You’ve seen the special “night time” skin care products on the shelves, and if you’re like I used to be, you’re probably thinking it’s just another marketing ploy to differentiate their products, after all, why should night time skin care creams, serums and wrinkle fighting and skin renewal products work any differently at night, or have to formulated any differently, than their “daytime” counterparts? Well, there are actual, scientific reasons why it’s a good idea to pull out the bigger guns at night in terms of skin care.
The reason is that night time is the skin’s prime renewal time. It’s when your skin repairs and rejuvenates itself from all the wear and tear of the daytime. It repairs things like sun damage and integrity that have been damaged by the sun’s rays and other environmental factors, and oh, the fact that every day we age as well. Due to chemical (hormonal) changes in the body that occur during the night, our skin pushes more blood to the surface, and this allows serums and creams to penetrate more readily and work better. It also elevates the skin’s temperature, so that ingredients are more readily absorbed than they are during the day.
It important to not that your skin is not only more conducive to repair at night, but there are also some ingredients that work better at night because either the sunlight inactivates them, or they just happen to work better in concert with the other events going on in your skin during the night when you are sleeping. One ingredient that I know of which works only during the night because it is literally inactivated by UV rays is retinol, one of the best ingredients for wrinkles like crows feet out there.
Retinol also happens to be one of the most powerful anti aging and skin renewal ingredients on the market today, so it’s important to make sure you only use it at night – and oh yeah, most retinol products are not cheap, so you don’t want to be wasting it. Retin-A is a powerful retinol, the most powerful in fact, and that should only be used at night as well.
Another important factor for the night time is getting at least those eight hours of recommended sleep. Notice how much more vibrant your skin looks when you have gotten that full eight hours of sleep. When you are sleep deprived, your skin usually takes on a more sallow tone and tends to show wrinkles more readily. This is because when you do not get enough sleep, a hormone called cortisol runs rampant the next day, and basically cortisol is the ultimate skin enemy since it slows the production of collagen, which we all know is responsible for supple, healthy skin.
Getting your beauty sleep takes on a whole new meaning when you consider it’s true scientific impact on the beauty, firmness and vibrance of your skin. You should definitely look into a full anti aging and wrinkle regimen which includes a night time product for your skin. Companies formulate these night time products with the fact that your skin responds better during the night in mind, so it’s wise to take advantage of this window of opportunity to deliver ingredients that will slow aging.
