Ever wonder why men seem to “age” more gracefully than women. Although men and women have similar skin, there is a key difference between how we treat them over time. Women wear makeup and men don’t.

Why women, who typically take much better care of their skin than men, still have to fight the signs of aging even with their sun block and moisturizers?

One of the most notorious culprits might be your foundation. It dries out your skin. When skin becomes dehydrated and dry, it creases more easily. This creates fine lines or a sagging appearance.

Foundation is both a cosmetic and structural problem for the skin. On the cosmetic side, the dry foundation becomes powdery, cracks, flakes, and eventually disappears for loss of coverage.

As you put on more coverage, the foundation cakes in certain area, and settles into lines and wrinkles—making skin look aged. The long term structural effects are really a concern.

Foundation on dry, mature skin, makes the skin more dehydrated causing even more wrinkles and lines. Essentially when you are covering the signs of aging skin with what is causing them.

Take a look at the ingredients in your foundation. Some of the more common ones are water, talc, and mica.

These are the three we will focus on for now. Each is very absorbent and they make up a fair to large percentage of foundation.

So what’s the problem? It you have very oily skin, probably very little, as these ingredients may help absorb the excess oil.

But for those with drier or more mature skin types, think about it:

• Have you ever sat in a bathtub filled with water for too long and seen your hands get really pruned? (That’s the effect of dehydration.) Some foundations are 90% water.

• Talc is an active ingredient in baby powder and is amazingly absorbent. You would be surprised to know how many foundations include this as a main ingredient. 

• Mica are minerals used in pottery that make up much of the active ingredients in mineral foundations. How moist do most clay pots feel? Not very…

It is not just the drugstore foundations that use these ingredients predominantly. It’s nearly every single brand. By putting these products on top of your skin surface, you are forcing your skin to have to hydrate both itself and counter the effects of the foundation. That’s certainly a lot to ask for. 

Understanding your foundation. How to read an ingredients list.

Now let’s not jump to too many conclusions here. You are not going to find a liquid foundation without any drying ingredients. The color (pigment) in makeup needs to be dispersed somehow—and water, mica, and sometimes talc are all good at dispersing color. Using them does not make a foundation necessarily bad.

These are ingredients that are used to hold and spread pigment. They are safe and necessary for foundation to work. Unfortunately, most makeup manufacturers will not give the exact amount of water or other drying ingredients in the foundation.

Therefore you cannot be sure how much is in your foundation. Certainly the less drying ingredients, the better.

United States law requires manufacturers to list “active ingredients” which are usually the sunscreens or anti-acne ingredients in any skin products.

All other “non-active” ingredients must be listed in descending order if they are over 1% of the formula. This means the highest percentage ingredients are always first. The closer to the top of the list, the more you have of that ingredient. Try to get foundation with the absorbing ingredients closer to the end of the ingredients listing.

Three simple hydration tips:

So we’ve figured out your foundation is drying. Now what do we do about it?

Here are two very basic ideas that are at the cornerstone to keeping skin young.

1. Moisturize, moisturize, moisturize.

If you are 25 years old or 55 years old, choose a quality moisturizer with some SPF. Don’t be fooled-ANY good moisturizer is an anti-aging treatment. Now you do not need to shell out $200 for a quality moisturizer, but don’t assume the $8 products are just as good.

An $8 moisturizer has about 30-40 cents worth of ingredients in them. Look for some basic quality ingredients to like aloe, shea butter, and hyaluronic acid. An ingredient to seek out is NaPCA, which mimics the salt in your skin. It has hygroscopic properties that pull moisture to itself, constantly hydrating.

2. Invest in an excellent makeup remover.

If you sleep with makeup on, it will continue to dehydrate your skin through the night. Use a top quality, sulfate free, makeup remover. 

Do your homework before randomly purchasing products and always buy from a trusted source. The result will be dewy, fresh looking skin that looks as good as you feel!

Image courtesy DC Media