Everybody is aware of the long-term consequences of smoking on health but few know about the damage it causes to appearance.
The effects of cigarette smoking are very visible on the face of a smoker. They include vertical wrinkles on the top lip (barcode), yellowish complexion, spots and patchy pigmentation…
How does smoke damage the skin?
Cigarettes contain more than 4,000 different chemical substances, some of which are highly toxic.
Whenever tobacco is inhaled, these substances reach the lungs and then the blood.
Some of them reduce the percentage of oxygen and other important compounds, such as vitamins, hyaluronic acid and amino acids, that are conveyed to the skin by blood. Hence the dull complexion and loss of skin texture typical of smokers.
Other substances are, instead, responsible for damaging collagen, for weakening the skin’s supporting structure and, therefore, for early ageing.
It must also be said that the very action of smoking repeatedly involves-several times a day-many muscles that surround the lips, which will then present a multitude of small ugly wrinkles.
It is never too late to quit smoking for both health and appearance.
Insights
- Smoking reduces collagen synthesis by 40%.
- 10 years of smoking cause a person to visibly age by 2.5 years (e.g., a woman aged 50 who has smoked for the past 30 years will look like a woman of 57.5 years).
Caffeine, the ideal complement for cigarettes, reduces collagen synthesis (3 coffees reduce collagen synthesis already by 15%!)