Understanding Aging
What happens to our faces during the aging process?
As we age, our faces and our skin undergo a number of changes. By understanding these changes, we can get a better sense of what we can control, what we can’t, and what we, at Violet Hour Skin, can improve and what we simply cannot. In our next blog, we’ll be discussing the Pro Aging Movement and how understanding these changes can help us to continue to love our faces and accept the changes that will happen over time.
Aging can be broken down into 3 categories of factors:
Intrinsic factors
This is the rate of aging that would naturally happen with time given your genetics. It’s the same for everyone in that you cannot slow down time BUT because we are all different genetically, it can vary drastically for individuals. These are the aging factors that we have no control over.
Extrinsic factors
These factors speed up the aging process. The big culprits include but are not limited to sun exposure, smoking, drinking and drug use, illness, pollution, poor diet, stress, poor sleep, and inflammation. These are the aging factors that we can control.
We see the aging process all over our bodies and this includes our brain function too but in this post, I’m going to be focusing on skin, fat, muscle, and bone tissues to try to give you a realistic idea of the changes that occur physically as we age.
Skin & Fat
The components of skin that change, as we age, are:
Lipid Levels decline - this affects barrier function
Hydration levels decline - dehydrated skin is usually the result of low lipid levels (see above)
The epidermal/dermal junction flattens out - this makes the epidermis more fragile, think shock absorption
Collagen Density declines - collagen is what keeps our skin looking plump and bouncy
Elastin levels decline - this is the snap back, think of when the elastic “goes” in your socks or pants
Fat tissue (subcutaneous) declines - this causes it to thin and separate, then loss of collagen & elastin then allows the skin to sag with the weight of the fat.
So while we don’t have much control over the intrinsic factors when it comes to aging, when it comes to the extrinsic, we can.
To help you to understand why those extrinsic factors are speeding up your rate of “aging”, I’m going to talk you through the steps, it’s like a domino run - the cause creates a cascade of damage from the surface, right the way down to the bottom.
The 3 main layers of the skin are
The Epidermis - this is the arena of the Aesthetician and so it’s the one that you hear me talking about the most. It’s here that we see texture, secretions, and pigmentation.
The Dermis - this is the structural layer of your skin where the collagen and elastin live. It’s here that we see bounce and plumpness.
The Hypodermis - this is the subcutaneous fat layer that is part of your skin. Subcutaneous fat is not a continuous layer but instead organized in compartments, that’s important to know for later on. It’s here that we do the majority of heat regulation with insulation and sweat.
I'm going to use sun exposure as an example to explain how your intrinsic rate of aging is accelerated by the extrinsic factors.
When our skin is exposed to the sun, we can see some damage caused by the UVB - our skin gets red, commonly called a sunburn. What we don’t see now but totally do later, is the cellular damage caused by not only the Burning, UVB rays but also by the Aging, UVA rays.
In Your Epidermis: Sun exposure produces free radicals, it’s these that are putting oxidative stress on your skin cells; this makes your immune cells jump into action and produce inflammatory cytokines (to try to protect you) but this also stimulates Reactive Oxygen Species or ROS to be created which in turn damages lipids, protein, and DNA. It’s this domino effect that, when it affects your mother (basel) cells, the ones that produce the baby cells, that the premature aging occurs because once the DNA is damaged, the cells that are produced are like little clones of the mother cells and are therefore produced in this damaged state meaning that they cannot perform to their best ability and be the juicy, bouncy, healthy cells they need to be to protect you.
So to break it down… extrinsic factors can produce free radicals which cause oxidative stress which causes inflammation and cellular damage which leads to cells being “born” at a poorer quality and therefore unable to do their jobs as effectively as possible.
This is what’s happening in your epidermis where you’ll see inflammation, barrier issues, textural issues, and hyperpigmentation from this process but the sun’s rays are also working deeper down into the dermis - this is the layer that maintains the structure of your skin, it’s where the collagen and elastin live.
In Your Dermis: Damage in this area causes certain enzymes to inhibit the formation of good quality collagen so you lose skin density and volume, it also breaks down both collagen AND elastin so your skin gradually loses its ability to bounce back as well. This results in wrinkle formation, thin, sagging skin with a leathery appearance.
In Your Hypodermis: In this layer, sun damage accelerates the aging process. Remember that the fat in this layer is in compartments, you see this in the different areas of your face, cheeks are fuller than the forehead. These fat pads lose volume and collagen (yes it’s here too), it also gets redistributed to other “compartments. Not all of these compartments contain the same distribution, size, strength, or structure which is why certain areas will tend to sag more.
So just in your skin alone, we have the impact of those extrinsic factors causing barrier and textural issues, redness and inflammation, hyperpigmentation, loss of lipids and water (read - dry and dehydrated skin) then we have poor skin volume and bounce and finally flattening and sag.
Remember that this is the accelerated rate of decline already in place by time and genetic factors. This will happen over time, our aim is to slow that progression as much as possible.
Muscle
Unlike the rest of your body, what makes your facial muscles so special and such a huge factor in the visible aging process is that they are not connected and attached to the bone. Many of your facial muscles are connected to the skin and other muscles so their fullness, strength, and health directly impact your facial structure.
It’s no secret that I’m not a huge fan of neurotoxins such as Botox and Dysport and it’s because the muscles of your face are what holds your skin up, they’re the true scaffolding and we need to be strengthening them instead of freezing them. When we don’t use a muscle, it shrinks or atrophies. We see this when we break our leg and take the cast off. The leg looks like it has shrunk, it’s half the size of the other one, from just a few weeks of not using it. The same thing happens to your facial muscles when you use a neurotoxin. You can’t use or have limited use of the muscle resulting in a reduction of lines (skin can’t crease without movement) but also a reduction of muscle volume as it atrophies. This is the reason why I believe that regular microcurrent treatments or the use of a microcurrent device at home are absolutely necessary if you use a neurotoxin because it helps to keep the muscle healthy.
Just like the rest of our body, the muscles on our face lose tone and strength as we age which is why facial massage, microcurrent, and “face yoga” of facial exercises are so important to keep your facial muscles strong and healthy. While we inevitably lose fat, collagen, and elastin in the skin, we can actually build and strengthen the muscles in our face to compensate. As a bonus, muscle stimulation from these activities also helps with lymphatic drainage & circulation resulting in less puffy, more radiant, and clear skin. Win/win!
Bone
Just a reminder, our bones are living tissue and are also subject to the aging process. We lose bone density throughout our bodies, including our faces. The main difference here is that our facial bones are small so the loss of density can be quite pronounced, especially when we are losing the density of other tissues.
This is the most fundamental change that happens and it’s the one that we are the least able to change or hide.
So! Aging is a part of life, it’s going to happen regardless. This is why staying in check of ALL of those extrinsic factors is so important to the health of your skin (and body!).
It sounds like a big job! Well one of the mantras that I use most often in my self-talk is “Done is better than perfect” and that goes for managing those extrinsic factors too. No one is perfect so we’re all going to slip up, get lazy and simply get busy and off track. That’s why we love the easy hacks and cheats that make a big difference with minimal effort ;)
The baseline with a lot of the extrinsic factors is that they cause inflammation which starts a cascade of effects that speeds up the aging process, So much so that we call this inflammaging.
The best way to maintain your face and skin health is to implement things into your daily ritual that make the biggest impact with the least amount of effort. Some of the things that I do are:
Sunscreen every day! Even if I’m indoors.
I use vitamin serums to assist with collagen synthesis, DNA repair, etc
I try to eat the rainbow and look after my gut health
I take an Omega 3 supplement daily to help to reduce inflammation
I exercise regularly
I massage my face regularly (I make this a part of my evening ritual)
I use microcurrent regularly
I use my LED face mask regularly (I made it a part of my morning ritual)
I make sure that I get adequate sleep (I prioritize this)
I strive for lifestyle harmony - work, rest, and play. I’m not great at this but I will try to refocus when it starts to feel off track.
I’m the first to admit that I’m not perfect but these are the things that I can easily do and have a big impact. I still probably drink too much wine, I definitely have a cheese problem and if I’m to be totally honest, twice a year, I don’t wash my face before bed.
All this is to say that life is short, aging is a privilege, those lines are mine, I earnt them but do I do what I can to keep my body as healthy as possible? Yes. Perfectly? No, absolutely not. I’m pro aging not anti-aging but now that I know what is going on as I age and what factors can speed things up and how to mitigate some of those factors, I don’t have to do it without some control and that feel about right to this control freak… “Done is better than perfect. Done is better than perfect. Done is better than perfect….”