Aging can be a beautiful thing. You have the wisdom of decades and a continuously growing group of friends and family to show for it. The complex changes you undergo over the years are actually pretty incredible. However, understanding all of that doesn’t mean you have to love every change you see when you look at the mirror. With a little knowledge you can age gracefully by taking care of your skin and subtly correcting the changes that bother you most. Below is our guide for understanding the aging face.

When Does Aging Start

Aging starts much earlier than you may think. Some individuals may start to experience its early effects in their early twenties. The effects at this point are almost impossible to identify unless you’re looking for them. However, the same loosening skin will eventually develop lines and then wrinkles over the decades.

For many people, aging doesn’t start to really show until their mid-thirties to their early forties. At this stage, proper skincare can still keep the worst of aging at bay. Unfortunately, skincare can only get you so far. By the time you reach your fifties, most people have developed noticeable wrinkles. If your skin has been damaged by the sun or smoking, then these wrinkles will be more dramatic at an earlier age.

Understanding the Aging Face

Professionals refer to the “triangle of youth” to describe typical aging patterns. A young person’s face is lifted. The forehead and eyes are the most prominent part of the face with a smooth forehead and unburdened eyes. Their lips pull the eye inward towards the jaw. Overall, youth looks effortless.

As we age, gravity has a tendency to challenge the lifted look of our faces. The eyebrows get drawn down over the eyes. The under-eye gets drawn down in heavy bags. Then the triangle of youth is inverted by sagging jowls and neck. This pulls attention downwards, away from the most expressive parts of our face.

How Does Aging Occur

The changes to our faces over time cannot be exclusively blamed on gravity. As we age, our bodies produce less collagen and less elastin. These two components give our skin its natural fullness and stretch. As our skin loses collagen and elastin, our skin has trouble retaining moisture and tends to fold in on itself where collagen used to keep it full. This is the real cause of early wrinkling.

In addition to the loss of collagen and elastin, several structural changes occur as we age. The natural fat pads in our face drop down, we lose muscle tone, and we experience some bone loss. All of these changes pull our faces in and down, erasing the tension that kept your skin smooth and flawless.

What You Can Do About It

In addition to taking care of your skin, there are several minor procedures you can have to make a striking difference without the downtime of a full facelift. The top two options are:

Brow Lift:

A brow lift helps to smooth out the forehead and upper eye areas. This procedure is used to draw the eye to the upper half of your face by mimicking the top of the triangle of youth. It’s a relatively minor surgery in comparison to procedures that offer similar results. After you’ve had your brow lift in Minneapolis, you can be assured that you’ll look more youthful but in a subtle and graceful manner.

Eyelid Surgery:

Eyelid surgeries are specifically for people whose eyelid or under-eye fat pads have been adversely affected by aging. In serious cases, the brows or eyelids can partially block a person’s sight. Hanging skin around the eyes is immediately aging. Fortunately, having eyelid surgery in Minneapolis will allow you to reclaim your sight and your youth.

Both of these procedures are serious surgeries, and you will want to discuss the process with your board-certified surgeon. With that being said, a brow lift or eyelid surgery can help to correct the most seriously affected parts of the face without the serious recovery time required by a facelift.