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In your 30s, wrinkles and fine lines practically dominate the way you approach skincare. For instance, I never thought I’d be jealous of other people’s collagen but here we are. So taking care of your skin or starting to care for your skin becomes a bit more about anti-aging and preventing wrinkles than basic stuff like cleansing and moisturizing. People always tell me that I look younger than my age. And even though I think it’s mostly about my figure and demeanor, I do believe that some of the things I’ve done over the years, especially with skincare, have paid off. And that’s what you’ll find here. If you’re in your early, mid, or late 30s and unhappy about fine lines, wrinkles, or other signs of aging, I’ve got the best anti-aging tips for your 30s.
Basic science tells us that collagen is one of the most important proteins responsible for keeping our skin smooth and youthful. It also tells us that collagen production decreases with age. As a result, the skin loses elasticity and shows signs of aging in your 30s like crow’s feet, deeper wrinkles, and even dullness, and can even look saggy.
But some of the things that we do, knowingly or unknowingly, speed up collagen loss. That means there are things we can do to delay this, prevent this, or at least minimize this. Whether you’re dealing with fine lines around the eyes, wrinkles on the forehead, or smile lines becoming more prominent, we can still reduce the appearance of aging skin and prevent wrinkles in our 30s.
Anti-Aging Tips For Your 30s
Keep reading for the best anti-aging tips for your 30s.
1. Protect Your Skin with SPF
Things can get easily overwhelming when you pay attention to what other people are doing with their skincare routine. Some new acid, or some hotshot anti-aging serum; you might even experience FOMO. Well, don’t!
As much as I like to rave about those exciting new things, I know that one aspect of skincare does not change. And that’s sunscreen.
Unprotected sun exposure remains one of the leading external causes of premature aging, which is sometimes referred to as photoaging. Nothing’s going to help your skin more than protecting it by using a good sunscreen.
Even if you don’t do anything else, keeping your skin guarded against UV rays is still the best way to prevent wrinkles in your 30s. Also, be more holistic and use sunglasses and a protective hat, especially during summer.
2. Establish a Routine and Be Consistent
As much as it’s about taking care of your skin, and hydrating it, skin care is also about self-care for women in their 30s. So establish a skincare routine that suits your skin type and includes all the basics: cleanser, moisturizer, and SPF.
Trust me, proper skincare makes all the difference in the world. The least it can do is plump your skin and reduce the look of dehydration lines. And that alone is so satisfying because it gives you bouncy, smooth skin.
Maybe you’re a skin maximalist like me and enjoy several different skincare products. Maybe you’re following a minimalist skincare routine.
Either way, the trick is to be consistent with it. At the end of the day, using an anti-aging serum every now and then won’t get you far.
On the flip side, even a low-concentration antioxidant serum can give your skin a much-desired glow simply because you’re using it consistently and the results improve progressively. You can always add more steps or products to your routine to enhance your results.
But essentially, wash your face twice a day with a gentle cleanser, hydrate and moisturize your skin with a moisturizer suitable for your skin type, and apply SPF.
If you’re way past that, consider adding an anti-aging eye cream into your routine, exfoliating regularly to keep the skin smooth, trying face toners and essences to enhance radiance, and using an anti-aging serum.
3. Try Personalized Skincare
This is definitely a skincare upgrade for women in their 30s. When you’re buying skincare products, the best you can do is find the one suitable for your skin type.
That’s pretty much it. That’s as “personal” as it gets. But much like a tailored outfit, personalized skincare made specifically for your unique skin will maximize your results for wrinkle-free skin.
Personalized skincare brands all have their own way of mapping out your skin type, concerns, and needs. Some brands give you forms to fill out. Others utilize artificial intelligence.
They take a lot of things into account like your sleep cycle, stress levels, screen & sun time to formulate products with ingredients best suited for your skin.
That way, you get the most bang for your buck because everything is customized and personalized for you and you only.
Plus, you also have the advantage of using products made by the same brand. Because they work best when used together as opposed to using different products from different brands.
So if you’re someone new to skincare, or you can’t be bothered with figuring out what suits your skin yourself, and you just want a set without a hustle, definitely try personalized skincare.
4. Consider Retinoids
While we’re at it, here’s some anti-aging skincare advice to keep in your mind if you’re over the age of 30. As you leave your 20s behind, you gradually step into the realm of your 30s where anti-aging means heavy-duty ingredients and anti-aging products.
Peptides, epidermal growth factors, and of course, retinol. It’s the holy grail anti-ager for smoothing wrinkles, fading dark spots and hyperpigmentation, and mopping up sun damage. But retinol is only one type of retinoid, which is an umbrella term for vitamin A derivatives.
And there are amazing retinol creams and serums out there that work perfectly well. But if you feel like your over-the-counter retinol products don’t seem to do enough for your skin or you just want something even more effective, see your dermatologist.
And get yourself good old prescription retinoids such as tretinoin cream. It’s more potent than retinol. And all retinoids can do wonders for your skin and can even reverse wrinkles in your 30s.
Also, retinoids like tretinoin take shorter to give you results. They won’t be as much fun to use as those lovely retinol serums with cute packages you find at Sephora. But boy do they transform your skin inside and out!
5. Eat Antioxidant-Rich Foods
First things first, note that I’m not qualified to give you any advice on this topic. But obviously, some things are universal and common knowledge. And it’s no secret that fruits and veggies are good for you.
Antioxidants protect your skin from free radicals and prevent damage to your healthy collagen, which gives you healthy skin. And eating antioxidant-rich foods is a great way to fight off premature aging.
And I think the easiest way to incorporate antioxidants into your diet is through fruits and vegetables. We love splurging on vitamin C creams and serums. Now it’s time to get those vitamins from the source.
Get your vitamin E from leafy greens, vitamin A from carrots, and vitamin C from berries or citrus fruits. If you’re not sure how to make this a habit, here’s an easy way to do it that I swear by. Eat salad for breakfast or eat a bowl of fruits as your evening snack!
6. Be More Active
I don’t know about you but as someone working from home, I deal with all that comes with sitting down in front of a computer all day! Leaving aside the fact that it gives me back pain and neck pain, it visibly makes me look tired and dull.
But on days when I have the energy to take a walk or do some 15-minute pilates, I can see how my complexion looks more vibrant and energized. There’s a reason why we all love that post-workout glow! So try to be more active and needless to say, it’s super healthy for your entire body.
7. Quit Bad Habits
According to the American Academy of Dermatology Association and well, common knowledge, cigarette smoking accelerates skin aging.
It goes without saying that you should do what you can to quit bad habits. The same article also includes sugar and alcohol are damaging to the skin.
Personally, I have never, and I can’t stress this enough, ever, needed those in my entire life more than I do in my 30s. But that doesn’t change the fact that they’re bad for your health and bad for your skin.
8. Pay Attention to Your Pillow
In case you haven’t heard, there is a correlation between your sleeping position and facial wrinkles. When you sleep on your side, you accelerate the formation of sleep wrinkles and the deepening of existing wrinkles.
It usually results in one of the smile lines being more prominent than the other one. Obviously, whatever side you sleep on, that part is usually where the smile line and the crow’s feet are deeper.
The best sleeping position is to sleep on your back. But let’s face it; we rule that one out immediately because nobody likes to get hit in the face by their phone.
And that’s where anti-aging pillows come to the rescue. They give your face and your neck enough support to get a comfortable sleep. Plus, they have silk pillowcases that also prevent friction to a great degree.
With anti-aging pillows, your face doesn’t get smushed even when you’re sleeping on the side. Plus, we do need that comfortable beauty sleep in our 30s! If getting a special pillow sounds like a whole thing, don’t worry.
Just try to avoid sleeping on your face or on your side as much as you can. From my experience and I think it’s related to my skin becoming less elastic, it takes hours for those sleep lines to disappear from my face!
9. Manage Stress
We know that stress is bad for your skin. Because stress fires up a whole chain of reactions that mess up your hormones.
Not to mention all that frowning and the wrinkles that come with it. That’s why everybody tells us to “reduce stress”. Easier said than done! It’s almost impossible to lead a stress-free life, especially when you’re in your 30s.
But there are universal solutions known to reduce stress and fire up endorphins. And two of them are getting a pet and/or getting laid. They will bring some joy into your life that will hopefully turn that frown upside down.
Well, just saying. But jokes aside, you need to find what works for you. For some, it’s meditation or exercise. For others, it’s alone time or an early evening that’s all about your and includes wine and a long bath.
Personally, being around nature and trying forest bathing have worked out great for me. I also love using face oils that are beautifully scented and massaging them into my skin with a Jade roller or Gua Sha. So find what works best for you and learn to manage your stress. We look better when we’re happy and nobody can argue with that.
10. Try Professional Treatments
Certain professional treatments can help you minimize the appearance of aging skin in your 30s. These can be in the form of monthly anti-aging facials. Other anti-aging treatments for your 30s are light chemical peels and lasers.
I’m all for these types of treatments and procedures. But here’s the thing; it’s a jungle out there! It’s incredibly important that you go for a certified dermatologist for these types of treatments.
There are hundreds of treatments and it can get confusing. For best results, a professional can help you decide which one is better for your unique skin.
11. Consider Injectables
Injectables refer to treatments like Botox and fillers. From what I’ve seen from my friends and people around me that they are either too intimidated or irritated by the whole thing or they’re too in it.
I have friends that don’t believe in anti-aging serums and I have friends in their early 30s who have tried several cosmetic surgeries. It makes you wonder if you can try injectables and not get caught up.
First things first, know that you do not have to do anything! I get regular Botox injections and have tried fillers; I age too! These are not shortcuts to preventing aging in your 30s.
With that being said, injectables, especially Botox is the quickest way to soften expression wrinkles. Do your research, and go for nothing less than a certified specialist.
Because being a very animated person, I have prominent expression lines. And Botox has helped me be more confident and I can recommend it to anyone who is unhappy about wrinkles. Similarly, fillers can help you smooth out deep wrinkles especially if you’re in your late 30s.
12. Be Mindful of Repetitive Facial Expressions
And speaking of expression wrinkles, try to be more mindful of repetitive facial expressions. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, imagine watching TV while squinting and never having bothered to go for glasses.
Repetitive motions like that make those temporary lines around the eyes turn into permanent lines. Similarly, frowning can make lines around the mouth and vertical lines between the brows become more prominent over time. Try to make these unnecessary expressions less to avoid making wrinkles worse.
13. Get Enough Sleep
I believe this is the most doable thing for us people in our 30s. I can’t believe how things change when you turn 30 and (almost) suddenly, you can’t function properly without sleep.
I think you can agree with me here from your experience that when we don’t get enough sleep, we look, let’s just say, less than pleasant. But there’s actual science behind this.
Sleep is when your body is in repair mode and lack of sleep promotes aging. But on top of that, I’ve seen from my experience that lack of sleep usually makes dark circles more visible and gives the face a tired-looking appearance. It also makes my whole face puffy and gives me under-eye bags. Get your sleep, sis!
14. Relax
Wrinkles are normal at 30. And we will get more of them as we get older and wiser. So remember to appreciate your skin including all those wrinkles and lines. Your skin looks so much better than it’ll look 10 years later.
There’s no point in obsessively pointing out every single thing that you perceive to be wrong with your skin. We’re halfway there and there are still so many things we want to do with our lives, right?
By now, you should’ve grown a thicker skin that knows better than not to be held down by a couple of wrinkles. So just remember to relax every once in a while.
This alone will help you a lot in reducing stress, increasing self-confidence, and eventually, achieving better skin. Remembering to relax is, in fact, one of the best anti-aging tips for your 30s. The other one is SPF, obviously.
The Takeaway
I’m not trying to do a wordplay here but anti-aging, in essence, is about aging gracefully. That means aging the way you’re supposed to and not prematurely. It’s also about being preventative and more proactive. So it’s never really about unrealistic expectations that are impossible to achieve. So focus more on things that are in your control such as taking good care of your skin and your health and putting yourself first. As cliche as it sounds, beauty does come from within. And you look more youthful, and radiant when you do the things you love and be with people that make you happy.
Read Next: The Best Face Exfoliators To Use in Your 30s
