How Smoking Ruins Your Skin

Smoking causes

• premature aging of the skin and ruins your complexion.
• Loss of skin glow and vitality.
• premature facial wrinkling and leathery skin.
• crow’s feet.
• varicose veins.
• poor healing abilities.
• skin cancer.
• psoriasis.

Smoking reduces the amount of blood flowing to the skin and dries it out. It constructs the tiny capillaries that nourish the skin.

Smoking prevents oxygen and nutrients from getting to the skin . Over time, this means the skin loses elasticity and gets more wrinkled. The appearance of wrinkled, pale and grayish skin is four to five times more frequent in smokers than non-smokers. In 1971 an extensive study showed that the facial skin of long-term smokers was so terribly wrinkled that they looked as if they were 20 years older!

Quitting smoking improves the blood supply to the skin and gives previously pale skin a more ‘natural’ appearance. A smoker’s skin is more apt to wrinkle because the skin’s vitamin A content is low compared with that for a non-smoker. Vitamin A protects the skin against strong chemical substances that may damage or destroy it. Smoking also gets in the way of absorption of vitamin C – a vital antioxidant for skin protection and health By quitting, you will improve your skin tone and colour. You are less likely to get wrinkles around your eyes and mouth from squinting when smoke gets in your eyes and puckering up when you draw on a cigarette.

(extracted fromLarry Kunkel’s “Quit Smoking and Improve Your Looks” article)