Starting younger helps the battle against the wrinkles

Prevention in Your 20s

Extensive research shows that the most important steps people in their 20s and early 30s can take to maintain their skin is avoid smoking and wear sunscreen faithfully.

"I can’t stress enough that the No.1 thing young adults can do to limit the signs of aging is use a broad-spectrum sunscreen that protects against both UVA and UVB rays with an SPF 30 or higher every single day," says Adam Friedman, MD, director of dermatologic research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Robin Ashinoff, MD, the chief of dermatologic surgery at Hackensack University Medical Center, agrees. "Prevention," Ashinoff says, "is absolutely the best medicine against skin aging. And that means staying out of the sun."

As for smoking, studies show that it hampers the body's ability to make collagen and also leads to premature wrinkling. Combine a heavy cigarette habit with a lot of sun exposure and you’re more than 10 times more likely to develop wrinkles than people your same age who don’t smoke and who do stay out of the sun.

Joshua Zeichner, MD, director of cosmetic and clinical research in dermatology at New York’s Mt. Sinai Medical Center, says, "Control the environmental causes of aging and, while you might see fine lines in your early 30s, you can minimize dilated blood vessels, deeper wrinkles, and loss of elasticity into your late 40s or 50s.”

Maintaining Good Skincare Habits is Key

Dermatologists say that with a few good skincare habits, there’s little reason to invest in anti-aging creams that promise to build elasticity.

Follow these simple steps:

1.  Sun Protection - apply it before you put on your make up and preferably up to 2 hours before you go out.

2.  Eat red - tomatoes, strawberries, cherries.  Women who ate 2 ounces of tomato paste daily experienced less radiation-induced skin damage than those who didn't, according to the British Journal of Dermatology.

3.  Hydrate - the recommendation is up to 8 glasses of water daily.

4.  Don't go to bed without washing your face and applying your evening moisturizer.

5.  Beauty marks and moles - you want to pay attention to this.  The growths are usually the size of a pencil eraser or larger. The uneven coloring on any of them can include deep blue or red, dark brown, and black. For more on melanoma (and your questionable moles), visit aad.org.

In our next articles we will make some recommendations for women in their 30s and 40s.

Here 's to your forever-young-looking skin!