Beauty Fact: Smoking Can Be Worse For your Skin than Sunbathing

Did you know that one puff of a cigarette subjects your body to more free radicals than a UV-dose needed for a suntan?

Most of us know smoking is bad for your health on the whole and for your skin as well. Inhaling tobacco smoke results in restricted blood vessels and, subsequently, reduced amount of blood flow to the skin. As a result your skin is deprived of the vital oxygen and nutrients and soon smokers develop this grey or yellowish complexion.

Another fact related to the nasty habit may make some smokers finally quit. According to German Vogue (Apr 2008), one puff of a cigarette creates over 100 times more free radicals than a UV dose enough to get a suntan. In an interview to Vogue, Professor Dr.Leonhard Zastow, Senior VP of Coty in Monte Carlo, explained that smoking also brings down body’s ability to protect itself against sun damage. Another striking fact is that only 8 hours after your last cigarette oxygen flow in the body comes to normal and only 48 hours later nicotine is completely out of your system. You will have to wait for two more weeks to get back a healthy skin color!

If a smoker is reading this post and has not yet decided to quit, let me rub it in. According to some studies quoted by skincarephysicians.com, statistically smokers develops premature signs of aging much sooner than a non-smoker and even in 20 year old smokers “facial wrinkling, while not yet visible, can be seen under a microscope.”

Wow! I am glad I am not a smoker!

Read more about skin damaging factors you shoud try to avoid.