Makeup Guru

This column features weekly tips and advice from a revolving cast of industry leaders, on hand to discuss your beauty dilemmas, from blemishes to Botox. To submit a question, e-mail celia_ellenberg@condenast.com.

I have heard that it is important to start treating the signs of aging early, even going as far as to start using Botox on would-be problem areas in your twenties. Are there certain products/less extreme treatments I should be focusing on regularly now that will be beneficial later?

The most critical time period of skincare for the rest of your life takes place in your twenties, when your most important job is to prevent future damage. As you grow older, your job becomes twofold: Continue to prevent future damage and try to undo already existing damage. Botox and LED Light Therapy would fall into the “undo damage” category, so as a woman of your age you do not need to turn to these treatments quite yet. Now, you should concentrate on earning your skin future, especially the skin around the eyes, by taking precautions against the sun 365 days a year, no excuses. Nearly everything that you will ultimately not like about your face comes from the sun—crow’s feet, wrinkles, enlarged pores, red capillaries around the nose and cheeks, dark discolorations, freckles, age spots, lines, wrinkles, and loss of tone. If you start using a broad spectrum UVA/UVB day cream around your eyes and all over the face, every morning of every day of the year—summer, winter, even if it rains—in your twenties, you can literally delay the onset of crow’s feet by more than a decade.


The other important goal of skincare at this age is to keep the oil glands in check to prevent breakouts. To this end, one of the most important things you can do is exfoliate properly to prevent sebaceous acid accumulation and clogged pores.