As you enter your fourth decade, you rightfully feel as if you’re hitting the prime of your personal and professional life. However, when it comes to your skin quality and facial structure, you may begin to notice changes accelerating – and not necessarily for the better. Here are some things to look out for if you are already in your 40s or will be soon.
You’ll See Noticeable Wrinkles
While you may have seen a few fine lines appearing here and there throughout your 30s, it’s likely your 40s will be the age when deeper, more prominent grooves in your face start to become visible and more challenging to hide with makeup.
Your Face Will Become Less Firm
Even if you haven’t drastically changed aspects of your appearance like your weight or your hairstyle, looking back at photos of yourself from more than a decade ago may feel like you’re gazing at an entirely different person. That’s because your facial structure changes as you age, transitioning from youthfully plump to more angular and sagging.
You can chalk most of these changes up to a loss of fat, collagen, and elastin in your face. However, for women, decreased estrogen production in their 40s can also lead to bone loss, shifting the underlying framework of your face and causing your features to move downward.
You May Develop Bags Under Your Eyes
As the delicate tissue around your eyes weakens, the fat that helped support them moves to the lower eyelids. Your upper lids also start to droop in a process known as ptosis. As a result, you could begin to appear constantly sad, angry, or fatigued. If you experience this undesirable change, you may be a good candidate for blepharoplasty surgery, also known as an eyelid lift.
Your Skin Begins to Droop
In your 30s, your body’s production of collagen – the structural protein that keeps our skin elastic and makes us look young – begins a rapid decline. By the time you reach your 40th birthday, you will have lost 10 to 20 percent of your collagen, which causes droopy skin. Often, the first signs of this sagging appear along the jawline and neck area, contributing to the appearance of jowls and a double chin.
Your Lips Will Thin
Many people lose volume in the lips as a natural part of the aging process. In addition to thinning out, the upper lip lengthens, the philtrum flattens, and the Cupid’s bow becomes less prominent, leaving a flat, thin profile instead of the plump curvature you enjoyed in your younger days. Luckily, both surgical lip augmentation and nonsurgical lip fillers are available to help restore fullness and contour to your lips.
Your Skin Will Become More Vulnerable
As you age, your skin will become drier and thinner, which can make your skin more sensitive to visible damage like broken capillaries, discoloration, and uneven tone and texture. To erase these signs of premature aging, you can opt for nonsurgical procedures such as a chemical peel or PicoSure laser resurfacing.
Contact Schmidt Facial Plastic Surgery for Anti-Aging Solutions
Everyone knows you get wrinkles as you age, and that all your youthful bad habits come back to haunt you. However, you can still age gracefully into your 40s and beyond by developing a healthy skin care regimen, eating a balanced diet, staying well-hydrated and getting enough sleep every night. And, under the care of a skilled, board-certified cosmetic surgeon like Dr. Schmidt, you can turn back the clock on years of stress, sun damage, and environmental toxins and make a fresh start toward enjoying your 40s with renewed self-confidence.
If you are concerned about how your appearance has changed in your 40s, reach out to our Denver office to schedule your consultation. We offer a variety of surgical and nonsurgical options to help you look and feel your absolute best.
