Aesthetic Clinic

Autumn – the perfect season for an aesthetic treatment! As Summer fades and Autumn approaches, it’s a time for digging out your warm clothes from the wardrobe, enjoying the great outdoors in its red, orange and gold glory, and treating your skin to a little TLC after a long summer in the sunshine. Exposure to the sun’s rays, particularly during the sunshine-filled Summer months, can work to ‘speed up’ the visible signs of ageing. Exposure to UVA and UVB rays contributes to the formation of fine lines and wrinkles (as a result of reduced elasticity and a degradation in the overall condition of the skin), as well as pigmentation. Although I am a firm believer in the motto ‘prevention is better than a cure’ when it comes to sun damage, and advocate the year round use of a broad spectrum  sunscreen  that protects from both UVA and UVB rays, I also help to tackle the visible symptoms of ageing, whether linked to overexposure to the sun or not, without making you feel gui...

How different is female skin from male skin? When it comes to our skin men and women differ quite dramatically, especially when we look at how the skin ages. Here is a brief guide to the main ways in which our skin is different from each other’s. This has implications for the kind of skincare each of us should be looking to as the ‘gold standard’. High levels of testosterone mean that men have 25% thicker skin than females. They have larger pore size and a thicker stratum corneum. Men’s skin also has more collagen and ages more gradually than women’s skin does. Men produce more oil (sebum) in their skin due to their hormonal make up. Oil is an evolutionary throw back to Ape times when we all had facial hair and the oil was there to lubricate the hair that grew in each follicle. Higher oil levels mean that men should use products that help control and balance the oil production, such as products with salicylic acid. Adult men on average age about 10 years behind women. This i...