Remember when anti-aging meant night-cream and SPF?
How quaint.
Today, those of us serious about evading lines and wrinkles are calling in the big guns: lasers and injections.
Naomi Fenlin, Philadelphia skincare expert and owner of About Face Skin Care, says roughly 65% of her patients are between 20 and 35, and adds that millennials who come for reasons such as acne and acne-scarring, often also inquire about injectables and lasers.
Fenlin goes on to describe the thirties as a time when accumulated sun-damage starts to emerge, volume loss begins, and “people are hit with the realization that youth is not forever.”
The goal for this age group?
Prevention.
Millennials want to address any emerging signs of aging (lines, sun-spots, etc.) and take advantage of skin-plumping, collagen by any means possible.
And as it turns out… this is actually NOT being overly obsessive.
“Young-skin responds more rapidly to collagen stimulation from lasers and injections,” notes expert injector, Sarah Sidiqi, NP.
Here’s a look at some of the ways top experts are aiming to age-proof the millennial face:
1. Utilizing the Ingredients You Need
Products alone will not work miracles for people in their 40s+, but on a 25-year-old just starting to see the changes of time, daily sunscreen and a good antioxidant moisturizer can have a dramatic effect and help improve the quality of the skin, says Fenlin.
At night, work a powerhouse product into your skin with ingredients like retinol, peptides, growth factors, or stem cells to “stimulate collagen growth while cells are still young and efficient,” Sidiqi shares. “This way, when collagen synthesis drops off in your thirties, you have reserves already built up.”
Also good to note?
The natural rate of exfoliation also slows around age 30. Swiping a glycolic peel pad over your face twice a week “encourages new cells to travel to the surface, keeping skin fresh and bright,” she adds.
2. Collagen-Boosting Lasers
“When 20somethings come to me for anti-aging, I guide them toward fixes that make a long-term difference like the Clear + Brilliant, a low-energy Fraxel resurfacing laser that gets rid of early sun damage and stimulates collagen renewal,” says Fenlin.
Most complexions need a few rounds for optimal results, but even a single session will make skin healthier and more resilient.
If your particular kind of sun-damage runs deeper and you’re dealing so much with brown-spots, but instead volume loss and sagging skin, skin-tightening treatments will be more beneficial. “I have many young patients getting radio frequency-based Thermage treatments once or twice a year,” says Fenlin. “If we keep that collagen cranking and the skin stays thick, you are absolutely going to age more slowly.”
3. Botox (and Its Cousins)
More than half a million 19-35-year-olds got botulinum toxin injections in 2015, according to the American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery.
In these cases, injectors typically use toxins sparingly across the upper face to prevent frown-lines, forehead furrows, and crows feet from setting in.
“Within two minutes of talking to someone, I can see if she is a frowner, a brow-raiser, a squinter-smiler, and that tells me which area is at the highest risk of getting permanently etched-in lines,” explains Sidiqi.
“I will use the heaviest dose on the muscles that seem the strongest and most active, and then go really lightly in other areas to train those muscles not to over-express.”
And here is something interesting: Of the three brands of neuromodulators on the market; Botox, Dysport, and Xeomin, the latter two are chemically engineered to “soften wrinkles while keeping the muscles somewhat mobile,” says Sidiqi, making them more suitable for those who do not yet need, for lack of a better description, a frozen face.
4. And Fillers, Too
Maybe you thought the whole my-face-has-fallen-and-it-cannot-get-up phenomenon was more of a #fortysomethingproblem, but according to Fenlin, we can start losing volume in our cheeks in our late twenties. However, she adds, “injecting tiny amounts of hyaluronic acid [HA] based dermal-fillers early on supports the structure of the face and combats gravity.”
And while HA fillers, like Restylane and Juvederm, do degrade slowly over time (usually within a year), studies show they also trigger collagen formation for long-term benefits.
Whats more, says Sidiqi, “fillers bind water, hydrating skin from within, which is huge for younger patients looking to keep their dewy glow.”
Injecting a younger face requires an especially skilled and judicious hand, notes Fenlin, since overfilling can “throw off someones natural aesthetic balance, making the patient look much older.”
And as always (really, this should go without saying), choose your treatment provider wisely!