Back in the city after the holidays: beauty tips for our skin

Recommended treatments after the holidays

The long-awaited holidays have come to an end and we are back in the city. How should we take care of our skin during this time of the year? How does the daily routine change, and what in-office treatments can we undergo with our trusted dermatologist?

At the end of the holidays, after days spent under the sun either at the sea or in the mountains, the skin may feel the effects of the oxidative stress it has been subjected to. This stress is significantly more intense than during other seasons, and it can make the skin drier, thicker, with micro-wrinkles and new dark spots. It may be useful, also in preparation for possible in-office treatments, to start treating the skin with at-home gommage products selected according to its characteristics — more vigorous for thick and oily skin, more delicate for sensitive skin. These treatments help remove the superficial cells of the stratum corneum and improve the penetration of creams. Gommage should be performed once or twice a week, preferably in the evening.

This is the time of year when skin problems, which had been softened by the summer, come back to the surface — but it is also the right moment to address them with proper treatments.

The dermatologist can recommend a personalized routine. For oily and acne-prone skin, it may be helpful to apply in the evening creams containing salicylic acid, which has both a specific anti-acne effect and an anti-aging action, combined in the morning with cleansing products based on alpha-hydroxy acids. For skin prone to hyperpigmentation, it is advisable to continue using sunscreen in the morning and add in the evening products containing tranexamic acid, vitamin C, or kojic acid. With the arrival of the colder season, as an anti-aging strategy, we can also reintroduce a molecule so dear to us dermatologists: retinol, which must be used strictly in the evening.

And what about in-office treatments?

The key word during this period is to regenerate the skin.We can achieve this through two important methods: chemical peels and skin densification, performed separately or, even better, in combined protocols.Peeling, a technique I particularly value, consists of applying a chemical substance to the skin that causes exfoliation of the epidermis and remodeling of the dermis. Today, we have multiple types of peels available to choose from, depending on the patient’s skin concerns, which allow us to achieve significant results with recovery times that are much shorter compared to the past.

For my patients, I recommend, as a combined protocol and while respecting the skin’s recovery times, sessions of dynamic densification aimed at stimulating the production of collagen and elastin, thereby improving brightness, firmness, elasticity, and evenness of skin tone.These are two in-office treatments, simple to perform and not demanding for the patient, which — especially in the case of densification — allow for an immediate return to social life.