What causes sagging on the face

How Does Our Face Age?

As we age, our face can start to sag and lose that firmness, plumpness and bounciness to the skin. We can test the firmness of our skin by pinching a small amount of skin with our fingers (not finger nails) and see how quickly and easily it takes to bounce back into place.

Ageing is a natural process; one that cannot be avoided but it can be slowed down with the right approach to skincare, treatments and internal health as our body works in unison with all systems.

How does our face age?
Our face ages in all layer’s skin, superficial fat pads, muscle, deep fat pads and bone.

Skin
As skin ages, it loses two important proteins manufactured in the dermis — elastin and collagen. As its name suggests, elastin gives skin elasticity. It provides firm skin with the ability to bounce back when stretched. When skin is tight and firm, it has an abundance of collagen. Collagen is comprised of tightly constructed fibres, which help skin maintain its structure and firmness.

Expression winkles
Expressive movements such as smiling, frowning or squinting over time can cause wrinkles appear on the skin. These movements as we repeat them as continually tugging and eventually crease the skin.

Fat Pads (superficial and deep)
When we are young, the fat on our face is evenly distributed and plumps out all the right places such as our cheeks, temples and areas surrounding our eyes. As, we age, fat pads lose volume, superficial fat pads shift downwards due to gravity, this redistribution of fat creates the nose to mouth lines and the jowls over the jawline. Overall, this gives the impression of flatness to the mid-face and heaviness in the lower part of the face.

Muscles/Ligaments
Our face is made up of many muscles that lie underneath our superficial fat pads, these weaken over time, lose their tone and get smaller. The ligaments in the face act as anchor points retaining and stabilising the skin and soft tissue layers to deep structures in the face the bone. As we age the ligaments become lax resulting in descent of the soft tissue.

Bone
Our facial bones give us our structure and support for tissues. As we age, our bones loose density and the loss of bone causes bony changes within the face, particularly noticeable in the eye area (larger eye sockets) mid-face hallowing, sagging skin and less defined jawline.

To address the ongoing ageing process, we need to consider changes in all the layers of the face and look at a comprehensive approach in our treatment plans. Remembering that ageing is unavoidable as genetically this is pre-determined and exposure to toxins, environmental elements and lifestyle will have a great impact on the ageing decline.

Prevention is key in terms of diminishing skin damage, regulating cellular turnover so that cells function effectively, intervening early with appropriate skincare ingredients and treatments to address the physical signs of ageing will be hugely advantageous. Skin ageing as we go through the decades is predictable and will become noticeable and to have this basic understanding will alert us all to reducing these effects.

Due to scientific Knowledge in the aesthetic industry, we have the most advanced skin care, nutrition, in clinic and home treatments to support skin health and facial rejuvenation. Our recommendations to address facial ageing is to focus on combination treatments as each treatment will have a specific indication and limitation for use. Remember the ageing processes taking place in each layer of the face.

Prevention
Protecting with daily SPF 30 or above to protect against UV damage – UVA and UVB
Antioxidant protection to protect against free radical damage
Good internal health to help with certain lifestyle factors such as smoking, alcohol and poor nutrition that have a negative impact
How to Treat Face Ages as a whole
Skin
Building collagen is key!! One of the most important aims in skincare is SKIN HEALTH. We talk to clients regularly about not aiming for perfect skin as:

1) It doesn’t exist and

2) perfect skin might not be healthy.

Your skin primary function is not there to look good, but to perform a function. It carries out many roles such as protecting against against mechanical, thermal and physical injury, acts a sensory organ and reduces harmful effects of UV damage – just to name a few.

But in reality we all want healthy, glowing skin and ways to slow down the ageing process to keep that youthful bounce. Skincare is one element in the jigsaw in helping to achieve this. It is important to know, skincare has advanced abilities but also its limitations.

Our recommendations:
SPF – to slow down further damage
Vitamin A – Including a retinoid in your routine – This helps to thicken the epidermis through increased cell proliferation, increase the production of natural chemicals (such as hyaluronic acid) in your skin that keep it plump and moist and stimulate collagen production and inhibit the breakdown of collagen that already exists.
Peptides – Extensive scientific research has proven that peptides can support your skin on multiple levels, for example firming, soothing and hydrating the skin. Peptides act as building blocks of proteins such as collagen, elastin and keratin. These proteins are the foundations of your skin and are responsible for its texture, strength and resilience.
Antioxidants such as Vitamin C – Antioxidants are substances that help protect the skin’s surface from oxidative damage caused by free radicals and environmental aggressors like UV and pollution. Antioxidants are often found in skin care product formulas because of their powerful anti-aging benefits.
Having these in your routine are a great starting point to slow down skin ageing.

Supplements
Supplements should not replace a healthy balanced diet. This is the first place we should concentrate on when addressing internal health. A diet rich in vitamins, minerals and nutrients offering variation and colour. Yet extensive research has shown that high-quality micro-nutritional supplementation can help skin structure and function. Internal health gives your body the best tools it needs to perform to it’s best in all functions. Internal health plays a huge role in our external health on the skin.

Supplements with vitamins, minerals and nutrients offer antioxidant protection, anti-inflammatory effects, enhance collagen synthesis and skin hydration.

Not all supplements are made the same, so it is important to find a good quality product to really deliver these claims. As a company we have searched and researched to find what we believe to be top quality supplements to aid internal health and skin health.

Our top recommendations are:

Julia Hunter, Truth Treatment Systems, Lioplife and Osmosis.

Home devices
At home devices have seen a boom over the recent year with clinics shutting their doors, clients have been looking for solutions at home. The list of home devices is huge from microcurrent, ultrasound, LED, radio frequency and facial kits. e are massive fans of home devices as prevention, treating and maintaining skin results will depend on frequency and consistency in our approach.

While the devices are not comparable in strength to what you can achieve with in clinic treatments, the technology and power for home care is evolving and something you can do more regularly than in clinic.

Devices can also work much deeper than skincare, for example mircocurrent is aiming to treat the muscles, LED light depending on the strength and wavelength can reach the subcutaneous layer, see below:

LED Light Therapy – Beautec

Devices we love:
Time Master Pro (£690) – This devices combines ultrasound technology with LED. Recommended to be used twice a week, this works to activate skin metabolism and stimulates the regeneration of skin cells. Aiming to create a tighter more lifted skin.
ClareBlend Mini (£295) – This devices uses mircocurrent which sends an electrical signal to the muscles to help lift the skin.
Dessee Pro LED Mask (£1680) – This LED mask is a top player in the LED industry offering 7 different settings and is professional grade quality.

In clinic treatments
Now that clinics are back open once again, in-clinic treatments can resume. The strength, depth and professional grade of these treatments mean you are able to offer a deeper approach to tackling ageing. There are so many in clinic treatments such as anti-wrinkle injections, dermal filler, laser, microneedling and radio frequency. To choose the right treatment for you, we always recommend a face to face consultation with an experienced and qualified medical practitioner.

As skincare specialists and medical health professionals we offer advice, assessment and thorough treatment options in clinic and at home protocols to support facial rejuvenation which is personalised to your skincare journey.

In Conclusion
Facial ageing happens on many structural levels and is a complex process. We can help slow this down with using effective products topically, supplementing internal health and performing in clinic and home treatments. Ageing will happen regardless, yet we do have the ability to help and make improvements. Always remembering the main priority internally and externally is health

We hope you enjoyed our blog – any questions, comments or thoughts please just let us know.