When you reach your 40s, you’ve reached an inflection point. It’s the time of your life when you really start seeing the effects of aging on your skin. Whether from years of sun exposure or the laugh lines that no longer fade after you stop smiling, you’re noticing that your skin doesn’t look quite like it used to. But that’s no reason to worry, because you are still capable of having the best skin possible during this dynamic decade and beyond. With the right combination of powerful products and effective ingredients, you can both transform your skin to make it look better than it did ten years ago and prevent the further appearance of aging.

That’s because Dr. Schultz has spent decades understanding the skin, so now you can too. He’s taken his experience from over 180,000 patient visits and poured it into products that make taking care of your skin a no-brainer. So with a little bit of knowledge from Dr. Schultz and ingredients that deliver real results, you are well on your way to your best skin ever.

Average 40 Year Old Woman Face

What you may notice in the face of an average 40 year old woman are changes in both tone and texture. You may automatically think aging is all about wrinkles, but that’s typically just because they’re the easiest changes to recognize. In fact, tone and texture account for much more when it comes to the appearance of skin aging than wrinkles do. Dr. Schultz explains, “When people come into my office and say to me, ‘I need a pick-up,’ what they’re really saying is they’re unhappy with what they see in the mirror. Then they say ‘I need a Botox treatment,’ and I say ‘I can give you a Botox treatment but it’s not going to make you happy.’ And what I’m saying is, fixing lines and wrinkles alone will not solve the problem that you’re seeing in the mirror.”

As we alluded to above, you can understand why your skin is looking older by looking at these three categories: tones, textures, and contours. Everybody understands the contour issues like lines, wrinkles, and creases, but interestingly those only account for 5% of what you’re seeing in the mirror. The other 95% is the combination of tone and texture issues. Tone issues are discolorations like reds and browns in your skin’s complexion. The reds can be due to either broken capillaries or red blotches. The browns can be individual brown spots like age spots, liver spots, or even brown blotches on your face. And then we have the all important texture issues. Texture issues rob your skin of brightness and luster, causing it to be dull, matte, flakey, and large-pored. They also end up taking away from the smoothness of the skin.

Dr. Schultz uses this example of the relative importance of tone and texture issues as compared to lines: He says, “Think of a pilled, stained, wrinkled shirt, and then iron out the wrinkles. What are you left with? A pilled, stained shirt. So the next time you look in the mirror I think you’ll have a much better understanding of what you’re seeing, and you’ll realize it’s not just about wrinkles.”

Understanding Anti-Aging

As you age, dead cells begin to pile up on your skin’s surface to form mounds. These mounds are part of what create the tone, texture, and contour issues making your skin look older. The appearance of skin aging is largely due to the havoc wreaked by these mounds of dead skin cells on your skin. And the solution for this havoc? Exfoliation. You may be more familiar with physical exfoliation, but choosing a chemical exfoliant is definitely your best bet. Dr. Schultz explains, “Physical exfoliation works just like sandpaper by removing [dead skin cells] from the surface by rubbing. Chemical exfoliation works safely and effectively by gently dissolving the glue between the cells so that they fall off sooner.” When those mounds of cells fall off, they reveal your smoother (and therefore younger-looking) skin.

Best Skin Care Routine for 40s

The best skin care routine for your 40s consists of three simple products: exfoliants, antioxidants, and sunscreen. Exfoliants, as we mentioned above, will dissolve the glue holding the mounds of dead skin cells on your face which create uneven texture. Antioxidants will help to brighten your skin and even your tone, while also protecting against free radicals that might cause further damage. With those two products, you can reverse the signs of aging to achieve bright, smooth, firm skin. But if you also want to protect yourself from further damage, you must also use sunscreen to prevent overexposure to the sun. These three products should be the basis for every serious skincare routine.

Watch Dr. Schultz explain the best skin care routine for your 40s with these essential steps:

Best Skin Care Products for 40s

Your best skincare routine doesn’t have to be complicated. As we just explained, it only requires three products to start seeing the transformative effects you want. But if you’ve got that regimen down and want to add on even more time tested solutions for youthful-looking skin, make sure you’re using the best ingredients and products. Here are just a few you can add into your routine:

Best Night Cream for 40s

When adding on a night cream to your skincare routine in your 40s, you want something that will work overtime while you sleep. BeautyRx’s Ultra Hydrating Eye Repair Cream does just that—it’s packed with humectants and emollients to retain the moisture in your skin, and it’s enhanced with Pentabrite™️ and Tetrafoliant®, two BeautyRx proprietary compounds to help brighten and help decrease the appearance of fine lines.

Best Eye Cream for 40s

Just like your night cream, you want your eye cream to do more than just moisturize. In this case, the best eye cream for your 40s is BeautyRx’s Gentle Exfoliating Eye Cream. After a consumer study, 97% of participants said their face appeared overall more youthful. This eye cream is also enhanced with REGU®-AGE, which is an ingredient clinically proven to reduce under eye circles.

Best Moisturizer for 40s

The best moisturizer for your 40s should give you all day protection and hydration—and that’s just what BeautyRx’s Nourishing Moisture Cream does for you. It’s a rich, oil-free, non-greasy moisturizer appropriate for the driest to the oiliest skin. This moisturizer maximizes hydration with natural humectants, emollients, and other hydrophilic compounds, and it’s is packed with antioxidants like BeautyRx antioxidant complex Triantiox™️ to protect while hydrating.

Best Anti-Aging Skin Care Products for 40s

Not only do you want to be using the most effective products for your skin today, but to really achieve and maintain the skin you’ve always dreamed of, it’s important to think about preventing skin aging tomorrow. That’s why adding a few anti-aging superheroes to your routine will keep your tone and texture looking gorgeous, ward off further damage, and cause people to ask you “What’s your secret?” Here are our top picks for anti-aging products you should add to your skincare routine:

Best Anti-Aging Eye Cream for 40s

Some products are so effective, we’ll list them twice. For an eye cream that truly brings your best skin to the surface with its combination of hydrating and brightening, you can’t go wrong with BeautyRx’s Ultra Hydrating Eye Repair Cream. With these two major ingredients, this anti-aging eye cream delivers real results. Pentabrite™️ is our proprietary peptide compound to bring out your brightest-looking skin, and Tetrafoliant® is our specially formulated exfoliating complex to reduce the look of fine lines, even out your skin, and make your eyes look younger than ever.

Best Anti-Aging Serum for 40s

When choosing an anti-aging serum, make sure it’s award-winning. BeautyRx’s Triple Vitamin C Serum is the winner of Shape Magazine’s “Best Anti-Ager” and Total Beauty’s “Best Serum.” And that’s partly due to the fact that after a consumer study, 100% of participants said their skin looked smoother, brighter, softer, and more youthful. Dr. Schultz has formulated this serum to contain three of the most effective forms of vitamin C, so it absorbs three times faster and works three times better. This anti-aging serum has also been proven to reduce the appearance of hyperpigmentation and dark spots—leaving your skin soft, supple, radiant, and hydrated.

Best Anti-Aging Night Cream for 40s

You know by now that ingredients are everything. And BeautyRx’s Soothing Moisture Cream is packed with the right ones to combat the look of aging in your skin. Formulated with Hyaluronic Acid, Shea Butter, and Willowherb, it’s luxuriously hydrating and perfect for use after exfoliating to relieve stressed skin, as well as throughout the day. After a consumer study, 100% of participants said they saw instant results and showed more youthful-looking skin. Enhanced with BeautyRx antioxidant complex Triantiox™️, the Soothing Moisture Cream protects while it hydrates, and regular use of this oil-free moisturizer will help diminish the appearance of fine lines.

Your At-Home Regimen

When you’re finally getting serious about your skin care, it’s important you have serious products with serious ingredients. Gimmicks are cute, but results are what matter. To get the most out of your routine, start with three simple products: an exfoliant, an antioxidant, and sunscreen. With those three products as your basis, you’re going to notice firmer, brighter, more even toned skin, plus you’ll be protecting it from future damage. With the right ingredients and time tested products, transformative skin care has never been easier.