Why Men Have Better Skin Than Women, According to a Dermatologist

I have been taking skincare seriously since I was a teenager. Cleansers, serums, sunscreens, and each one well-researched, repeated, and religiously applied. My brother, meanwhile, has spent most of that time doing the bare minimum, borrowing my products when he remembered, going weeks without skincare, and treating "routine" as a loose suggestion rather than a rule.

We grew up eating more or less the same meals, in the same house, under the same sun. And yet his skin has turned out smoother, clearer, and more even than mine; practically glass-like, with none of the effort I have put in for over a decade. It's the kind of thing that makes you want an actual, scientific answer rather than just shrugging it off as "genetics." So I went looking for one, and spoke to a dermatologist to research what's really driving the gap between male and female skin, and whether sheer consistency (or the lack of it) matters as much as we think.

The Biology Is Real

Dr Bindu Sthalekar, Founder and Medical Director of Skin Smart Solutions

To make sense of it, I spoke with celebrity dermatologist and cosmetologist Dr Bindu Sthalekar, Founder and Medical Director of Skin Smart Solutions. The first thing she confirmed was, frustratingly, exactly what I suspected — men's skin genuinely does have a structural head start. Testosterone gives men naturally thicker skin with a higher collagen density, which keeps it firmer for longer. Women, on the other hand, rely heavily on oestrogen, and when that drops with age — particularly post-menopause— collagen loss speeds up dramatically.

The numbers clearly point to it. In the first five years after menopause, women can lose up to 30% of their skin's collagen, leading to thinning, dryness, reduced elasticity, and deeper wrinkles. It's not damage in the clinical sense, Dr Sthalekar is careful to note, but a natural biological shift, one that makes maintaining skin health for women a steeper climb than it ever is for men. It's worth sitting with that for a moment. This isn't a lifestyle gap or a discipline gap. It's hormonal architecture, set from the start, playing out differently across a lifetime.

It's Hormonal!

If men's skin gets a one-time hormonal advantage, women's skin is in a constant negotiation with its hormones. Periods, pregnancy, and menopause: each stage brings its own skin woes, from acne to pigmentation, dryness, and shifts in firmness. In comparison, men need not worry about any of these constant changes. This is perhaps the most overlooked part of the "men have it easier" conversation. We tend to talk about skincare as a matter of products and discipline, when really, women's skin is doing hormonal gymnastics in the background that no beauty product can fully offset.

The Accidental Skincare Hack: Shaving

Here's where it gets almost funny. One of the simplest explanations for men's smoother-looking skin has nothing to do with biology at all — it's a daily habit most men don't even think of as skincare: shaving. Yes, regular shaving works as a mild form of physical exfoliation, sloughing off dead skin cells and leaving the surface looking smoother and brighter. It's essentially free, daily microdermabrasion that men perform without realising its cosmetic benefit.

But shaving can just as easily irritate skin, disrupt the barrier, or cause ingrown hairs if done carelessly. The advantage only holds when it's paired with proper cleansing, moisturising, and SPF.

What the Research Actually Says About Sunscreen

This is where my brother's luck starts to look less like luck and more like a ticking clock — because the one variable that consistently outperforms almost everything else in the research isn't genetics, diet, or gender. It's sunscreen.

The landmark Nambour trial, a long-running Australian study, found that participants who wore sunscreen daily showed 24% less skin ageing over 4.5 years than those who applied it only occasionally, regardless of age. A separate review covering over sixty studies on photoageing reached the same conclusion: consistent, broad-spectrum SPF use doesn't just prevent future damage, it can partially reverse existing signs of ageing, with visible improvements in wrinkles, pigmentation, and texture showing up in as little as eight weeks of regular use.

The keyword in nearly every one of these studies is consistent — not occasional, not "when I remember," not "only on beach days." My brother, for what it's worth, has never worn sunscreen with anything resembling consistency, and at the moment, his twenties are covering for him. The research is fairly blunt about what happens when that grace period runs out: UV damage is cumulative, and it doesn't announce itself until well after the fact.

My Friends Have Just Discovered Skincare. They're Still Not Consistent.

It's not just my brother. A few of my male friends have recently started taking skincare more seriously, largely because of social media rather than any dermatologist's advice. Suddenly there's interest in double cleansing, niacinamide, the occasional sheet mask. It's progress, in theory. But ask any of them how often they actually stick to it, and the honest answer is: rarely.

It's skincare as an occasional event rather than a habit something done the night before a big day out, not a daily non-negotiable. Which, per the research above, is more or less the difference between a routine that protects your skin over decades and one that does very little at all. It's a useful reminder that men aren't immune to inconsistency either; they've simply had a longer biological runway before it starts to show.

Is Women's Skincare Working Against Them?

This is where the conversation takes an uncomfortable turn for the beauty industry. If men are getting by on minimal effort, could women's elaborate routines actually be backfiring?

According to Dr Sthalekar, the answer is an unambiguous yes. One of the most common issues she sees in practice is "people layering retinol, exfoliating acids, and vitamin C without proper guidance, convinced that more products equals better skin. The result is a compromised skin barrier leading to dryness, sensitivity, inflammation, and ironically, more acne and pigmentation, not less."

It's a quietly damning verdict on an industry that has spent decades selling women the idea that good skin requires an arsenal. Healthy skin, Dr Sthalekar says plainly, "isn't about how many products you use; it's about using the right ones, the right way." For anyone overwhelmed by their own routine, her advice is simple — "a dermatologist-guided regimen will do more for your skin barrier than another haul from Sephora ever will."

So Is It Real, or Just a Beauty Myth?

Here's the twist, though: even the biology doesn't tell the whole story. Dr Sthalekar is candid that the "men have better skin" narrative is part fact, part fiction. "Yes, men have structural advantages—thicker skin, more collagen— but they're also more prone to excessive oil production, enlarged pores, acne, and, critically, they tend to delay seeking medical help for skin concerns far longer than women do. Women, by contrast, tend to notice changes in their skin earlier and act on them sooner. S" elaborates the dermatologist. So, while men may have a genetic head start, much of their reputation for "effortless skin" is exactly that, a reputation, somewhat inflated by the fact that nobody's holding men to the same scrutiny women face under filtered lighting and high-definition cameras.

If you're wondering at what point this all becomes visible, Dr Sthalekar points to the 45-to-50 age bracket as the real turning point, particularly around menopause, when oestrogen's protective effects decline rapidly, and collagen breakdown accelerates. "Men, meanwhile, experience a more gradual decline, which is why their skin appears to "hold up" for longer in those middle years." But that gradual decline doesn't mean immunity. Because so many men neglect sun protection and preventive skincare altogether, they often end up with deeper wrinkles, uneven pigmentation, and significant sun damage later in life. Dr Sthalekar's closing thought is the most quietly satisfying line of the entire conversation, "Ageing eventually catches up with both genders. Some sooner, some later, but nobody actually escapes it."

The Real Takeaway

So why does my brother's skin look better than mine, despite a decade of effort on my end and barely any on his? Partly biology. Testosterone gave him a structural head start I never had. Age Matters: he's still young enough that inconsistent sunscreen hasn't caught up with him yet. And partly perception: I notice my own skin's flaws under far closer scrutiny than anyone is applying to his.

What isn't true —according to every dermatologist and every study I could find— is that skincare doesn't matter. If anything, the research suggests the opposite: that the gap between us is temporary, not permanent and that somewhere down the line, his lack of sunscreen and my decade of discipline will start telling a very different story. Until then, I suppose I'll keep doing my nine steps. And he'll keep being smug about doing none.