What will happen to my face when I age?

CREDIT: HBO
It’s been 17 years since we last saw Jennifer Aniston, Courteney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry, and David Schwimmer on screen together. The much-loved stars bid farewell to one of the most popular sitcoms in TV history back in 2004, but when they recently reunited for the upcoming one-off Friends TV special, fans were stunned to see they had barely aged over the last two decades. Even though there are speculations on the treatments some of them have opted for to the stars admitting on the same, as aesthetic practitioners we can advise, guide and help with various invasive and non-invasive procedures to reverse the signs of aging. But before we suggest solutions, let us first take a step back and closely observe what happens to our face when we age.

What Happens to My Face When I Age? 

Aging of human face is a complex process and is not limited to just the skin. It’s a three-dimensional process affecting skin, fat, muscle and bone. Research into this field of medicine is now starting to mature and we are able to predict and understand how we age. Our face can start aging as early as 20, differs from person to person. How fast your face ages will also depend on the individual.

What causes my face to age? 

Loss of Collagen: 

Collagen’s strong fibre works like glue, it holds things together in your body, it is what keeps our skin from sagging, giving us that plump, youthful look. But as we grow older, our body produces a lesser amount of collagen, and the speed of producing it will be much slower too. The loss of collagen causes your skin to become thinner and less elastic which leads to saggy, droopy skin and wrinkles formation. 

Gravity: 

As has been said, we will lose collagen in the deep tissues of our face when we age, along with that, gravity stretches and looseness in supporting ligaments of the face. Therefore, the skin around the forehead, eyebrow and cheeks droop and sag. 

Loss of Volume: 

You may think how babies have the cutest and chubbiest cheeks. It is because when we are young, the fats that are located below the skin’s surface are evenly distributed. However as we age, the fats will get thinner and descend. The fats lose volume and shift downwards, hence the skin that was smooth and firm will sag. 

Other than the loss of fats, our bones will also have some changes as we age. You may be facing facial bone loss, which will affect the dimension and contour of your face.

What can I do about my aging face? 

Even if you have great genes and look much younger than you are, age-related changes in our facial appearance are unavoidable. Those changes reflect our joys and challenges in life. One approach is to simply celebrate our age and appearance for what they are. Not everyone is comfortable with that, and some might like to postpone embracing those changes.

Facelift 

The age-defying facelift, which surgically removes excess tissue and lifts sagging skin in the lower part of the face, is one way to try to stem the tides of time. Facelifts have improved, so the results tend to look more natural. But the surgery is expensive, and other procedures may be needed to achieve the desired results. The facelift procedure is just one of the more popular cosmetic procedures; there are plenty of alternatives for altering the aging face. 

Here is just a sample of some of the things that you can do — or get done — to give your face a more youthful appearance: 

Sun protection 

Protecting your face from the sun is the single best way of keeping it youthful. Much of the damage comes from the UVA part of the light spectrum, so you need to put on sunscreen that protects against it and UVB light, which causes sunburn. Wearing a wide-brimmed hat is also a good idea. 

Creams and lotions 

Moisturizers soothe dry skin and may temporarily make wrinkles less noticeable. Moisturizers for the face contain water to make them less greasy, and many have substances — glycerin, for example — that may help bind water to the skin. Exfoliant creams can improve the appearance of older skin by getting rid of dead skin cells that don't slough off as readily as they did when we were young. Several prescription creams (Avita, Avage, Renova, Retin-A) have been shown to reduce wrinkles and so-called liver spots caused by sun exposure. These FDA-approved creams contain retinoids, compounds related to vitamin A that seem to work by inducing collagen production in the dermis and altering melanin, the pigment that causes liver spots. There are several varieties of retinoids. Tazarotene and tretinoin are two of the ones used in the FDA-approved products. 

Change of Lifestyle: 

Lifestyle choices affect your skin. There are few factors that could cause loss of collagen: 

● Smoking 

● Exposure to UV rays 

● Caffeine 

● Stress 

● Consuming too much sugar 

All the factors that have been stated above may actually break down the collagen fibres. As a result, collagen will start to thin out, leading to wrinkly and saggy skin.

It is never too late to make some changes in your lifestyle to help promote collagen stimulation. There are lots of foods that have very rich nutrients like omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin A, such as: 

● Mackerel 

● Salmon 

● Seabass 

● Oysters 

● Seaweed and algae 

● Chia seeds 

● Hemp seeds 

● Bell peppers 

● Berries 

● Tropical fruits 

● Beans 

● Leafy greens 

● Citrus 

These nutrients are very helpful and effective in boosting the production of collagen in our body. Just simply add a few of these foods above into your daily diet and you will be having a natural collagen production. 

Stop Smoking: 

Smoking greatly speeds up aging of skin. It causes wrinkles and a dull, sallow complexion. 

Botulinum toxin injections 

These injections are used to treat the expression lines of the forehead and between the brows. They work by partially immobilizing the muscles that form expression lines so the skin smoothes out, although some deep expression lines may not go away. Botox is the familiar brand name. Other FDA-approved botulinum toxins are Myobloc and Dysport.

Dermal fillers 

Dermal fillers are used to treat lines created by lost collagen and fat. After botulinum toxin injections, dermal filler injections are the most common cosmetic procedure performed in the United States. Prime locations for the injections are two sets of parentheses: the pair of lines that extend down from the nose to the corners of the mouth, known as the nasolabial folds, and another pair that extends down from the corners of the mouth to the chin, known as marionette lines. 

Many different materials are used as dermal filler. Collagen has fallen out of favor. Currently, the most popular one is hyaluronic acid, a complex sugar found naturally in many tissues. Hyaluronic acid is more expensive than collagen but lasts longer—up to six months in the nasolabial folds. Like botulinum toxin injections, the effect of the dermal filler shots wears off after several months — how long depends on the injection site—but with repeat injections it seems to last a little longer. 

Laser treatments 

Lasers can be used to home in on certain pigments: brown, if the goal is to get rid of freckles and liver spots, red if the target is broken capillaries. They're also used for wholesale resurfacing of facial skin. The uppermost layers are stripped away, and with them, wrinkles from sun damage and scars from acne. The energy from some "nonablative" resurfacing lasers passes through the outer layer of the skin to work at a deeper level, in the dermis, to stimulate inflammation, which leads to collagen formation. 

Skin needs time to recover after most laser treatments. It can take a couple of weeks to heal, depending on the type and extent of the treatment. The nonablative treatments tend to heal a bit faster

For more treatment details, visit https://davinciclinic.com.my/services/facelift-face-contouring/