How Should Men Be Taking Care Of Their Skin In Their 20s, 30s And What Issues Should They Be Looking Out For?

July 1, 2009— -- Question: How should men be taking care of their skin in their 20s, 30s and what issues should they be looking out for?

Answer: Well, that's an excellent question because if there's a population of men that probably spends the least time thinking about how their skin looks it's younger men -- men in their 20s and 30s. And a lot of what needs to be done is preventative. And that's the hardest message to get across to patients because you're not talking about immediate benefits, you're talking about things down the line.

The most important things with regards to skin care for anyone is if you're a smoker, stop smoking because smoking prematurely ages the skin, it causes wrinkles and is bad for you for a lot of other health reasons. So the No.1 most important thing is, if you're a smoker, you need to stop.

No. 2 is sunscreens and these are vitally important. The sun is made up of two kinds of rays: There's UVA rays and UVB rays. Put simply, UVA rays you should think about as "UV Aging" rays. UVB rays would be "UV Burn." B for burn. So between aging those are the sun rays that penetrate a little bit more deeply and cause the changes that lead to premature wrinkling and poor skin texture and tone as the years go on. UV burn leads to skin cancers.

So the important thing is when you get a sunscreen, get a sunscreen that covers both UVA and UVB rays -- you want to get a broad-spectrum sunscreen. The other benefit of a sunscreen is that it is going to moisturize your skin as well, which is going to make your skin look better. But again, protecting yourself from the sun with sunscreens is vitally important and can prevent skin cancers down the line.

The other thing is that men in their 20s and 30s may be a little bit more athletically active, especially when they're outdoors. I think it's vitally important that if you're sweating a lot or if you're out for prolonged periods to reapply sunscreen. And again, men don't like putting creams and gels and things like that on their skin, but in the long run it's going to make a big difference in terms of the health of the skin and preventing skin cancers. And to the extent that you can, avoid the sun at peak hours. There's no reason that you need to be a hermit or anything, but it is important to avoid the peak hours of sun if you can, if you're going to be swimming or at the beach -- those kinds of things. And over time, the benefits of that will be tremendous because the sun is the No.1 factor in producing premature aging.