Everything No One Told You About The Skin On Your Neck & Chest | Dr. Shereene Idriss

Do you guys want to know what the most neglected part of your skincare routine is? Because it's not your under eyes, it's not your upper lip, it's definitely not your ears or your nose. It is your neck and your chest. I'm Dr. Shereen Idris, a board certified dermatologist and I'm here to break the news to you guys that your faces, your necks and your chests, 1, 2, 3. Are a single cosmetic unit. Far too long we have only been focusing on just our faces. In the process, we have started to look like human bubble heads where our faces look pretty great, but our necks and chests don't add up. Today, today I'm going to talk you through the various different products you guys can be using on your necks and chests, why it's important and why the skin of your neck and chest differs from your face. And we're even going to hit on certain devices as well as in office procedures that we can be doing to help our necks and chests out. If you do not follow along, follow along like this video and you may as well let me know what you want to learn about next week. Before I jump into the skin below the jawline, I want to quickly focus on on your traditional money maker which has been historically our faces and talk to you guys about a device that you may find helpful. Thank you Irestore for sponsoring this portion of the video, but I want to introduce you all to their Illumina face mask. And what makes this LED face mask different than the rest on the market is that it not only has one, it has two and three different wavelengths that you can tailor to specifically fit your skin's needs. It has red light led, blue light LED and infrared light led. And through a combination of three different settings, you can really pick and choose what you are getting done. Their first setting, this guy right here, utilizes both red light and infrared light to help with fine lines, collagen, elasticity, etc. Their second setting, which looks more like this, is a combination of red light, blue light and infrared light to help with anti aging, but also to help with acne causing bacteria. And the third setting, which looks like this, it is a much simpler setting, is their blue light LED on its own which has acne fighting properties through their blue light wavelength. It comes in a beautiful mask that is very breathable and that can cool your skin down. And it has 360 LEDs in the mask alone, two times more than your average mask on the market. And it is clinically proven to take you from Here to here within six to 12 weeks. I will say. However, if you have melasma, approach cautiously. I would not use it because a mask like an LED mask of this strength can potentially trigger flare ups. But if you don't have melasma, go ahead and give it a try. And I'm curious to see how your your skin feels cooler when you with maximum results compared to other LED masks on the market. I've also left you guys a promotional code in the description box below which takes me back to the skin of the neck and the chest. And why does it deserve special attention? For several reasons. One, your skin here and here is naturally thinner than on your face. It's unfortunate, but it's the truth. Two, we don't have as many oil glands, especially not on our neck and that makes our natural resilience through three much less and reduced compared to our faces. This plus compounded with the fact that our necks and our chest are constantly exposed to the sun. We have high cumulative sun damage in those areas that can turn into deeper horizontal lines, crepier looking skin, increased laxity, we start to wobble and dangle and increase discoloration in the form of hyperpigmentation and redness. There is a medical term also that looks like that is known as poikiloderma of savate which basically means discoloration due to sun damage breakdown on the lateral parts of your neck where you see brown spots, broken blood vessels and redness. Now the big poo poo part of all of this is that once the damage sets in, we're effed, okay? And we are going to be buying ourselves a lot of procedures in office if we are trying to turn this around. So instead of chasing these procedures that can take a lot of time and take a lot of money and take a lot of energy and effort. The number one thing that you can do for your skin as long as you have time and time is still on your side and the damage has not set in, is to protect your skin. Sunscreen is number 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. If we use two full thick finger fulls of sunscreen for our face, we add a third one for our neck and the fourth one for our chest. Now ironically, I am wearing a high neck shirt today. This has enough thickness that it will protect my chest from the sun. But if you're wearing a scoop neck or something very sheer or light, you want to make sure you have adequate protection for your chest. Retinoids are a second class of ingredients that you can use on your neck and chest. But you have to approach it differently because like I mentioned, we do not have oil glands, especially not on our neck, and our resilience is much less. So how do we incorporate a retinoid on our neck and chest? One hack is to use a retinol eye cream. Retinol over the counter for sure, over prescription, because prescription is going to be too wrong and strong. Okay, so we're gonna go for the lightest over the counter retinoid in the form of an eye cream, because it's usually formulated for sensitive skin and you can use that on your neck and your chest. Now, retinal eye creams also tend to be much more expensive. If you're looking for a way to counteract that, you can use an over the counter retinol at 0.25 or 0.3%. And after a thick moisturizer or an occlusive like Vaseline on your neck and chest, that Vaseline or that moisturizer is going to make your retinol less effective. But that's the goal because you don't want it to be too effective and buy yourself an irritation in the process. Antioxidants are also a huge plus to your skin of your neck and chest, and we often overlook them only focusing on our faces. What am I talking about? I'm talking about vitamin C, of course, ascorbic acid or the estro forms of vitamin C. But I'm also talking about, for example, niacinamide, which can also help with oxidative stress minus the breakouts on your neck and chest. Because I know a lot of people are sensitive to niacinamide and they feel like they break out because of it. But your neck and chest can be an area where you could actually tolerate it. Now, Coenzyme Q10 is another underrated antioxidant because it is lipid soluble and it will work more efficiently for you on your neck and your chest. It is an antioxidant shield that is also not going to break your bank. It's going to help to promote your collagen from breaking down, to protect your collagen from breaking down and for keeping your skin firmer and less creepy overall. Peptides. I have a whole video talking about peptides, the different forms of peptides. I'm going to link it below. But peptides, unlike retinoids, are very well tolerated on your neck and chest. So you might as well throw it in there and not just use it once a day or not at all. Because we're only focusing on our faces. But there are certain peptides that can help with the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles, especially when used consistently over time. In beauty's extreme Cream is a nice example of that that mixes a combination of strengthening peptides with ceramides to help with firmness and elasticity. Growth factors are another category of ingredients that are a little bit more misunderstood and questioned because of their molecular weight and size. So the best way to incorporate growth factor serums are probably after an in office procedure like microneedling to get the best bang out of your buck. But again, if you are extremely sensitive to retinoids and you have a growth factor serum or you like it for your face, you could use this longer term for your neck and your chest. It will take longer for you to see full results, but you can absolutely use it. If you combine it with in office procedures, you will see results more effectively. These can help to stimulate fibroblasts, to produce more collagen and elastin and and to help reduce crepiness and laxity overall. And I'm talking about skin Medica's TNS serum, their advanced serum or even allies of skin's growth factor lifting serum. Now why is it more important that we moisturize better or more effectively or more efficiently or more overall as we get older when it comes to our neck and our chests? Because like I mentioned, our neck especially and our chest has pure oil glands and therefore the skin is going to be naturally drier than on our faces. And so with age, not only are we trying to increase the strength of our tissue, we're also trying to help support our skin barrier as it weakens, making water loss more obvious and irritations more common. So dryness as a whole does exaggerate the look of fine lines, creepiness, those like unwanted signs of irritations, etc. And constant moisturization can help to keep it look more intact, feel more supple and look more resilient. So ingredients you want to look for when you are moisturizing your neck and chest. Ceramides to help to repair and strengthen your skin barrier, Shea butter or squalane. Those can help to soften and smooth your skin overall, especially as you start to feel rougher around the edges or even at the top of your chest on your bone. And white paraffin and petrolatum, which are really thick and powerful occlusives to seal in hydration. And that is why I love cetrabin for very mature and dry necks. Here comes another question. Do we need a separate Neck routine compared to our face. And the answer is your face products can definitely extend down below your jawline for your neck and chest. The one you really have to watch out for is probably a retinoid, but I didn't mention yet. You can also exfoliate your necks and your chest to get more smoothness and to make sure that you have less buildup overall on your neck and chest. And utilizing a mask with glycolic acid can make a huge difference. I personally go to sleep maybe two times a week with my flash mask, which is my exfoliating mask. I had it here, I must. Oh, it's over here. It is a 15 glycolic acid face mask that I do use on my neck and chest to help with the overall texture. But there are also neck products out there like Necessary's neck serum, which is fairly priced for all the peptides that it contains that you can extend from your neck up to your face. Even this one has a combination of five different peptides to help with the overall look of creepiness and texture when it comes to your neck and maybe even your face now at home, tools that can potentially help your neck, the nuface, the zip. These are both tools that utilize microcurrent. These are tools that deliver low level electrical currents to stimulate muscles and ATP within your muscular cells. And on the neck, this can give a very sensitive subtle effect of tightening, but you have to use it very consistently to see the results or else the results will not be visible. Number two, you can use electrical muscle stimulation devices like Medicube's Derma EMS shot, which has medium frequency stimulation that targets muscles. And it can help with firmness under the jawline, around along the chin and your neck. But again, you need very, very frequent use LED devices like the face mask that I just showed you guys can also be helpful for the neck. And there are some brands that have a neck mask. Specifically Iris Store has one as well with red and infrared light to help to promote your collagen and your elasticity of the skin of your neck and even your chest. Massage tools, Gua Sha, are they gonna be helpful in the long run? Tbd, they're never gonna make you look like a baby fetus. They can help with lymphatic swelling and drainage to make sure that your skin skin is less puffy and if your skin is less puffy, the lines are less accentuated and look overall firmer. But they're not going to change the architecture of your skin or your muscles. In office treatments for the neck and chest. I love simple micro needling that goes deeper than a millimeter, around 2 millimeters even, and utilizing products right afterwards so you can increase their efficacy and their effectiveness, like the TNS Growth Factor Serum. I think PRP and PRF is also very interesting for your neck and your chest to help potentially strengthen your own tissue. But like with anything, PRP and PRF is not always a home run. So you need to make sure that you're doing it somewhere where that is reputable, that you can trust, but that you give yourself a fair chance to see if you actually see results. Because it's not a home run for everyone. Certainly resurfacing lasers like the Fraxel laser can also help with the superficial texture of your skin. And if you have a lot of creakiness but you are not looking to go under the knife, having the right dermatologist do microneedling with radio frequency at not too deep a depth and not too high in energy can be helpful in the long run to help to strengthen that tissue. But again, a device is just a device. The person using the device is equally, if not more important than the device so you don't have any unwanted side effects. And there you have it. Your neck and your chest and as part of the same, are part of the same canvas as your face. It is ultimately a cosmetic unit and you do not want them to age differently. So starting tonight, extend your skin care from your face down to your tits, making sure you get your neck and chest included. I would just really be careful with the retinoid, but everything else is more or less fair game. And when you think your face, start thinking your neck and your chest. Make sure to check out the discount code below on Iris stores face mask, their Illumina face mask, which I was happy to demonstrate for all of you guys here today. I hope you guys have a beautiful Saturday.