What happens as our faces change shape with age?
Eventually everyone's face wrinkles and ages. How well you cared for your skin from a young age, and more importantly how much you limited sun exposure can make a difference in rate of wrinkle formation. In your 20s you begin to lose the 'baby fat', overall you begin to look less like a girl and more like a woman. This is the decade when the very early signs of what we call 'motor wrinkles' first begin to appear -- lines and creases related to movement, firstly you may also see the beginning of "crow's feet," tiny expression lines around the eyes.
In your 30s, you'll retain much of your youthful look, but you may notice your skin looks 'tired' and less radiant. you will notice crow's feet more. You may see the start of small brown spots, dilated blood vessels, particularly around the sides of your nose. There is also the start of a deeper crease forming in the triangular area between your nose and the corners of your mouth. As you enter your 40s, lines begin to appear around the upper lip, and if you smoke, they'll come faster and deeper. There are more wrinkles on your forehead and crow's feet around your eyes, plus a deepening of the smile lines. The 50s and 60s is also when the effects of gravity really kick in.
Want to see what you will look like?
Why do our faces change with age
The original thought was that facial skin and fat were held up by ligaments, and that the visual effects of ageing come as the ligaments break down and gravity takes over. we now know that the face is made up of anatomically distinct compartments that gain and lose fatty tissue independently of one another over time. We know this because researchers injected blue dye into the faces of cadavers and rather than disperse evenly, the dye only spread throughout a specific facial area, depending on where it was injected. In all, they found eight distinct compartments on each side of the face.
The compartments themselves are created by membranes that carry blood vessels to the face. As the face ages, not only do ligaments break down, empowering gravity, but each compartment gains or loses fat independently of its neighbours.
Other factors accelerate changes
As we age, skin cells replace themselves more slowly and the dermis begins to thin. On the face, elastin and collagen fibers that allow our skin to stretch and retract begin to unravel. The thinner and less elastic skin tends to sag and fold. Some genetic factors may be attributed to facial ageing. Fair-skinned people are more susceptible to photoaging caused by sun exposure. Environmental factors, smoking, rapid weight loss and constant stress speeds ageing of the face. Bones also become smaller with age and the lack of bone platform to support the soft tissue increases the effect of age on the face as does tooth loss.
CHANGES
