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Would you need to know the effect of cigarettes on facial skin first? And then only you quit?

Everyone knows that smoking is not healthy. It causes cancer, discoloration of fingers and nails and has a great effect on our skin, especially facial. According to the doctors the skin of a smoker in his or her 50s looks like that of a person 20 years older.

Smoking causes premature ageing of the skin, is responsible for skin dryness and blemishes. It has been also shown that smoking is directly responsible for wrinkles.

Even those who smoked only in their teens will have more wrinkles then those who did not have this habit. It indicates the effect that cigarettes and smoking have on your facial skin.

So, why does smoking have such a big effect on our skin? Our skin is fed from within, as the food we eat gets broken into nutrients and other substances. They are later mixed with oxygen and delivered to the different parts of our body. Organs that are not provided with either oxygen or nutrients will no longer be able to function normally.

A smoker, instead of oxygen, inhales carbon monoxide which is absorbed by blood 200 times faster than oxygen. As the result, most of the oxygen is displaced by carbon monoxide. The organs, including the largest one which is our skin, are therefore deprived of oxygen and poisoned by carbon monoxide.

Another bad news, especially for women, is that smoking reduces collagen. Cigarette smoke eats up Vitamin C which is the main active ingredient in the synthesis of collagen. Collagen is the main protein of the skin, and gives our skin elasticity. Over time the skin of a smoker loses elasticity and color and starts looking pale.

It has been shown that smoking for only 10 minutes will reduce the oxygen flow to your skin for over 1 hour. A short 10 minute cigarette break 3 times a day depletes your skin cells of oxygen for close to 4 hours!

Not only smoke causes damaged to our skin. Nicotine is very harmful as well. It narrows vain causing decrease in blood flow throughout the body. Your skin which cannot get the proper amount of oxygen becomes dry and unhealthy.

Also the act of smoking causes smokers to squint which accelerate the process of wrinkle forming around the eyes. Also the lip movement when smoking deepens the wrinkles around our mouth.

The only way to stop the damaging effect the cigarettes have on facial skin is to stop smoking. You cannot reverse the damage already done to your body and your skin but following skin care routine can improve your skin look and health.