If you think wrinkles are beautiful and you’re happy to get them, then click back on this page, it’s not for you. For the rest of you, here are the 3 main causes of wrinkles and what you can do to prevent them.
#1 Most Common Cause of Wrinkles: Frequent facial expressions
This is the most obvious one, if you’re constantly making facial expressions such as squinting, raising your eyebrows, etc, you are folding your skin hundreds of times per day. Your skin being folded a couple of times per day is no big deal and it will recover just fine, but a couple hundred times per day over a timespan of weeks and months will eventually result in the formation of fine lines. The fine lines will turn into deep wrinkles over time if you don’t do anything to stop them.
The most common fix to this problem is using botox in the muscles which you tend to overuse. Although to some this may seem extreme, Botox is actually very mild and poses almost no risk if injected by a qualified practitioner. All Botox does is reduce your ability to move a muscle, it does not paralyze the muscle unless a high dose is used. The benefit of this is that lower dosages can be used to weaken the muscles, allowing you to still show natural facial expressions while reducing the rate at which you get wrinkles. But be careful, if you completely paralyze the muscle you will end up with a completely plastic looking face unable to show emotion.
Even with Botox, you will need a good facial moisturizer. In the future, I will be making a post on which ingredients you should look for in moisturizers for the best anti ageing results. For now just know, that the more hydrated you keep your skin the less likely it is you will develop wrinkles of fine lines.
#2 Most Common Cause of Wrinkles: Reduction of collagen synthesis
As you age, your skin will produce less and less collagen. Collagen is whats largely responsible for tight, youthful, and elastic skin. However, as less of it starts being produced, your skin starts to look more leathery, less youthful, and has less of an ability to recover from folding. Think back to when you were a kid, did you ever get forehead lines from raising your eyebrows? Obviously, the answer is No! Because your skin was so collagen rich that no folds were able to form.
But there is something you can do about this! Retinol-A is a topical drug that is prescribed to treat ageing skin and is one of the few drugs that will effectively increase collagen. It works by increasing your skin turnover rate meaning your surface skin layers will always be fresher. Not only that, but its also shown to increase the thickness of your dermis which will also play a huge part in how prone you are to getting wrinkles. With these 3 effects combined, it’s no wonder why its so popular among celebrities.
But there is caution you need to take when using Retinol-A. A good sunscreen/moisturizer is absolutely essential as it makes your skin more sensitive to UV radiation, and also you need to start slow. Some people jump right in and apply it every day. If you do this you WILL end up with red sunburnt looking skin all over your face and it will not be fun. Start slow, apply around 2x a week for 2-3 weeks and gradually increase the frequency from there. Obviously, this should be discussed more in depth with your dermatologist.
#3 Most Common Cause for Wrinkles: Sagging fat deposits
Another side effect of ageing is your facial fat pads begin to shrink and sink lower on your face. Once they have fallen down on your face they can cause your skin to fold in ways it did not before. The most common example of this are folds around your mouth called nasolabial folds. As the fat of your cheeks begins to sag it causes the skin from your nose and around your lips to fold over itself slightly. This permanent form of skin folding can cause deep wrinkles to be formed over time that will be very difficult to reverse.
There a few things you can do to prevent these wrinkles/sagging skin fodling over itself. Its mostly dependent on which area you have this problem. The main methods are going to be fillers, surgically tightening the skin (this includes facelifts), or fat grafting.
Why do some people get wrinkles faster?
The main reason to this is some people, for whatever reason, have stronger facial muscles than others. Just to give you an example, there are people who have significantly stronger forehead muscles than the average person. When they raise their eyebrows, their frontalis muscle contracts so hard that very deep skin folds form while others raise their eyebrows and hardly fold the skin at all. This condition is also common with the area between the brows. If this is you, a slight amount of botox can relax the muscle, allowing for normal facial expressions while at the same time slowing the rate at which wrinkles are formed.
Well, that’s all for now! If you have any questions leave them in the comments and I’ll be sure to get back to them.