Ageing

How does smoking affect your skin?

Posted on by The Skin & Wellbeing Clinic Preston
Lip fillers and how smoking affects them
19
Jul

Smoking is a habit that can have a range of serious health consequences, which most of us know about already. But do you know what kind of effect smoking has on the skin? Especially the facial skin and tissue? Well, unfortunately smoking is is second only to ageing, as the strongest predictor of facial wrinkles! And that’s not all. Smoking can have a range of effects on the quality and appearance of your skin. Here at The Skin and Wellbeing Clinic in Preston, we are leading aesthetic practitioners. We deliver a range of high quality, professional facial procedures including dermal fillers and anti-wrinkle injections. As a result, we have produced this guide to how smoking affects your skin.

So what kind of effect does smoking have on your facial skin?

Well, there are several areas of tissue and skin that can be negatively effected by smoking. These include:

Blood vessels

Smoking cause the blood vessels around your body to narrow, and become less efficient. In the skin, this means that the blood vessels cannot deliver the all important and necessary nutrients to your skin, including oxygen and vitamin A. A lack of nutrients will reduce the quality and appearance of your skin. It is the nicotine that has this effect, so even if you have switched to a vape, you could still see a change in complexion and skin quality.

Collagen

The harmful chemicals in cigarettes harm the collagen in your skin tissue, and this can reduce the volume of your face, and the structure. 

Elastin

Elastin is another substance that can be harmed by cigarette chemicals, and it means that your skin will lose elasticity, and be unable to bounce back into position. As a result, wrinkles will be more likely to develop.

Wrinkles

The repetitive action of pursing your lips to smoke, and squinting your eyes from the smoke can lead to the formation of permanent wrinkles.

How does this change your appearance?

So, how does smoking permanently change your appearance? Well, several things can occur, including:

  • Speeding up the natural ageing process- people who smoke in their 40’s are likely to develop the wrinkles that a non smoking 60 year old would develop!
  • Wrinkles will be deeper and the bone structure more pronounced leaving hollow or sunken patches of skin
  • Uneven complexion

So what can you do?

If you are a smoker, or you’ve recently given up, what can you do to rectify the physical damage? Well, there’s not much you can do for the internal damage, but there are ways to help resolve any facial skin related issues, including:

  • Dermal fillers – if you have areas of sunken, sagging or hollow skin, dermal fillers can be a great solution. These add volume and hydration back into your skin, so that your skin becomes smooth and even. This also helps add structure to the face, so that the sagging is no longer an issue.
  • Anti-wrinkle injections – for expression wrinkles and lines around the eyes, forehead and mouth, anti-wrinkle injections are the best option. These will leave your skin looking smooth, and reduce the appearance of any wrinkles you have developed through smoking.
  • Complexion – as smoking can leave your complexion dull, mesotherapy is something to consider. This will bring nutrients and hydration to your skin cells, while encouraging cell rejuvenation.

For more information or advice, or to book any of our professional services, get in touch with the team today, here at The Skin and Wellbeing Clinic.

The Skin and Wellbeing Clinic is proud to provide professional aesthetics treatments for clients in Preston, Blackpool, Leyland, Chorley, Kirkham, Blackburn and the North West of England. Our key treatments and services include Anti Wrinkle Injections, Dermal Fillers, Laser Hair Removal, Acne Treatments, Injectable Polynucleotides, and much more.