It’s fun to look at family albums. Hopefully lots of good memories of good times. But when those albums span decades, you can’t help but notice that the peoples’ faces look different as they get older. No, not because they came to my office for cosmetic procedures, but actually because they didn't, and that’s just the point. What you are seeing is the natural aging process of the face. And today I’m going to explain what causes those changes whether you see them in your album or in your mirror.
The essential process that is responsible for the aging face is age related loss of fat in your face and age and sun related loss of elastic tissue in your facial skin. And there’s also some subtle bone changes in your facial bones that contribute to these changes.
I’ll use a series of diagrams to show you what’s happening and when I refer to ages, of course they’re only approximate and aging occurs differently for everybody.
So, this is the shape and contours of a youthful face, 20s thru early 40’s.
And this is the shape and contours of an aging older face after the mid 50s.
So the bottom line is that the inverted triangular form of facial features that define a youthful face literally flips over into an upright triangle as the facial shape goes from tapered to cylindrical and then even a little pear shaped.
In the next DermTV episode I’ll explain how plastic surgeons and cosmetic dermatologists can help to make you look younger by effectively flipping your triangle back to it’s youthful orientation.
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