just protect yourself while you’re doing those things.  Ball games, golf, pool time, vacations  and even skiing in winter are all outdoor events where sun exposure is inevitable.  What we want to avoid is purposefully laying in the sun or tanning.  Increasing UV exposure not only increases risk of skin cancer, but it causes premature aging as well.

2-Skip the tanning bed.  Tanning beds are always a source of unnecessary UV exposure.  While many like the sun kissed look.  Tanning beds accelerate premature aging and greatly increase risk of skin cancer.  One of the best studies about risk of UV exposure showed that women who used a tanning bed even once in their 20s and 30s had a 6x increased risk of melanoma.  Sunless tanner is sounding a lot better now!

3-Apply sunscreen to exposed areas daily.  Daily? Yes daily.  Most UV exposure is incidental, meaning it just happens in day to day life.  Start the day out prepared!  Apply a sunscreen with zinc oxide every morning to exposed areas.

4-Check your skin at home, and when possible, see a dermatologist once a year for a full skin exam.  Just like with breast exams for women, self detection is key.  When in doubt, take photos to monitor anything that is new or changing.  Just this week, Dr Rosenberger found two early melanomas on patients who came in for a routine screening. Like all cancers, early detection and removal is key to survival with melanoma.

5- Be gentle to your skin!  That means no picking!  Picking at the skin has a few negative consequences.  First, areas that are picked open can easily be overlooked during skin cancer screening.  An area that is scabbed over may not clearly show the skin cancer growing underneath.  Second, picking leads to scarring that often is irreversible.  Finally, picking opens up the skin to infection.  So, fingers off! 

We fill our website with weekly tips on how to keep your skin happy and healthy.  From tips on how often to wash your hair to how to pick a deodorant, we have a ton of resources for you.  Please share our site and emails with your friends and family.

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