Dr Coffey, Medical Director of CotswoldSkin, shares 5 gifts for you to give your skin this New Year

Winter is a wonderland of Christmas festivities: enticing overindulgence, bracing walks and skiing on sunny snow topped mountains. The busy reality of burning the candle at both ends can leave our skin crying out for it’s own rejuvenating and refreshing mini-break.

Here are my top tips for helping your skin to feel and look like it won the jackpot in a Christmas tombola at a country Christmas Fete.

The Canvas is the show: CotswoldSkin Skincare

Our skin is always on show and can give away so many tell-tale signs of how we are looking after it, or not as the case may be. Lacklustre, dry, blotchy, undamaged skin will look exactly that but there is hope and positive action that can be taken.

Our skin is a living, breathing organ and one that can adapt and change depending on the care and attention we show it. Having wonderfully glowing, healthy skin is entirely attainable and available without much back breaking work. Skincare is the saviour and active ingredients are your friends.

Using wonderfully luxurious and expensive beautifully-packaged creams doesn’t mean you are actually doing anything to benefit your skin and change it for the better.

The important steps to skincare include:

1. Clearing out the old, dry and dead skin - to allow and encourage fresh, new skin cell to cycle up to the top layer of skin; reversing sun damage and oxidative stress from pollutants, using high quality Vitamin C serums.

2. Nourishing and reversing sun damage whilst increasing collagen production with active Vitamin A derivatives

3. Hydrating with new, light, absorbable Hyaluronic Acid serums to plump, hydrate and refresh tired and dry skin.

4. Despite it being winter, cold and often dark, we need to protect our skin against the sun. Shocked you may be to hear that even in winter the sun has a damaging effect on the skin but any season, any country, any time of day, if there is visible light there is sun damage without protection.

Can any product tackle all of these areas of concern, I hear you ask? Relief replies that CotswoldSkin skincare range is here to do just that.

Smooth Operator: Botox (R)

Good old fashioned, does what it says on the tin, Botulinum Toxin. This gives wonderful and reproducible results on dynamic lines and typically in the areas of the forehead, the frown in between the eyebrows and the crows feet around the eyes. It can also be used to fantastic effect on the neck for vertical platysmal bands in a Nephertiti Lift. Minute injections, very well tolerated and quick, comfortable treatments, mean this is such a simple treatment, which has great effects.

Smoothing out lines and wrinkles in the top face can have a huge impact in terms of anti-ageing and rejuvenating results.

Effects last on average for 3 - 4 months and take up to two weeks to set in and once a full consultation is carried out with consenting for the treatment, the actual treatment itself can take less than five minutes. Again, as with dermal fillers, gone are the days when your treatment can look over done or obvious. Injections can be carried out so as to keep a natural and soft but simply less lined and wrinkles appearance.

I often get asked if having the treatment is “addictive” and my best analogy would be that it is as addictive as getting your roots retouched every six weeks: you don’t have to do it, you’re not addicted to doing it but if it looks good and you love the final results, you’ll want to keep doing it.

Beauty is not just skin deep: Dermal Fillers

With age, sun damage, oxidative stress and all those other gremlins which wreek havoc with our skin, we lose volume in the upper-face and mid-face, which means sagging in the lower-face. Volume can be replaced and lost structure can be repositioned using Dermal Fillers but here’s the best bit: It. Can. Look. Natural. Gone are the days of looking ‘done’ and ‘overdone’ and here is the wonderful reality of being able to use excellent products for a natural and gentle lift; which will replace lost volume, strengthen weakened facial structure, plump and lift, where we need plumping and lifting, and define areas which have lost definition.

Dermal fillers today have a very impressive safety profile, are user friendly, containing anaesthetic for comfort and pain-free treatments and above all can be used to create a wonderfully natural and gentle look. If our skin is the canvas then dermal fillers can help replace and revamp the frame underneath, which supports the canvas above.

Tone and Texture: Profhilo

Along with the benefits of good, targeted, active skincare, sometimes we need a little more of a boost to help crepey skin on the face and neck. Sun damaged skin loses it’s plumpness and in the long run can start forming permanent lines and wrinkles. Although anti-wrinkle injections with products such as Botox (R), are excellent for dynamic lines and wrinkles (see below) things are a little trickier with non-dynamic lines and wrinkles. Here, Profhilo works wonders.

Over a series of two sets of very comfortable injections, Profhilo helps to even out skin tone and improve skin texture in these problem areas resulting in plumper, smoother and more lifted skin. A very safe and user friendly treatment, this is a lovely add on to treatments with Dermal Filler or can be used as a stand alone treatment in itself. More robust that mesotherapy in the skin, and more long lasting, Profhilo fills the gap as far as improving skin texture with an injectable treatment is concerned.

Peel and Perfect: Peels

Skin peels are a wonderful way to refresh and renew you skin. Peels work by breaking down the top layer of dead skin cells and removing them. This physical removal of the top layer of old, dead skin cells, send a message to the deep layer of the skin, instructing it to produce newer, healthier, rejuvenated skin cells.

In addition to this some skin peels will also simulate collagen production and promote clearance of light pigmentation. You don’t have to have days of hideously strong peeling or indeed days of redness where you have to stay indoors in fear of frightening the neighbours. Gentle peels mean that you can get the benefit of peeling the skin with no downtime - a wonderful balance. Peels can be very quick and straightforward and are very comfortable and well-tolerated. The ideal regimen would be to have a peel every 3-4 months alongside active skin care, so that you were promoting excellent skin health and then giving the skin a boost every 3-4 months with a peel.

Although these five treatments work wonderfully together, even opting for one of these will start you on the path to better skin care, replenishing lost volume and putting some care back into your skin. Everyone is different so a thorough consultation will bring out what your priorities are and consequently, which of the above treatments would benefit you the most, as a stand alone or in combination with other treatments. What is a certain is that you’re skin will thank you!

Launched at the beginning of 2017, CotswoldSkin is a skin clinic providing a capsule range of highly effective skin care and anti-aging treatments to nourish and boost your natural skin health and return lost volume to the face, helping you look and feel your best. Treatments are carried out by a fully qualified GMC & BCAM-registered doctor with an initial complimentary consultation and post-treatment follow-up.

Cotswold Skin, Chipping Norton Health Centre, Russell Way, Chipping Norton, OX7 5FA

Telephone: 01608 737376

Email: info@cotswoldskin.co.uk