Valerie Prentice Humber.TV’s resident host asks Dr Katerina Steventon about skin care and the aging process. What age to we start to lose skin elasticity?

Transcript

Valerie: Hi everyone, Welcome to the first episode of head to toes. Today is my first interview is with Dr Katerina Steventon, she is a skin doctor and she looks after peoples’ skin to make them beautiful and healthy and vibrate.

Katerina: Hello Valerie

Valerie: Hello, this is very exciting, Katerina and I have been practising this a lot so hopefully it doesn’t look like we staged it and look like we are enjoying our conversation. But interesting during our conversation we were talking about the whole ageing process and how our elasticity depletes as we get older and you told me an age I could not believe the age that things start going downhill at such an age

Katerina: Things start going downhill about 26-27 years of age. That is the time when you have to start look after you skin better.

Valerie: you think 26 -27 you think at least

Katerina: It is not that young any more in this day and age. when we need to look after our skin better. environmental stress, Physiological stress. what we need, superficial skin learning to relax our face, learning facial yoga exercises, learning to meditate, in the afternoon or evening

Valerie: stress is a big factor, not just the skin products, not just what we eat. When we have kids it adds to the ageing process. When we have kids it ages us.

Katerina: ever child adds to the ageing process even when they are angelic they do take a toll,not only giving birth sleepless nights, looking after them means we can’t look after our selves as much as people who are single can also impacts on the skin. looking after them impacts on the skin

Valerie: also talking about, 50% of us don’t before 27 such a young age, we really blown it until we see someone like you, that can actually say this is your skin type. To tell me that this is my correct skin type. Like me i knew i had an oily T bar but not realise how sensitive my skin was

Katerina: About 50% don’t know their skin type, not ever second person doesn’t know their skin type is. If they a skin issue, which is either acne or dry skin, they would take more care and be able to diagnose their skin better. But they still don’t necessary know what to buy, it is fairly confusing. Marketing forces us to buy certain things but they may not be necessarily good for their skin.

Valerie: The advantage in seeing you, a) their skin is properly diagnosed.
The ageing process the ageing process of your parents, do they look young for their age.

Katerina: There are 7 kind of factors of ageing – genetic ageing, if you parents look old you are more likely to look old, you need to do exercises to offset that, gravitational ageing if they run everyday, you would see that in their faces. Hormonal issues play a role, sun plays a role. Stress. Also the environment – if someone works outdoors, they would have different needs to someone outside in the office.

Valerie: from that process, they get their skin evaluated, look into history, being Australian a lot of sun then you, I like the question I don’t like to use about the efficacy about the products.

Katerina: Everybody has a different philosophy in life, organic food versus higher results. These are mutually fairly exclusive. In not too distant future, they will hopefully come together.

Valerie: you cater the products to the person

Katerina: their true needs of the skin, routines their habits like the pampering in the evening

Valerie: How much time should we spend on our skin.

Katerina: Every morning 10 minutes but in the evening 15 minutes, we only have one face and it is our business card. People read our faces, they represent who we are.

Valerie: so 25 minutes a day on our face. How much people read our faces.

Katerina: Research done by German academia and the Olay brand, in past you were shunned away from the society if you had a skin disease, men read female faces in a different way to women – they look for a partner and can differentiate our fertility and a good immune system and tell when we ovulate. Melanoma and acne are common in pregnancy. Breakouts signal that there is something wrong with our body.
Valerie: What do women see in men, the jaw line…

Katerina: We can’t do that much with our facial features but women look for a potential strength of the partner. It is the skin tone, no lines and no blemishes we should focus on.

Valerie:Can we reach a point when we don’t have blemishes, pigmentation and wrinkles.

Katerina: You would need to really work at it. You are prone to pigmentation. Skin care will only take you so far. 50 % of improvement, if you protect your face from this time onwards, you have another 40 years to repair. Even a small improvement will make a difference visually, for other people to see the radiance, brightness due to epidermal renewal.

Valerie: So I am stuck with the skin I have

Katerina: Arguably, to a degree, you are. SPF is crucial and also using peels and using what sensitive skins can take.

Valerie: Woman are more aware of their skin but really men should be aware

Katerina: Men at 50 are going through changes – my clients say they see their father in the mirror, they still feel young
their face is deceiving them. Men should have a simple routine, for building their on confidence. I look after men but women are obviously women my prime market.

Katerina: I believe in regular routines – masks once or twice a week, ex-foliation is vital but should not be overdone. Not daily, maybe twice a week, I establish that with my clients. I set the routine and we discuss what the preference they have. I support them for up to 6 weeks until they feel confident to do it for themselves.

Katerina: Feeling happy and healthy and knowing you are doing your best. You would go to the dentist, you exercise. Britain has a bit lower skincare routine, people take time to create their own opinions, remember the Boots serum rush and the results are not marvellous, not responding to adverts in any rush is important.

Katerina: I look at the quality of the support, how large was the group, was it visibly and clinically assessed. There is a placebo effect with skincare, if you like the texture, you are more likely to comply. It is about the formulation, the creaminess of the skincare product. Compliance is looking after your skin every day.

Katerina: Radiance is about scattering light, even surface scatters in a regular way, that’s how young skin looks like, as we age we go into mountains and dips and the skin has more shadows. Make up technology has scattering particles.

Katerina: Skin renews itself once a month, but as we age, it slows down. Unless you start at 27, the first two signs of ageing will appear at the age of 30, by 40 the collagen tissue is more compromised, you get more and more wrinkles. If you are diligent and want to look after your skin, you should do also facial yoga and facial reflexology. For the jawline – it needs exercising, but not overdoing it, blood flow stimulation and professional massage.

Valerie: I just had a facial and your fingers are moving…

Katerina: I don’t believe in devices, human hand is the best tool we have, it can feel, sense and we talk about the energy level. Take a worry away versus cold machine touching. Scientifically medically devices massage, there is peak and go into deep strokes but also calm the face at the end. Collagen building and massage that stimulates blood flow but there is also lymphodrainage for the eye region.

Valerie: One prescription for everyone.

Katerina: To offset ageing, we speak about looking 5 – 10 years younger, facial features are also change, if you do these things regularly, you would see the benefit.

Katerina: I also have stressful days, I am lucky with my skin type – not so great in my youth, but I will also look a little younger than I am. I have tricks, massaging my forehead, little zig-zags, circulation. There is a meditative element to it and I have learnt consciously not to frown.

Katerina: I do facial yoga classes, or skincare parties – these are more about products and which do work and which don’t, whilst the facial yoga class would be an emotionally rich workshop where we discuss how our feelings demonstrate in our faces, what are our patterns and how to avoid the frown look and bitter lip.

Katerina: If we are cranky, it shows up – the same group of muscles shows up every time, in my face the frown lines, focus without frowning.
worry would be on the upper lip, also women in their 50′s the hormonal changes go with the worry, grieving or very sad, fear would be more around the eye area.

happy heart shows in the face. people that are happy in themselves are more radiant and have better communication with others. at work they just become a little bit more successful, colleagues wanting to work with them, higher pay rises and promotions.

people will perceive you in a different light, it is your own happiness you need to look after.
secret of living in France, not all French women are pretty, but they don’t strive to be anybody else, look after themselves. that’s what I try to teach the British public, more open. I introduce a slightly alternative ways from the main stream. People more open to sustainable,

they need somebody else to translate the science, then ok to go and do it alone. working on the case studies. very active, twitter, blog, try to be in the public eye. In the field, continued to keep up with the science, exclusive group that looks

I take the scientific background seriously, that differentiates me from any other beautician.
I think people don’t want to be blinded with science but they want to, put it across simply. I don’t have any incentive and that’s the beauty of what I do and scientifically correct. Every beautician in a salon has 40 % mark up. doctorate.

12 years out of university education, I went into beauty fairly early, and I run my own salon, lucky enough training beauticians, after finishing the doctorate, went back to the medical science and looked after the patients.
the wound healing adds a different element, I would not want to go into dermatology as such, but there is a borderline for few spots you would not visit them. for people who have the occasional issue.

research about women in high positions and how their skin is open to more blemishes, it is the stress, our male hormones are also pro – chin acne, the chin is part of the oily zone, it has more open follicles for some reason, before periods, we touch our faces, in the office we speak on the phone a lot.

Stress is quite a good issue, stress of exams and divorce. it is not that the skin would primarily alter in a stress but it is when we, it does not repair so quickly, bacteria issues, more esteem lauder study crows feet correlate coping skills if you believe you are quite strong, your own ability and your own perception. major stresses, sun, facial wash, too much of abrasion – ex-foliate too much. ex-foliate that the grain, as long as the beads are round, chopped almonds scratch the skin too much, you can use enzymatic ex-foliation if you are not sensitive or chemical peel, lactic acid, alpha hydroxide acid.

Katerina: Anti ageing is anti wrinkles, also pigmentation and radiance, preventing wrinkles, preventing pigmentation, giving the skin a boost which is about renewal of the barrier.