Blue light (also referred to as High Energy Visible or HEV light) poses potential skin harm via free radical generation, Dr Williams explains, “as blue light has been shown in studies to induce oxidative stress in live skin”. This can contribute to skin ageing, like exposure to UVA (long known to age our skin prematurely), however – as Dr Williams points out – “blue light has the ability to penetrate deeper into the skin compared with both UVA and UVB light”. In fact, she notes, “blue light can penetrate all the way to our dermis, where our collagen and elastin live”. Read: loss of firmness and an increase in visible lines as a result.
How Blue Light Impacts Skin?
“We are now seeing increasing data on the potential long-term harms of visible light, and in particular blue light, on our skin,” according to dermatologist .It comes as we’re increasingly attached to our digital devices, swiftly being labelled the silent agers of our generation.
By a famous magazine the sources says that a person check their phones an average of 200 times a day, and a 2021 report finding most people, on average, spend three hours and 30 minutes on our phones a day, with the top 20 per cent of smartphone users having daily screen time in excess of five and a half hours, we’re getting significantly more blue light exposure than we used to from the sun alone.
Emerging research reveals that blue light can cause oxidative damage, which may accelerate cellular aging (Source: Blue Light Induces Mitochondrial DNA damage & free radical production in epithelial cells). Blue light exposure also creates free radicals while decreasing antioxidants in skin. Blue light can increase inflammation and slow skin barrier recovery .
How to protect your skin from blue light damage:
Clearly one needs to take an indoor and outdoor approach given that both sunlight and our digital devices emit blue light.
Before you tweak your skincare regime (which we'll get on to), address your tech and cover your phones and computers with a blue light shield. It’s a cheap fix and eliminates the need to worry about skincare or sunglasses when using your phone or tablet. Some smartphones have a setting that disables blue light in favour of yellow light (often called 'night mode' or 'nightshift'), which makes it easier on your eyes and on your skin. If your phone has this feature, use it all the time as a great anti-ageing and eye-saving method.
For more information you may contact to KEMPS Skin Clinic Vaishali, sec-4, Ghaziabad.