Are The Wrinkles On Your Face Really Caused By Ageing?

In August 2017, Allure magazine made a brave stand - to ban the word ‘anti-ageing’ in their magazine. They asked people to “stop and consider why we attach a negative connotation to something so completely natural. No, not everything about growing older is necessarily wonderful, but the opportunity to grow older is a wonderful thing, not something to fight.”

At Jersey Beauty, we couldn’t agree more! We love our ageing skin. Wrinkles are a natural part of the ageing process as your skin changes as you age.

However, we also are passionate about skin education. Understanding what causes your wrinkles - what is natural and when wrinkles are actually a sign of unhealthy skin is vital. We want our skin to be healthy every stage of the ageing process! When we understand what causes wrinkles, we can understand when and how to treat our skin to stop prematurely ageing skin that isn’t a sign of skin health.

Whether you call them laughter lines, crows feet or just plain wrinkles… a wrinkle is a fold or crease in the skin. They can be temporary, like when you have a long bath and the skin on your fingers wrinkles, or can be more permanent - often the result of habitual facial expressions, sleeping patterns and most talked about, ageing.

How a wrinkle develops is key to understand the treatment and what that wrinkle means for your skin health. While the media may be insistent that all wrinkles are a sign of ageing, this isn’t actually true. As with any changes to your skin, knowledge is key to effective treatment.

This is the most common type of wrinkle that gets talked about - changes to your skin associated with ageing. So what are ageing wrinkles, what causes them and how can you treat your skin?

The first thing to say *again* is that ageing is a natural process. We love our ageing skin! Your skin will naturally wrinkle. This is because your collagen and elastin levels - that’s the stuff that keeps your skin taut and plump - slows production as you age. However, there are some ageing wrinkles that are associated with prematurely ageing skin. This means that your skin isn’t at its best health and there are things you can do to slow the ageing process and keep your skin healthy.

Your skin is exposed to all kinds of potential damage. From the air that is full of pollutants, to the diet you choose, stress, lifestyle, sun exposure and even how much sleep you get… all these things have an impact on your skin and can lead to premature ageing.

Well, these kinds of wrinkles are largely caused by the destruction of collagen and elastin cells in the deeper layers of the skin. A big culprit of this is sun damage. When your skin is exposed to the sun, UVA rays penetrate into the deeper layers and attack the DNA of your collagen cells, creating free radicals. This can cause lasting damage to the cells and can even increase your risk of skin cancer. When the cells die, it can leave the skin looking hollow and saggy.

The most common type of sun damage ‘wrinkles’ are atrophic crinkling rhytids - they are fine lines that disappear when you pull your skin taut. Choose an area of your skin, look in the mirror and pull your skin taut. Do they disappear? Chances are they are a sign of premature ageing.

Dermalogica Rapid Reveal Peel is an amazing new product that helps to treat sun damaged ageing skin. It is a chemical exfoliant. Now, when we think about exfoliation we often think of physical exfoliators - things like body scrubs or facial exfoliators with beads in to cause abrasion to loosen and remove dead skin cells.

Chemical exfoliants work from the inside out, which is why they are great for your sun damaged skin. Dermalogica Rapid Reveal Peel has AHAs (alpha hydroxy acids) that work by breaking apart the desmosome linkages (glue) that hold skin cells together. This causes the dead cells to shed faster and speeds up cell renewal. Being able to work at a deeper level, this can encourage collagen renewal, which will have a direct impact on the plumpness of your skin.

As well as atrophic crinkling rhytids, there are also gravitational folds, permanent elastic creases and dynamic expression lines. All of these types of wrinkles are related to natural ageing but can all be made deeper and more obvious through sun damage.

The quick answer should be - every day. Yep… even those days when it’s cloudy and raining. A massive misconception when it comes to skincare is that we only need sun protection when it is super sunny outside! Actually, sun damage can occur on an overcast and rainy day because the sun is still there - giving out UVA rays. We know that otherwise it would be pitch black! SPF with UVA and UVB protection is really important in your daily skincare routine. There are some amazing products like Dermalogica Solar Booster SPF 50 that can be added to your regular moisturiser for an SPF boost.

Not all fine lines are a natural sign of ageing. Let’s say that again… fine lines aren’t the same as wrinkles - they actually can be a sign of unhealthy skin, not ageing.

If you have silvery looking ‘wrinkles’ whatever your age, they are fine lines and are often caused by dehydration.

Often confused as a natural sign of ageing, fine lines actually occur because your skin is dehydrated. Imagine what happens when you leave a grape out in the sun and it becomes a raisin. That’s because all of the water is sucked away. The same happens with your skin. We often think of our skin as being dry - lacking oil - when really it is dehydrated. When the skin is lacking water, it can look hollow and dull and water loss can affect your collagen production.

It isn’t as simple as putting water onto your skin. You need active ingredients that will build back moisture and lock in goodness in the deeper layers of your skin. A brilliant ingredient for this is hyaluronic acid, which can hold up to a thousand times its weight in water. This acid has small molecules that can penetrate deep into the skin’s layers and rehydrate, locking in moisture.

How does it work? It is almost as if the hyaluronic acid works like popcorn, getting into the fine line and popping it out again. Guinot Creme Derma Liss is a great face cream with hyaluronic acid that gets to work straight away improving your skin health and getting rid of fine dehydration lines.

Dehydrated skin can also make ageing lines and wrinkles look deeper and more obvious.

Many of us sleep in a similar position every night. This can cause sleep wrinkles - lines that develop in certain areas because our skin is pushed into the same position every night. This is a natural part of the ageing process but can be helped with two solutions:

Dermalogica Overnight Retinol Repair - designed for ageing skin, this is a brilliant product that works as you sleep to renew collagen and work to encourage cell turnover. It has retinol - a form of Vitamin A - that is amazing for ageing skin. As you age, your cell turnover rate naturally slows down. Retinol works by stimulating the cells to turnover quicker and so can help to repair damage from sun exposure by stimulating collagen production.

The things that we invest least in are often the things we use most! You spend eight hours on average with your head on your pillow but when did you last invest in your pillow? Getting a good pillow that supports your head can help to reduce the stress placed on your skin and avoid you getting extra sleep wrinkles! And can also help with a better night’s sleep!

The way your skin wrinkles when you are in the bath or the shower for a prolonged period can look strange! But thankfully is a temporary situation! These wrinkles will fade naturally. But it is always good to use a body moisturiser when you get out of the shower to restore your body’s natural moisture. That might sounds strange - restoring moisture when you’ve just got out of water (!) but a good moisturiser will also restore any oils that have been stripped in the process.

For a fantastic smelling and feeling totally natural treat, why not try Coco Roo Naturally Naked Organic Coconut Oil Moisturiser.Coconut oil is nature’s finest moisturiser and this fab product has no added chemicals - oh, and did we mention it smells amazing?!

Did you know that your facial muscles are different to all of your other muscles? Because they are attached directly to your skin. Which is why when you smile or frown or laugh, your muscles contract and move your skin. So over time, lines and wrinkles appear where those muscles are most often used. It’s natural. You may call them crows feet, laughter lines or just plain expression lines but they are the result of the motion of those muscles. So short of not ever expressing emotion again, you will end up with expression lines.

One extreme way people try to halt the formation of these wrinkles is with treatments like Botox, where a serum is injected into the muscle. This has the effect of lessening the impact of the muscle on the skin. The result is that you don’t express as much if it all. Your skin doesn’t crease. This is a temporary measure while the serum works.

At Jersey Beauty we believe in embracing our laughter lines - as reminders of a great time once had, our frowns - as we worked out through that difficult time and came out the other side… however there are some expression lines that are deeper because of unhealthy skin.

Dermalogica Nightly Lip Treatment is a great product for your lip area - which has a unique skin makeup compared to the rest of your face. Focusing on rebuilding hydration and collagen levels in the lip area, this overnight treatment includes ingredients such as shea butter, hyaluronic acid and sesame seed extract to repair and rebuild the skin. It is specially formulated for an area that we often neglect and used overnight, when your lips are given a rest from eating and drinking, so it can really get to work.

Smoking can cause fine lines around the mouth which can prematurely age your smile (as well as exposing the skin to chemicals that can be harmful).