Skin expert reveals answer to age-old question: Is it too early to start your skincare regimen?

MANILA, Philippines — "If I could turn back time, I'd take better care of my skin."  — This is something women in their late 30s would understand.

Most people ignore the most basic wellness rule — what we put in our bodies are as equally as important as what we put on our body. Our skin reflects our health. Aside from being your body's canvas, it serves as one of the most valuable organs on our body.

Unlike clothes and gadgets that you can change and upgrade as soon as the latest trend comes in, you are in your skin for life.

It is all too easy for women in their 20s to take skin for granted. The idea of wrinkles and sagging skin is farfetched, a least concern at this point. More so, the pizza indulgences, all-nighter party sessions and work stress had not begun to show and if it did, a pat of concealer can do its job.

Sorry to break your bubble, but the skin of a 20 something is not invincible. It is actually in these seminal years that preventive care and early treatment can be most efficient in retaining that precious youthful glow.

On Saturday, Philstar.com sat with international skin care and beauty expert Jacquie Carter to learn about the importance of taking care of our skin as early as possible and how it is not only vital for physical appearance but as well as overall health.

International skin care and beauty expert Jacquie Carter at the press conference on Secrets of Preventing Skin Aging on July 23 at Shangri-La Hotel, BGC

"In the world of skin care, women have been conditioned to believe that there are certain products that you can use when you reach a certain age, but that's really not the case," Carter who is also a director of outer nutrition training and education at Herbalife said.

"If you love how you look in the mirror right now...let's get started on healthy skin care regimen so you can preserve that look for as long as possible," she added.

For starters, you have to be aware of  the tremendous amount of abuse that your skin gets from you and the environment — unhealthy diet, bad habits such as smoking and drinking alcohol, too much stress, lack of sleep and excessive pollution exposure and sun exposure, to name a few.

And did you know that your skin is already damaged before reaching your 20s? “Over 80 percent of the environmental damage that we have on our skin today actually occurred before the age of 18 years old. We just did not see that damage and we will only see it later in life at 30s, 40s to 50s,” Carter revealed as she discussed how taking care of our skin is an urgent matter.

The sun is so detrimental to our skin. The harmful rays it emits can penetrate deeply in our skin and damage our skin cells, the collagen and elastin which makes our skin hold up together and hydrated. In fact, the incident of skin cancer brought by harmful sun exposure at present is on the rise. In US, the cases of skin cancer are much more than the cases of prostate cancer, lung cancer and color cancer combined.

Knowing those, the answer to the age-old question, “how early is ‘too early’ to take care of our skin,” is that it is never too early. Good genes can do you a bit of magic, but it is not powerful enough to fight off the damage caused by what you are exposed to every single day.

As mentioned by Carter, there are two types of skin aging, the chronological and environmental aging. We cannot reverse both but we sure can do something to mess with the clock and delay its effects.

“Preventive skin measures should be taken as early as possible,” advises Carter.

Preventive skin measures would not guarantee that we would not have skin cancer, but we know for a fact that the chances of getting safer and  unharmed is far better that without those preventive measures.

Carter recommends using sunscreen and moisturizer or a product that has them both like the newest Herbalife SKIN Protective Moisturizer Broad Spectrum SMP 30 Sunscreen. It is a long-lasting moisturizer that leaves skin smooth and soft, while providing broad spectrum UVA/UVB protection against the sun’s damaging rays. A paraben-free and dermatologically-tested products, it is exclusively formulated with Vitamin B3, antioxidant, Vitamins C and E, aloe vera, sunflower seed oil and other botanical ingredients.

“We need to educate all, particularly teenagers that they have to take care of their skin now not because of beauty or how they look but because they need to be safe,” Carter concludes.