How to Choose the Right Ingredients for your Skin and Body

After 40, things change for many women. It’s not because you’ve done something wrong, it’s because your biology is changing. After 40, we need to adjust what we are applying on our skin and putting in our body. Today we are going to cover the best ingredients for women over 40, so you can look and feel good as you age.

Which Skincare Ingredients Work Best for Women Over 40?

When it comes to anti-aging skincare, more isn’t always  the best and it’s better to keep a more simplistic routine. Let’s focus on the key ingredients that work best for women over 40:

Vitamin C: It can be present in foods you eat, taken as a supplement, or used in topical skincare. Vitamin C stimulates collagen production, brightens dark spots, and helps with certain neurotransmitters and protein metabolism. It is also an antioxidant, so its goal is to fight free radical damage, which speeds up aging. 

Bakuchiol/Retinol: Bakuchiol is a great alternative to retinol. As we age, our skin becomes dry and many women struggle to tolerate retinol. Bakuchiol is a natural, plant-based alternative that works like a retinol without the drying or irritating side effects. Bakuchiol and retinol increase cell turnover and strengthen fibroblast cells, which are responsible for collagen production, resulting in a firmer, smoother, and more youthful skin appearance.

Hyaluronic Acid: Hyaluronic acid is a natural substance in our skin that keeps our skin hydrated and maintains our skin barrier. As we age, we lose hyaluronic acid so applying topically is important especially in a serum form. While taken orally is proved to significantly improve skin hydration levels after several weeks. A study done by PubMed says, “In the high‐dose group, dry, oily and normal skin showed significant hydration improvement after 4, 8, and 12 weeks, respectively.”

Peptides: Peptides are a chain of amino acids, which are the building blocks of our cells. Peptides maintain healthy skin by keeping collagen and elastin strong. Personally, I love applying peptides topically to help keep the skin firm. Internally, I recommend adding red meat to your diet. Not only is this a good source of heme iron (which women need more of) but red meat is a complete protein and contains all the peptides your body needs. 

Niacinamide: Niacinamide helps with skin hydration and maintaining a healthy skin barrier. As we age, our skin barrier becomes compromised, the goal is to keep the barrier healthy to protect against harmful substances. Niacinamide improves the skin texture by keeping the skin firm. 

How to Incorporate These Ingredients into your Skincare Routine

You might be looking at this list and searching amazon for every single ingredient. However, the best way to incorporate these ingredients into your skincare routine, is to look at serum blends. This keeps your routine simple, but effective and addresses your specific skin concerns. We offer a variety of serum blends. Please click here to shop skincare.

What to Use in Your 40s for Healthier Skin

The best ingredients for women after 40 to keep your skin healthy as you age. Your skin begins to change as you move into your 40s, and your skincare should evolve with it. First, start by switching your cleanser from a foaming or gel to a cream-based or oil cleanser. Aging skin needs more hydrating ingredients. If your skin is feeling both dry and oily at the same time, this is a sign that your cleanser needs to change. 

Increasing hydrating ingredients like ceramides, hyaluronic acid, and niacinamide help keep your skin barrier healthy and maintain skin hydration levels. Bumping your moisturizer to a heavier one is also important after 40 to help hold hydration in your skin better. There are lots of formulations that are heavier but won’t clog your pores. 

What Ingredients Help With Hormonal Changes After 40?

There are many ingredients that help with hormonal changes both topically and orally. The topical ingredients that help are hyaluronic acid, niacinamide, and peptides. Nutrition is crucial during this time, especially as estrogen and progesterone levels decline. Fluctuating hormones cause an increase in cortisol levels and risk for insulin resistance. This leads to increased fat around your belly. Eating a whole-food based diet is important. 

Key foods to focus on:

Protein: Increase your protein intake, especially in red meat. This supports your body with amino acids, vitamins, nutrients, and iron to support your body. Opt for fatty fish, like salmon, sardines, or mackerel to increase your Omega-3s. 

Fats: Increase the amount of good fats such as olive and avocado oils, butter and ghee. Select fatty meats such as 85% ground beef or ribeye or fatty fish.

Vegetables: Swap your carbs out for vegetables which keep your body full and help with weight loss by maintaining your insulin levels.

Avoid: Anything pre-packaged, processed, gluten-based, sugary, or seed oils. These foods cause harm to your gut microbiome and can contribute to weight gain, hormonal fluctuations, or gut issues.  

What Supplements Should Women Over 40 Take?

First of all, supplements are not designed to fix your health problems, the goal of a supplement is to support your body as it heals. As a functional esthetician, we  always start with running labs to determine what systems of the body need the most support. Then, we create a custom nutrition and lifestyle plan with supplementation as the supporting role. 

Some common supplements that women over 40 need:

B Vitamins: Specifically B6, Folate, and B12 are important to support hormone health. However with B vitamins, if you’re not methylating correctly (metabolizing hormones or gene expressions), you need a Methylated B complex. Only a functional medicine doctor can determine this with lab testing.

Vitamin D3 + K2: Most women are deficient in Vitamin D. Many take supplementation but it does very little to help. Vitamin D is crucial for immune health, bone health, mood regulation, cardiovascular health, and blood sugar regulation. Pairing with K2 helps your body absorb the Vitamin D better. 

Magnesium: Taken before bed, magnesium is a crucial mineral that helps improve sleep. Most women are low in magnesium and taking a supplement is important. However, to prevent loose bowels, a magnesium blend is ideal. Magnesium helps improve sleep, bone health, mood regulation, and prevents either restless leg or muscle cramps. 

Protein: Protein is crucial for amino acids, which are the building blocks of our cells. Without adequate protein, we accelerate the aging process. The best source of protein is from animal protein, not supplements or collagen powders. These can help, but you should not rely on these to increase your protein intake. Protein helps keep your body full longer, which controls blood sugar levels and prevents insulin resistance. 

Omega 3s: Most women have increased Omega 6 levels due to diets high in seed oils, pre-packaged or processed foods. The best source of Omega 3s is to eat fatty fish, such as salmon, mackerel, and sardines. Sardines are one of the best sources of Omega 3s and if packed in olive oil are a great snack to keep on the go. I know many women struggle with sardines, but this is a better option than a supplement. Most supplements contain additives and many women can’t absorb the omega 3s properly.

To learn more about these supplements, please click here.

Which Ingredients Should Women Over 40 Avoid?

Multivitamins: Multivitamins are the biggest waste of money! Most don’t have the proper dosage of vitamins your body needs, plus most over the counter multivitamins aren’t absorbed properly so all you do is pee them out. 

Iron: Anemia is a very complex condition and taking iron supplements doesn’t fix the problem. The issue isn’t always anemia, the issue is how your body stores and utilizes iron. This is done with a functional iron test to look at ferritin levels, iron binding levels, copper, and Ceruloplasmin (a copper-binding protein that plays a major role in iron metabolism). Due to the standard American Diet, most women are deficient in ferritin and Ceruloplasmin and taking an iron supplement will only cause constipation.

Biotin: Hair loss is another big concern for women over 40, however the problem isn’t lack of biotin, the problem lies in your iron metabolism and storage levels. It increases the thickness of the hair follicle, but doesn’t improve hair growth. Biotin consumption causes acne and skin flare ups because it increases oil production and bacterial overgrowth in the pores.

High Calcium: Calcium is important for our bone and muscle health, but too much calcium can lead to cardiovascular disease. While calcium is needed to regulate heart contractions, too much can lead to clogged arteries which increases your risk of a heart attack or stroke. Taking a magnesium supplement is ideal for your bone health over a calcium supplement.

Detox Teas or “Fat Burners”: While this may sound great to detox your body and burn fat, women tend to do more harm than good with these ingredients. First detoxing can cause you to feel ill if not done correctly. Detoxes should always be done with a functional or medical professional. Second, this can cause severe dehydration by depleting your body’s electrolyte balance. Anytime you are stimulating a laxative effect in the body, the risk of dehydration increases. Third, it disrupts your bowels. 

While many women feel regular during a detox, these products create digestive dependence and can increase your chance of constipation or diarrhea when you stop using this product. Lastly, it impairs your body from absorbing nutrients and vitamins correctly. Increasing motility (how fast food moves through your intestines) can affect absorption.

What To Do With This Information

Our best piece of advice is to seek out a functional medicine doctor who can run proper labs, address nutrition, lifestyle and supplementation plans that are specific to what your body needs and can support your body as you move through perimenopause. If you are interested in learning more, click here to visit our website.