Fleaflyfloflum

I posted a thread in the Barbie yesterday about having some horrible tiny red veins that have appeared on my nose and cheeks in the last 6mths. I am adamant it is due to sun damage.
I do use sunscreen most of the time but admit there have been occasions i forgot to put it on if out shopping etc.
Has anyone else found their skin has deteriorated since being here? Also, i notice just how bad a lot of older Australian womens skin is!! They either seem to develop huge crater like wrinkles, or it looks like old leather handbags!!
Another reason to go home me thinks

birdynumnum

Morning Flea

Hope ur having a nice weekend

The sun damage is really visible in older women no doubt about it.
Hopefully going back we'll avoid becoming wrinkly ol prunes prematurely
I reckon my skins worse since being here despite sunblock/hat/age etc.

Mally Lass

I live in sunny olde Devon (not ! Supposed to be summer and non stop rain for a week ) and trust me there are 'leather faced Chav Grannies' here too, that all think they're Christina Aguelera (sp)

I look at it like this, the more wrinkles you have are proof that you have smiled a lot in your life

Fleaflyfloflum

Hello Birdy

I'm having a quiet weekend. I like it like that

Yes, thankfully i havemt got too many wrinkles as yet, but the overall condition of my skin is dreadful. Blotchy, dry and red in patches. I'm quite upset about it as i always had lovely skin in my younger days.
Hopefully it will get better when i go home. I shall need the little veins removed though.

Fleaflyfloflum

Hi Mally, yes i know what you mean, but truly the ratio of women here compared to UK is far far higher. The difference in Aussie sun compared to the UK is imeasurable. When you arrive you will understand what i mean. It really is fearsome.

birdynumnum

Bet it will improve. My brother told me after I'd been back home a while last time how much better my skin looked than it did in OZ.
Also, people here are usually really suprised when they find out my age, being less wrinkled compared to an Oz woman of the same age.
Mally Lass - I'm sure you'll really notice a difference, Fleas right. Even older wrinkles in UK ususally arent quite so deep & defined due to the lesser exposure to the harmful rays

Pollyana

My eczema has been far worse since I got here - its really not a good climate for skin care.
I tend to wear long sleeves and cover up as much as I can to protect against the sun and find it quite odd when elderly Aussie relatives, whose skin bears some resemblance to a prune, ask why I wear long sleeves. Very tempting to point out that I don't want to look like them in 20 years time. Really quite scary in some people, and I have visions of my 6 year old niece coming out in August and asking one of the ladies why she looks so wizened.

birdynumnum

Can just imagine the innocent comments of your neice being uttered
You know that area above your chest where if you wear v necks is exposed, those lines there are really pronounced on alot of people, scary mary. I've noticed them on me in a cetrain light - yuk.
I've an Oz friend who swears by the humidity as being best for her skin.
Fair skin isnt really designed for this climate is it.

saoghalbeag

Oh sun definitely affects skin and appears to speed up ageing process!!! I know an Aussie woman married to a Scottish guy who swears the reason they relocated back to Oz is that she was sick to death of looking 15 years older than all the women her age (she is in her 40s). I joke that as I grew up here (I'm in my 20s) I need to get back to Scotland ASAP to try and halt the old hag process, but tbh it's not really that funny! I knew a few women in their 30s in Scotland who looked 17...

I am really mad that the ageing affects of the sun weren't used more in advertising when I was growing up to encourage us to wear hats/protect our skin. Skin cancer etc just doesn't get through fast enough to teenagers, but showing them pics (akin to those on fag packets) of old hags who are really 26 and it's all a result of the sun...well, that would've kept my hat firmly on my head!! As it is, it's fashionable for teenage boys to wear hats, but girls nup. Yet I'd rather have looked like a dork as a kid (I did anyway!) than be getting wrinkles early and be nicknamed Aussie Hag when I go back to Scotland!! I am paranoid about my daughter catching a glimpse of sun and am more careful myself, but they say the majority of skin damage is done when you're a kid anyway

Also: when I moved from Oz to Scotland I noticed my skin/scalp/hair went through some weird changes - none good - for a while. I also had broken veins suddenly appear after about a year in Scotland (I was 22!!) in the sensitive area under my eyes. It cleared up after a few months back in Australia. I could only explain it by the extreme changes in climate. I'm sure somebody out there has written a book/thesis on it. I found my skin felt drier in Scotland - might've been wind factor though. My hair, after the first year, was infinitely better and actually darker and curlier, yippee!!!

The other weird thing we noticed was my daughter's father, who is Scottish, came to Oz for about 2 years, during which time his dark brown eyes became a really light amber and he got freckles. And I could spend 5 seconds in the sun and go brown, yet he could spend days and stay pale. Used to drive him mad. We have simliar skin tone/colouring otherwise (ie: when we were in Scotland). My daughter 'caught' ezcema from Alice Springs. Within a week of moving she was covered in scales - she'd never shown signs of it before. Took her back to Queensland over the Easter hols and it vanished (as did her persistent cough). Back to Alice and all the above returned. Thank goodness we're leaving soon...

saoghalbeag

Oh jaysus that neck/chest area!!! Stop! Stop!! I am absolutely terrified that even tho I cover up now, the damage has already been done by being subjected to an Aussie upbringing...and one day in the next few years (hey, 30 is not so far away...gulp!) I'm going to roll out of bed, look into the mirror and see this shrivelled up face and wizened skin...squeal, squeal!!

birdynumnum

A good chum of mine is 32, she doesnt bother with sun block really or hats etc. I've noticed over the past few months the start of the lines. Shes fine with it though, says it doesnt worry her. I tell it will when she looks like a wrinkly b4 her time

TraceyW

I think some Ozzie womens skin is terribly old looking and haggared.

The other thing I've noticed here is the people with funny white lumps in the whites of their eyes. I have an Aussie uni friend who has it and says it's sun damage Yuck.

saoghalbeag

What the hell????????? Lumpy what in what???? Argh! Argh! Argh! My eyes hurt, maybe it's starting...oh no! No, no, no!!

Del Boy

pterygiums. Very common in australians and very very very common in watersport enthusiasts, eg surfers out there.

Mally Lass

I've already lived in Aus

Those little red veins are also caused by wind impact and the cold................

So Sun v Cold tought decision