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Drinking Mirror App Shows Us What Alcohol Does To Our Skin (PHOTOS)

slimvictor

slimvictor

Bluelight Crew
Joined
Dec 29, 2008
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This Fourth of July holiday, we planned to kick back with our friends and sip on lots of patriotic cocktails. That is, until our deputy managing editor Elyse shared an app that shows us what alcohol does to our skin. (Thanks Elyse!)

Drinking Mirror is a mobile app that illustrates how alcohol consumption can really speed up the aging process. Released earlier this year as part of the Scottish government's Drop a Glass Size campaign, the app allows users to upload or take a photo of themselves, enter their weekly boozing habits and see what they could look like in ten years. And the results are just as scary as this image of a truck driver with sun damage on the left side of his face. We're talking forehead wrinkles, bloodshot eyes and saggy jowls.

The photos that result may be slight exaggerations. But we have to give the Scottish government props for holding a mirror up to the issue of heavy drinking among women in an effort to reduce alcohol-related diseases and deaths.

The connection between health and alcohol hasn't always been clear, especially with studies showing that moderate drinking may be linked with better overall health. Cosmetic dermatologist Dr. Oscar Hevia explains that alcohol consumption has very little to do with broken capillaries. "The sun is much more of a culprit for that than alcohol is," he said. But there's no denying that drinking causes dehydration and makes our skin look tired and unhealthy. To combat this, Dr. Rebecca Baxt recommends consuming one glass of water per alcoholic drink to keep our skin hydrated. (Easier said than done, we know.)

Check out our before and after photos below, then head over to the Drinking Mirror app site to try it yourself.

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cont at
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/02/drinking-mirror-app-photos_n_3529494.html
 
Always wondered why I had such deep wrinkles at the ripe age of 21, ah well. :p
 
Small sample size, but it is true that the first woman looks almost identical, while the other people look kinda fucked up on the right side.
 
When I would binge drink daily, or still drank alcohol in large amounts on the weekend I took care of my skin. Also keep in mind that many women do not age as well as men do.
 
These pictures are one very good reason why people shouldn't drink alcohol-it damages their skin and it makes people look much older than they are.
 
I would think that there are countless more reasons than appearance not to drink alcohol...
 
Psychedelic Jay said:
I would think that there are countless more reasons than appearance not to drink alcohol...
Click to expand...

Yes. Alcohol damages the physical health. People should try to stay healthy-and they should stay away from anything that may harm their physical health-alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, etc.
 
Elven Warriorr said:
Yes. Alcohol damages the physical health. People should try to stay healthy-and they should stay away from anything that may harm their physical health-alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, etc.
Click to expand...

Just a pet peeve of mine, but do you realize that, but listing 3 categories of alcohol, cigs, and "drugs", you are supporting the drug war propaganda that says that, somehow, alcohol and cigs are not drugs? It makes sense to be careful of this, because this is exactly the type of thing we are trying to work against.
 
slimvictor said:
Just a pet peeve of mine, but do you realize that, but listing 3 categories of alcohol, cigs, and "drugs", you are supporting the drug war propaganda that says that, somehow, alcohol and cigs are not drugs? It makes sense to be careful of this, because this is exactly the type of thing we are trying to work against.
Click to expand...

I feel the same way.
 
tl;dr version: Light alcohol use is probably low risk to you overall, but not to your skin.

At this point I've settled on the minority opinion that alcohol generally does more harm than good to the body as a whole, in any amount. As a tolerated and legal intoxicant that most people find enjoyable, it probably has a net positive benefit on the mental health of people who don't drink so much of it that their mental health suffers secondarily to noticeably diminished physical health and/or isolation from socially inappropriate drunkenness. I believe the life expectancy gap between moderate drinkers and nondrinkers can be mostly be attributed to this psychosocial benefit.

I'm struck by the fact that people who can afford the money and the micro-insults to many of their body's tissues of a lifestyle involving small frequent doses of alcohol tend to be people with the genes and the environment ideal for living long and well. Conversely, a lot of the people who don't drink at all don't have the money, time, or physical health to afford it, and will die younger because their lives are just harder, not because they don't drink.

With this in mind, I'll grant that ethanol's effect profile is very complicated, with degrees of benefit or harm varying widely depending on the type of cell or pathway. The overall net harm to your whole body from a lightly wet lifestyle might be relatively mild, as far as long-term low-level pollutant exposures are concerned. Regardless, I think it's fair to say that certain body tissues are at risk for damage that isn't mild or easy to repair, from levels of alcohol consumption generally considered "moderate". I have a hunch collagen (read: skin) is one of them. If I had a patient whose skin quality was of utmost importance to them, and wouldn't see their social life suffer as a result, I'd recommend they avoid alcohol. A lot of people who prioritize their muscular prowess have come to the same conclusion.

I bet if you looked at a population where alcohol plays no key role in the traditional social culture, you'd find nondrinkers lived longer and had more years of quality life, on average, than drinkers who drank 14 or fewer drinks a week.

Elven Warriorr, you're trolling, but you do raise a valid point, which is one of BL's founding principles: all drug use carries the risk for harm. In choosing to be responsible adult drug users (including tobacco, alcohol, caffeine, and medical therapies), we assume those risks in search of the promised benefits, and we owe it to ourselves to be informed and realistic about these risks before taking them. These odds vary a lot depending on who you are, and what drug we're talking. There are lot of people, probably a majority, who can take small frequent amounts of alcohol for many years with no subjective decline in their quality of life. As many folks here know, I feel much the opposite about heroin. But I think this is the root of why the former is widely tolerated and the latter is not.
 
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