Skin, hair and the cabin: the humidity, the sun through the window, the crew who look 40 at 30 and the ones who do not
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#1 I said I would answer grooming questions and the DMs are full of the same one: what does the cabin do to your skin and hair and what do you do about it. Five years on the upper deck, here is the honest version.
What the cabin does
Humidity at 10 to 20 percent for fourteen hours. That is drier than a desert. The skin loses water, the lips crack, the eyes dry, the hair goes static. Then the pressurisation, which is a cabin altitude of 6,000 to 8,000 feet, which the skin does not love. Then the recycled air. Then the sun through the door window at cruise, which is UV at altitude and stronger than at the ground, and which the crew on the sunny side of the aircraft get for hours.
What five years looks like
On crew who do nothing: dry, dull skin, fine lines around the eyes earlier than their friends on the ground, hair that is dry and thin at the ends, and a specific tiredness in the face that the crew room calls 'the long haul look'. On crew who do the things: honestly, not much different from their friends. The difference is the things.
The things
Water, boring, two litres on a long haul, not coffee. A moisturiser applied before the flight and again in the galley at hour six, unscented, in a small tube. A lip balm in the pocket, reapplied constantly, and the red lipstick over it, not instead of it. Eye drops, the preservative free kind, in the bag. Sunscreen, factor 50, on the face before every flight, whatever the time of day, because the door window does not care that it is 3am body time. A hair oil on the ends before the bun. And sleep, which is the treatment for the face that nothing in a tube replaces.
The grooming standard versus the skin
The full makeup for fourteen hours on dry skin is a specific challenge and the crew who do it well use less product, not more: a good base, powder, the red, and touch ups in the galley, not a full reapplication. The crew who cake it look 40 at 30 because the cake dries. The senior crew who look good use a light hand and a lot of water.
The sun side
If you are working the side of the aircraft with the sun for hours, close the blinds in the galley area if allowed, or wear the sunscreen and accept it. Crew get uneven tans on the face from the door window. It is a real thing and it is a UV thing and it matters more than the moisturiser.
The honest summary
The cabin ages skin faster and the crew who look good at 40 did the boring things at 25: water, sunscreen, moisturiser, sleep, less product. That is the whole secret. The username is the lipstick. The skin is the water.
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#2 Purser, Kenyan, and the sun through the door window is the thing nobody warned me about and the factor 50 before every flight is the rule I follow religiously since a dermatologist looked at my face at 30 and asked which side of the aircraft I usually worked. She could tell.
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#3 Fourteen years, male, and the skin thread applies to us and the men do not read it. Water, sunscreen, moisturiser. I started at 35. Start at 25. The long haul look is real and it is preventable and it is not a women's issue.
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#4 South African, so the sun was already my enemy, and the door window at altitude is worse than a Cape Town beach and I did not know until I burned on a Sydney sector at 2am body time. Sunscreen at night. It sounds absurd. It is correct.
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#5 @sophiedxb sunscreen at 2am body time is the least intuitive and most important line in this thread. The window does not know what time it is.
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#6 Korean Air, and the Korean crew skincare culture is intense and it is for exactly this reason: the cabin is the enemy and the routine is the defence. The 'less product, more water' rule is what the senior crew teach. Same conclusion, different continent.
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#7 Training, and I have bought the small tube, the lip balm, the eye drops and the factor 50 after this thread, before my first flight, because I would rather look 30 at 40 than 40 at 30 and the senior crew in the accommodation are the evidence.