What is a good anti-aging skincare routine these days? ‘Slugging’, 11-step Korean beauty regimes, and serum layering are all excellent ways for beauty companies to sell vast amounts of skincare products and for you to thoroughly confuse your skin with product overload. At best, they’re unnecessary, and at worst, your skin will freak out and break out. It’s so tempting for us all to follow the latest skincare trends when we should instead be asking, what skincare products do I really need?

Skincare routines require updating

Just as you stopped being a slave to fashion trends and developed your own sense of style, you might want to do the same with your skincare as well. Admittedly, forty isn’t the definitive milestone whereby everything falls apart, but it is an age at which you might want to start considering the best skincare routine for aging skin. In essence, a skin care routine for a 40-year-old woman should look nothing like her teenage daughter’s.

“By age 40, our skin has lost 60% of its oxygen capacity,” warns LYMA Founder Lucy Goff. “So it’s incredibly important for skin health to return oxygen to the skin. Skin cells have a limited lifespan and increased oxygen supports regeneration and the metabolism of waste which in turn helps with production of collagen, elastin and migration of new cells to the surface”.

Which is exactly why Goff directed an international team of expert scientists and to develop the LYMA Mist & Glide skincare products to accompany the LYMA Laser. Both the Mist and the Glide contain the highest concentration of Active Stabilized Oxygen in existence, flooding the skin with solubilized liquid oxygen for boosted cellular production, microcirculation and long-term moisture retention.

SPF is not an ingredient, it's a complete step

Everyone has received the message about SPF being a daily non-negotiable but it needs to be applied as it's own layer. First off, the daily dose of SPF required means moisturisers containing SPF, rarely contain enough.

Secondly, SPF cannot be part of a sink-in formula but must sit on the skin as an invisible film and thirdly, no one wants to apply that much the amount of moisturiser needed for sufficient SPF coverage, let alone every two hours as dermatologists recommend. And finally, lest we forget, SPF should be applied everywhere the skin is exposed to the sun, meaning face, neck, chest and backs of hands, meaning your luxury face cream habit would get a whole lot more expensive. All this reinforces that SPF needs to be high factor, broad spectrum and a skincare step in its own right.

Are active ingredients essential in anti-aging skincare?

“Some formulations will contain higher concentrations of the same products, but there is a finite degree of bioavailability to every ingredient and no evidence to support that including more of it carries any additional benefit,” warns Dr Graeme E. Glass, MD PhD Plastic Surgeon, Associate Professor of Surgery and LYMA Aesthetic Director.

“It's remarkable how many beauty brands think that more ingredients must be better and market that as such, but it's not necessarily the case.”

So just because a beautifully packed anti-aging face cream contains three different types of collagen, doesn’t guarantee any of them will make it past the skin's surface. “There have been endless trends in the skincare industry; alpha hydroxy acids, ceramides, peptides, vitamin C, collagen, even stem cells. These are all buzzwords that are essentially used to sell products. But ultimately, what's important is the claims that are made and whether these claims are justified and backed by evidence,” emphasizes Glass.

There always seems to be some exciting new ingredient on the block that we simply must add into our skincare regime, but rather than beauty buzzwords, Dr Glass argues that the best skincare routine for over 40s is one that supports skin’s Extracellular Matrix.

“The extracellular matrix is the non-cellular component of the dermis. It comprises multiple proteins, the most populous of which is collagen, but there are other proteins including elastin fibronectin and glycoproteins. The loss of these extracellular matrix proteins and associated water are the key features of dermal aging, which manifests as wrinkles.”

So what skincare should we all be using after 40?

The one that addresses the root causes of skin aging, not just the surface symptoms. Enter LYMA Skincare, a groundbreaking topical skincare protocol developed by geneticists and stem cell experts. Leading the research in skin epigenetics, LYMA Skincare is formulated with patented, scientifically proven ingredients that interact with the skin’s DNA to influence gene expression and disrupt the natural aging processes. The result is an unprecedented transformation of skin at every layer.

Which is why LYMA Skincare contains Wellmune®, a modified beta-glucan, hydrolysed to a smaller molecular weight that causes the skin to think that it is damaged. Immune cells are directed to regenerate and produce more collagen fibers, thus increasing the ECM. The triggered response from this intuitive ingredient restores the skin’s underlying architecture, boosts elasticity and smooths wrinkles. Also in the formulation is Mitoprime™ Ergothioneine that supercharges flagging energy levels in cells and PrimaHyal™ 50 Hyaluronic Acid, the world’s best performing Hyaluronic Acid that boosts skin hydration barrier function by 150% and increases skin hydration by 72%.

The LYMA Skincare two-step Protocol

Skincare that delivers unrivalled anti-aging results without disrupting an already packed lifestyle in just two steps.

• Morning and evening, apply three pumps of LYMA Skincare Serum to double cleansed skin, using gentle circular motions. Ensure equal coverage across the face and neck. Leave for 30 seconds to ensure full absorption before applying LYMA Cream.

• Apply three pumps of LYMA Cream using gentle circular motions until you see a visible white film. Leave for 60 seconds to allow the actives to penetrate. Massage into the skin using circular motions until fully absorbed.

The best anti-aging skincare routine for mature skin

The power and proof of LYMA Skincare now means that the best skincare routine for aging skin does not entail endless steps or a dermatologist-level understanding of how to layer skincare products, (grown-up working women simply do not have time for that). Here’s the expert-approved skincare regime that we can all benefit from.

1. Double cleanse skin every day to wash away impurities and harmful pollution particles.

2. Twice a week, include an exfoliator of your choice. Be that a face scrub, fruit enzyme peel or AHA formula.

3. Apply the LYMA Serum containing proven actives that enhance cellular renewal and kickstart skin’s innate collagen production.

4. Smooth on LYMA Cream to ensure the deepest sinking Hyaluronic acid that prevents wrinkles and lines forming.

5. Apply a chemical or titanium dioxide mineral SPF all over the face, neck, chest and backs of hands.

6. For remarkable results in reversing sun damage, pigmentation, fine lines and wrinkles, use the LYMA Laser every day on the troublesome area.

No one is remotely suggesting that forty is old, in fact it’s often when we hit our strides, but it is the time to instate a solid skincare strategy.

LYMA Skincare not only promotes skin health but also adjusts the behavior of the epidermis, addressing the eight key mechanisms of skin aging. For those of us who’ve long outgrown beauty fads and skincare trends, clinically proven skincare that treats the root causes of aging is a far smarter approach than trying to reverse well-established lines and wrinkles further down the line.

LYMA Skincare just made skin’s future a whole lot brighter.