How To Update Your Skin Care From Your 20s To Your 30s

In your early to mid 20s, your main skincare concerns are generally about maintaining a healthy complexion and beating those occasional acne flare-ups. Then, as you reach your late 20s and move toward your early 30s, your skin care concerns change, and you have to start thinking about how your skin care regime should change as your skin begins to age.

The truth is, as Self magazine explains, that the skincare routine you might use in your early 20s is not the same skin care regime that your skin needs in your late 20s and early 30s. Many dermatologists agree that 25 is a tipping point for skin, and that after age 25 how the skin repairs itself changes, which is where a need for a different approach to skin care comes in.

Refinery29 explains that, when it comes to your skin care, it's best to break it down into your early 20s, your mid-20s, and your late 20s and early 30s. The aim for your early 20s is to build a good foundation for skin care, and then as you get older it becomes about the next steps in your skin care routine and how you can manage the changes that your skin is going through.

When Self spoke with three dermatologists about caring for skin, the one thing that they all agreed on was that regardless of age, SPF is crucial. 

Board-Certified Dermatologist Julie Russak suggests that it's important to, "Maintain a healthy lifestyle with adequate sleep and healthy eating, while keeping stress levels down."

She also explains that in your 20s, skin is at its peak thanks to high levels of collagen production and lots of elastin, ensuring that it looks wonderfully plump and firm. The most important thing in your 20s is preventative skin care steps and building good habits.

Refinery29 suggests that once you reach your 20s, it's a good idea to get rid of the acne wash from your teen years, unless you continue to struggle with acne.

It's also recommended that you begin to exfoliate your skin a few times a week to help stimulate your skin to encourage it to repair itself.

Your 20s are also a good time to start using eye cream to protect the thin skin around the eyes, and start using glycolic acid to encourage effective skin regeneration.

As you reach your mid- to late 20s, it's important to start thinking about anti-aging skin products. It's also the right time to increase the number of times you exfoliate your skin each week. And it's a good time to start thinking about adding a night cream to your skincare regime.

As per Self, 30 is the age where most women actively begin thinking about their need for anti-aging products, as the natural aging process starts in the late 20s to early 30s.

Amy Perlmutter, board-certified dermatologist, explains that, "The production of collagen starts to decline, leading to thinner skin. There is also diminished functioning of the sweat and oil glands, so our skin becomes drier."

Self suggests that it's a good idea to consider adding an alpha hydroxy acid to your skin care, an antioxidant serum, and retinol products.

Refinery29 explains that once you hit 30, you should then think about starting to use retinol and should be taking skin barrier care even more seriously.

Dermatologist Dr. Lancer explains the importance of using retinol, "It's critically important, because products with retinoid acid reorganise the process known as keratinisation, or the way the skin repairs and replaces itself."

It's also important to start exfoliating your skin on a daily basis and updating your cleanser and toner more regularly, as well as making sure that you adequately hydrate skin.