#pro-aging

Today most of us are aware of the potential dangers of sun over-exposure especially where cancer is concerned, but Sun damage also causes premature aging of the skin. Collagen and elastin in your skin helps keep it tight and wrinkle free, but the ultraviolet light in the sun's rays breaks down these fibers resulting in loose, thin, wrinkled and crepey skin and more. Learn more >

TIP #1

Choose a mineral sunscreen.   It can be overwhelming to select the right sunscreen, as hundreds are on the market. Therefore, I narrow my choice by only considering mineral sunscreens. Chemical sunscreens use chemicals to prevent UV rays from entering your skin by absorbing the rays with a chemical reaction. Mineral sunscreens use mineral particles to avoid UV rays from entering your skin, with a combination of absorbing, scattering, and reflecting the rays.

There is concern about the safety of chemical sunscreens. According to the EWG's Guide to Sunscreens, in recent FDA testing, all non-mineral sunscreen chemicals absorbed into the body could be measured in blood after just a single-use. In addition, many have been detected in breast milk and urine samples. These findings are troubling because they show sunscreen chemicals circulating in the blood. The FDA has indicated that the agency does not have enough information to determine whether the chemicals are causing harm.

Chemical sunscreens often have more ingredients to provide broad-spectrum coverage from UV rays, including preservatives, dyes, and fragrances, which can cause skin irritations. 

Dr. Cynthia Bailey, MD, board-certified dermatologist, scientist, and wellness expert, does not recommend chemical sunscreen. "Over the course of my career, I have seen chemical sunscreens fail to provide reliable UV protection for my patients under real use conditions," she says. "I see surprise sunburns, tanning, and darkening of freckles during their skin exams—all of which indicate DNA skin damage."

"Physical sunscreens, on the other hand, have proven much more reliable," Bailey continues. The FDA has said that only two active sunscreen ingredients are recognized as safe and effective: These are the physical sunscreen UV filters zinc oxide and titanium dioxide. All others, meaning all chemical sunscreen UV filters, need further study. I don't recommend chemical sunscreens."

So, while chemical sunscreens are more readily available and often don't leave a white cast, it's essential to read the ingredients label. Safe ingredients to look for in sunscreen are titanium dioxide and zinc oxide.

TIP #2

Choose a sunscreen with SPF between 15 and 50.   In theory, sunscreen with a super-high SPF should give you the best protection against damaging UV radiation. But, according to experts, in practice, it doesn't work that way.

High-SPF sunscreens give you only slightly better protection than sunscreen with SPF 50, according to the Annual Sunscreen Report by the Environmental Working Group (EWP). At worst, they could give you a false sense of security and make you spend more time in the sun, upping your chance for burns and skin cancer. According to the EWG and the Skin Cancer Foundation, SPF 30 blocks nearly 97% of UVB radiation, SPF 50 blocks about 98%, and SPF blocks about 99%.

The EWG recommends choosing sunscreens within the SPF 15-50 range, applying a liberal coating, and reapplying every two hours and any time after swimming, toweling off, or excessive sweating. And, as I remind all of my daughters, do not forget to put sunscreen on your hands. 

TIP #3

Protect from UVA Damage with Copper Peptides.  

Even with a good sunscreen, too much sun can overwhelm the system's protective system. As the dose of UV radiation increases, the skin's antioxidant defenses get overwhelmed. As a result, free radicals form and cause cellular damage, such as oxidation modification of proteins and cellular DNA.

While free radicals and the sun's UV rays damage the skin's ability to regenerate, copper peptides can positively impact skin fibroblasts (cells that generate connective tissue), potentially combating UV damage to the skin barrier. 

""I use Restoracell with copper peptides as a repair instead of a sunscreen per se,” says Dr. Turner. “It's a protection that allows your cells to go through DNA repair versus a sunscreen."

According to Dr. Suzanne Turner, MD, the Senior Physician at Vine Medicine in Atlanta and a specialist in cellular medicine and longevity, "The research is being done now with copper peptides, especially with irradiated skin and radiation in general. When you're out in the sun, damage occurs to radiated skin. The presence of copper peptides initiates the DNA repair process."

BONUS TIP Apply Restoracell and sunscreen when driving. According to the Skin Cancer Foundation, while glass blocks UVB rays pretty well, it doesn't block UVA rays. Windshields are treated to shield drivers from some UVA, but side, back, and sunroof windows usually aren't. So when you're in your car, you should protect yourself and your family from the sunlight shining through the glass. (I keep sunscreen in my car for that purpose). 

The same holds for windows on airplanes, trains, and buses. Have you ever felt like you're burning up sitting on the sunny side by an airplane window? Yes, you're being bombarded by UVA up there, too, and maybe even more so because of being at a high altitude. (Airline pilots and crew members tend to get more skin cancer than people in other professions.) skincancer.org/blog

To give yourself the best protection and repair while enjoying time in the sun, apply Restoracell with copper peptides, then follow with a good, mineral-based sunscreen with SPF between 15 and 50. And, don't forget the shade, hats, sunglasses, and clothing are part of the protection.

Best practice

Summary: Heartbreak and loneliness have left Crowley marked in more ways than one. Aziraphale helps him see that this isn’t such a bad thing.

NOTES: I’ve always had a bit of a bittersweet fascination with aging (David Tennant’s crows’ feet make me emo in ways I cannot hope to describe), with the sadness but also the beauty inherent in it, and I thought it could be interesting to bring this idea to good omens. The concept was “what if Crowley started getting grey hairs after Aziraphale leaves, if, over time, his physical appearance subconsciously changed to reflect his mental state?” The fact that I wrote this as a 19 year old honestly just shows how much I need therapy, but it was honestly incredibly cathartic to work through some of my own mental struggles via Crowley in this fic. Aziraphale’s pov was equally fun to write, as I basically just got to write how he feels about Crowley based on what I feel about David (lol). Hope you enjoy my first Good Omens one shot- I may or may not make an A03 account if it gets enough engagement, I’m honestly pretty proud of it! Special thanks to my wonderful partner in crime @flyingfluse for providing some much needed inspiration!

PS: The title is actually from a song I wrote called Grow Old With Me (hopefully will be available someday fingers crossed)

——————

It had been a year.

Nothing to a demon, really. In the vast expanse of six thousand years on earth, not to mention the innumerable eons Before The Beginning, a year didn’t count for much more than a blip. But heartbreak is a funny thing. Time, for Crowley, now seemed to pass in a much more human fashion- the year that had elapsed since Aziraphale’s return to heaven, a year devoid of anything resembling laughter or joy, a year spent largely either sleeping or stewing in self-loathing, had seemed longer than the past hundred combined.

Crowley’s gaze blearily wandered to the rearview mirror of the Bentley. His reflection, as everything seemed to these days, mocked him.

Those sickly yellow eyes, reminding him of all he was and all that he could never be, like the sulfur he had been cast into all those millenia ago. On his worst days, it was like he could still feel it, eating away at him from the inside out, decaying his soul and with it, his body. It carved shadows into his cheeks and circles beneath his eyes, deep and dark as caverns. It rose in his throat until he choked on it, leaving his voice hoarse and acrid. It spewed out of him onto everything and everyone, every time he opened his mouth, an acidic bile of rage and bitterness.

He had been destroyed and rebuilt over and over through the millenia, and the product was a rough, hardened callus of a being, like a patch of skin that had been picked at too many times. He felt grotesque, untouchable, damaged- there would be no point to pursuing any new connections when no one would understand, nor why would they want to, when he seemed to turn everything he held to ashes? 

A ray of sunlight leaked through the window of the Bentley, catching upon Crowley’s hair, revealing it to be littered with strands of grey, collecting dust-like in his copper mane. How the mighty have fallen, he thought bitterly. Falling, always falling, like leaves in autumn, their color draining as their forms grow brittle and they become one with the earth. From dust they were made, and to dust, they shall return.

Perhaps in a year, he would be dust too. What would he care?

Demons didn’t naturally age, or so he had thought. But loneliness seemed to have made a mortal out of Crowley, centuries of it crashing down upon his corporation, wearing it to the bones, etching his torment into his skin. He could always just miracle any part of himself back to the way it was, reverse all this damned erosion… but what would it matter? Why even try to keep his hair from losing its color when all the color had drained from his life the second his angel had left it?

He felt so, so old.

A single, desperate sob escaped Crowley’s mouth, cracking out of him like splintering firewood.

As he weeped against the steering wheel, the Bentley switched on its radio in sympathy. 

I’ve walked too long in this lonely lane,

I’ve had enough of this same old game.

I’m a man of the world, they say that I’m strong,

But my heart is heavy and my hope is gone.

-----------------

    The demon lay curled in Aziraphale’s lap, clinging to his chest as a snake might in search of warmth. It clutched at Aziraphale’s soul to see Crowley this vulnerable, the swaggering and smirking stripped away to reveal a heart in desperate need of care and healing- a task Aziraphale considered his greatest duty and greatest pleasure, for he knew Crowley would do the same for him. 

    Aziraphale ran his fingers through Crowley’s hair, earning a deep sigh from his beloved, whose brows turned up in fragile, stirring comfort. He loved doing this, both to see how much his touch moved Crowley and because he simply loved his hair itself. Bold, striking, an instant head-turner, just like everything else about him. It was now the longest it had been since biblical times, falling in elegant waves past his shoulders. But oh, something else was different… it was streaked now with rivers of silver, gathering in deltas at his temples. It lit a familiar flame in Aziraphale’s chest; that bittersweet blend of desire and sympathy.

    “You’ve changed your hair, I see”, he said softly. 

     Crowley takes a labored swallow, strain and self consciousness seeping into his face. Whatever he says next, it’s clear that the admission is going to cost him.

     “When you left, I suppose I… let myself wither away.” His voice is lodged deep in his throat, thick and murky, leaking out of him like tar, a sound from the depths of his own personal hell. “Oh, Aziraphale…” he exhales, and it’s one of the most poignant Aziraphale has ever heard.  “I’m so tired. So worn down. So bloody ancient.”

      “So am I, my dear,” he says, trying to come across more soothing than concerned.

     “Yes, but you still shine in the same way you did all those millenia ago… still so bright, so soft.  I’m all tarnished and rusted up… I don’t know how you still want to touch me.”

     Aziraphale gazed down into Crowley’s eyes, piercing and pleading and fragile, like shattered stained glass. At his craggy, rough-hewn cheeks, all bones and edges he’d happily cut himself on to caress. At the deep, deep lines around his eyes, carved there by every grin and grimace and longing and ache. And oh, the silver in his hair… it suited him so, both rejecting and combining black and white with a color all his own. It wasn’t normal for immortal bodies, ethereal or occult, to bear the marks of time and experience as Crowley’s has. But then, Crowley was never an ordinary demon, or angel, was he? No, he was something far more exquisite. 

    “Oh, but I do… I  do…” Affection surges through Aziraphale as he kisses every crease and wrinkle, every scar and every glorious grey, every sign that his dear Crowley has lived. He feels Crowley’s hands winding through his hair in response and kisses those too, those eloquent, spindly fingers and calloused palms…

   “Crowley, my most cherished books… the covers are peeling, the pages are torn or yellowed with age… so why would you be any different?” His heart seizes up, his voice breaking a bit. “I have seen the fire and rain rage within you for so long, and I have seen the marks they have left upon you, and each one is precious to me. You know how I love to read… Why would I not want to see the story of my beloved written upon their face? My 

dear old serpent, my survivor…you don’t have to fight anymore…”

     He pulls Crowley tightly to his chest, drawing the tension from his shoulders and back before cupping the sides of his face as Crowley stares back, looking overwhelmed and old and so, so beautiful. “I want you exactly as you are. Rough and hard and frayed at the edges… you will never be too much of any of these things for me. In fact…” A slightly wicked twinkle forms in his eye as he smiles pointedly at Crowley: “They make you more tempting to me than ever.”

    Crowley processes this for a moment. “Well…” he croaks out, that hint of playful snark finding its way back into his throaty timbre, “I suppose there is something to be said for… shades of grey.” Aziraphale laughs, remembering the words he himself said to Crowley all those years ago, on the same night he realized just how much he adored him.

Summary: Heartbreak leaves Crowley marked in more ways than one. Aziraphale helps him to see that this isn’t such a bad thing.

The aging message is loud and clear in today’s world. The fact that we all grow older over the years has steered us away from an anti-aging approach to a pro-aging attitude in recent times. It makes a lot of sense in the long run. Let’s face it, trying to appear younger makes us look even older, whether by dressing in younger fashions, using teenage slang or having cosmetic surgery. No judgement…