Social Smoking and Your Skin

If you only light up a cigarette occasionally or once or twice a week when hanging out with friends, you probably don’t consider yourself a smoker. You might also justify your habit and not realize that those few cigarettes can take a toll on your health and skin. While you may not be smoking every day or can go a long time between smokes, you have to remember that you are still smoking. The habit harms nearly every organ in your body and ages your skin prematurely. Social or occasional smoking still puts your health at risk because of the chemicals you’re inhaling. 

So if you care about your health and your skin, it is better to ditch the habit altogether. You may also remind yourself of what can happen to your health or skin if you continue to smoke, even occasionally. 

Here is how the habit harms the skin:

Speeds up the aging process

Smoking makes you more likely to develop wrinkles, especially around the eyes and mouth. Keep in mind that the more cigarettes you light up and the longer you engage in the habit, the more damage and wrinkles you’ll have. You may not be able to see the effects early on, but you may do so in a few years in time. 

What smoking does

Cigarette contains nicotine that narrows the blood vessels in your skin’s outermost layer. This impairs blood flow, which also reduces the amount of oxygen and nutrients that reaches to your skin. The chemicals in the smoke, furthermore, damage both collagen and elastin, causing sagging skin and premature wrinkling.

Wrinkles not just on the face

Apart from facial wrinkling, smoking is also related to increased skin damage and wrinkling in other parts of the body. These include your breasts and underarms, which are mostly affected by the loss of skin’s elasticity because of the habit. You can prevent these wrinkles from getting worse by quitting smoking.

Your facial expressions when smoking

Repeated puckering of your lips and heat from burning cigarettes can contribute to vertical lines around your mouth (also known as smoker’s lines). Smoking may also cause you to squint your eyes to keep the smoke out. These wrinkles can start to appear after months or years of engaging in the habit or using other tobacco products.

What you can do

The best thing can do, of course, is to never smoke, even if you do so occasionally. Quitting or not smoking can also stop further damage and wrinkling, especially to your lips and mouth. 

Fortunately, it can be easier to kick the habit if you smoke occasionally. You can start with identifying your triggers or certain situations that causes you to smoke and avoid them. You can also find better ways to spend your time or socialize, instead of smoking or always being around people who smoke.

If you, on the other hand, already have wrinkles and other signs of aging, you can consider nonsurgical aesthetic treatments to improve their appearance. Here are some treatments worth considering.

Botulinum Toxin

Commonly known as the brand Botox, Botulinum Toxin is an anti-wrinkle treatment that can improve the appearance of lines and wrinkles while helping you maintain facial mobility. It can treat forehead lines, frown lines between the brow, wrinkles in the corner of the eyes and smoker’s lines.

It works by temporarily blocking the signal from a nerve to a muscle to relax the wrinkles formed due to muscle contractions. It may take about two weeks to see the full effect of the treatment and may last for about three to six months. It effectiveness tends to last longer with touch-up treatments, as the muscles become less prominent.

Read our previous post to learn the things you need to know when getting Botox in Singapore. 

Dermal Fillers

Dermal Fillers are injectable gels used for “filling in” lost volume to different areas of the face. They can help decrease the appearance of fine lines and dark circles around the eyes, as well as contour the face and plump up the lips.

At Cutis Laser Clinics in Singapore, we use fillers made of hyaluronic acid (HA) and calcium-based microspheres. 

• HA dermal fillers like Juvederm can be used to improve fine lines, eye bags, and nasolabial folds (lines at the corner of the nose and mouth). Juvederm can also fill the lips, add volume in the cheeks, and increase the height of the nose.
• Calcium-based fillers like Radiesse can improve facial lines, add volume to the cheeks, and fill both the lips and nasolabial folds. It can give you a refreshed look by plumping up the skin and replenishing volume loss over time.

The fillers work by using injectable gel (to the areas of concern) to fill up unwanted fine lines and folds. The results may last between 9 and 18 months, but this will still depend on the type of fillers used.

Ultherapy

Ultherapy is a US FDA-cleared non-invasive procedure that uses time-tested ultrasound energy to naturally can lift and tighten the skin. It can be used on the face, on the brow, and under the chin, as well as the upper and lower face, neck, and décolletage.

This works by bypassing the surface of the skin to deliver the right amount of ultrasound energy. This then triggers a natural response under the skin, jumpstarting the regenerative process that produces fresh, new collagen. This results into a visible yet natural lift over time. 

You may notice an initial effect after the treatment, but significant results appear a period of two to three months. You can then see further improvements up to six months after the treatment. It is also a good idea to consider Ultherapy is an annual treatment, as a way of putting collagen in your collagen bank.

You can check our previous blog to learn the things you can expect before, during, and after Ultherapy. 

Don’t ever think that social smoking is okay and doesn’t have health risks. Kick the habit today and save your skin and health.

You can also contact Cutis Laser Clinics in Singapore today and schedule a consultation with our aesthetic doctors to learn more about these anti-wrinkle treatments.