The Aging Process

Understanding the aging process and how different aesthetic treatments can help maintain your youthful appearance

The aging process does not only impact facial wrinkles and lines that form on the skin’s surface.  Aging affects multiple layers, including the bone, muscles, fat-pads, and the skin.  The goal of facial aesthetic treatments is to help temporarily restore facial volume and correct age-related shadow patterns.  As we age and lose facial volume, the contour of the face changes, causing shadow patterns to develop, while the youthful highlights fade.

Common features of aging

• Drooping skin in the cheek area

• Flattened cheeks

• Sagging jawline

• Fullness between the neck and the chin (“double chin”)

Aging skin

As we age, we experience a loss of facial glands, which results in less oil produced, resulting in less moisture in the skin.  We also lose collagen and elastin, which can lead to the formation of laugh lines, frown lines, and crow’s feet.   These lines eventually become permanent with repeated movement.  Sagging can also occur because the skin is no longer able to bounce back like it did when we were younger.

Fat-pads and aging

Fat-pads are below the skin’s surface and help to provide volume, facial contours, and fullness.  As we age, the fat-pads get thinner and move downward.  This causes our faces to not look as round and firm as they did in our youth.  Hollows can appear beneath the eyes, drooping skin can cause deeper lines around the nose and mouth, loose skin can result in a sagging jawline, and fat can accumulate under the chin.  Loss of fat-pads can make the face appear deflated and sunken in the cheek area.

Muscles and aging

Our facial muscles are located beneath the fat pads.  These muscles are in constant motion as we eat, laugh, smile and frown.  As we age, this repeated muscle activity can lead to deep wrinkles in the face, forming crow’s feet and creases between our brows. Facial muscles also get weaker over time, and this loss of muscle tone and thinning skin can give the face a loose, sagging appearance.  Our jawline loses its contour and our profile becomes less defined. 

Bones and aging

Facial bones provide the foundation for muscle, fat-pads and skin.  With age, we experience facial bone loss.  This loss changes the dimensions and contour of our face, causing areas around our eyes to get larger, decrease in the angle of our brow bone and a less sculptured jawline.

Depressed yet????

Don’t be!!  We are here to help you!  There are so many different treatments that can be tailored to your individual needs and your personal aging process.  These treatments range from fillers, to lasers so you need to have an experienced aesthetic provider that can assess your face and see what treatment you would benefit from the most.  Call Northwest Aesthetics today at 425-908-0000 to schedule your consult with one of our aesthetic providers

Most popular options here at Northwest Aesthetics

LASERS– Fractional Laser Resurfacing and IPL PhotoFacial treatments

FILLERS– We have a variety of Juvederm family of fillers that we use base on our assessment of your face and individual needs.

DAILY SKIN CARE REGIMEN– Just lasers and fillers aren’t enough to keep your skin looking younger and healthy.  A medical grade daily skin care regimen is important as well. 

The SkinMedica TNS essential serum is one of our most sought-after everyday products, but there are many other products to choose from.  You can set up an appointment with one of our Master Aestheticians so they can recommend the right products for you.