It’s pretty apparent that the human face shares the same basic anatomy as the rest of our bodies. We’re made up of skeletal and muscular systems, as well as skin, blood vessels, ligaments, and connective tissue beneath it all. So this is the part of ourselves that is always on display for the world to see and which may be thought of as a public billboard for our age. But as aging affects every body part, it also occurs on the face.
How Facial Aging Occurs?
Signs of aging include lines and wrinkles, which can be seen with the naked eye, but facial aging also happens beneath the skin. There are signs of aging on all face layers, including the skin, fat pads, muscles, and bone. Youthful face features are well-defined and sculpted. This is frequently known as the triangle of youth. Facial aging causes this triangle to become inverted.
Facial aging often begins at the age of 20 and persists until old age.
One’s face ages at varying rates and to varying degrees depending on their genetic makeup. As you become older, you may experience these:
- Changes in the Soft tissues: (muscles, fat, connective tissue) drop owing to gravity. Loss of facial muscle mass and facial muscular laxity are two of the most significant causes of facial sagging, especially in the cheeks. After age 20, you make around 1 percent less collagen per year. As collagen synthesis diminishes, the skin becomes thinner and less elastic.
- Skin Changes & Wrinkles: Loss of collagen and elastin leads to the formation of laugh lines, frown lines, and crow’s feet due to aging. Additionally, there is decreased hydration and a coarsening of the skin’s texture.
- Bone: The face bones serve as the framework for the facial muscles, fat pads, and skin. You may have facial bone loss as you age, which alters the face’s size and shape. This process has various effects on the rest of the body, but in the face, it often causes the eye sockets to enlarge, the brow bone to recede, and the jawline to lose definition. It has been proven that the number of bone-regenerating cells in the face decreases beyond age 35.
- Fat: A baby’s face is adorably round and full of fatty pockets. This face fat remains equally distributed throughout your youth, with pockets that plump the forehead, temples, and cheeks, as well as the eye and mouth areas. However, beginning in your mid-40s, face fat begins to lose volume and migrate lower, accumulating around your chin, jaw, and neck. Tissue sagging can result in deep lines around the nose and lips. The accumulation of fat behind the chin can result in a double chin.
Learn more about How skin aging occurs with time and the best methods to reduce it in our article here.
Areas Where Facial Aging Occurs.
As the years pass, dozens of differences emerge, some of which are immediately recognizable if we look at them part-wise:
1. Eyes. 
With age, the eyes appear rounder and smaller and usually lose their almond shape. The hollows under the eyes start to become more prominent. This can give a tired, less expressive look and a dark under-eyes circle. But the actual shape of your eyes doesn’t change in reality. Related changes, such as the forehead, drooping eyelids, and cheeks starting to sag and flat, usually cause these visible changes and make your eyes look hollow and grooves under the eyes. Doctors discovered in recent research that even a few millimeters of bone recession in the eye sockets could contribute to the look of drooping, sagging skin around the eyes.
We also see a change in subcutaneous fat as we age. This is the leading cause of facial volume loss and the appearance of aging. Our face comprises subcutaneous fat compartments, usually referred to as facial fat. The most notable changes have occurred behind the eyes or around the tear ducts. This contributes to the appearance of dark circles beneath the eyes.
Sun damage starts to show its effects near the eyes. The share of wrinkles that occur due to loss of collagen and elastin from cumulative sun exposure throughout the lifetime is mentioned as crow’s feet. The skin is also very prone to dryness in this area.
2. Eyebrows.
As with other changes that occur with facial aging, brows are usually overlooked. Brows play a role in the diminution of eyes. Brows are actually held in the neutral position due to the dynamic interplay between nerves, muscles, and underlying connective tissues. But with aging, the natural descent of the muscles and underlying structures makes these changes more prominent.
3. Nose.
One way your face changes with age is the appearance of your nose. The ligaments that attach your skin to the underlying cartilage of the nose weaken with time, and the end result is that the nose tip starts to droop. This can also result in the collapse of the sides of the nose, making it more difficult to breathe. Age can also cause the nose to seem bigger and broader as the surrounding facial structures lose volume.
The skin of the nose also experiences age-related changes like that of the eyes due to a lot of skin exposure, including prominent blood vessels. The pores of the nose may also start to appear prominent with age.
4. Cheekbones & Cheeks:
Although heredity promotes differences, the cheeks tend to be one of the first regions of the face to alter as we age. The prominent cheekbones we normally have lost if our faces lose volume. Over time, loosening ligaments and downward migration of adipose tissue render the cheeks flat and hollow. It seems like the skin is falling, but it is deflating.
The face gets more square or bottom heavy as we age, which is associated with a worn-out, older appearance. This decline and loss of facial fat might increase the visibility of facial bones.
5. Jawline.
The fifth area with prominent facial aging is the loss of your jaw or jawline definition. The muscles and surrounding structures around the neck weaken, and there is prominent fat accumulation in the same area.
We also go with some resorption of the bone mandible, which starts at age 40. This also contributes to the loss of the sharp angle of once a well-defined jaw. The gum line recedes, and teeth get lost. The chin can become more prominent, and a double chin may also appear with fat accumulation.
6. Lips.
When we become older, our lips begin to flatten out and lengthen. The lips don’t remain plump as before. But the changes in shape and size of lips actually occur after the age of 40 and 50s and are totally dependent on your lifestyle. The corners of our mouths sag in a permanent frown, the top lip loses its unique V-shaped portion (known as Cupid’s Bow), and our lips lose fullness and definition.
Significant changes in lip hydration and pigmentation occurred with increasing age in terms of physiological factors. For example, smoking can cause the early appearance of vertical lip lines, also called the smoker’s line, which usually begins in the late 40s.
7. Neck.
The neck also goes through age-related changes, as with the other parts of the body, and it may indicate a great deal about a person’s age. The neck muscles, such as the platysma, also weaken and sag, which some people call turkey neck. Along with the age-related sagging in the skin, some fat accumulation also occurs in once well-defined neck contour. The neck begins to droop due to gravity, causing necklines. These may be horizontal or vertical lines.
8. Chin.
It is good knowledge that elderly individuals have slower metabolisms, making weight loss more difficult. In addition, a diminished physical ability might result in increased fat accumulation. Submental fat or a double chin typically forms around the chin due to excess weight. Older persons might also acquire a double chin from an overabundance of loose skin around the chin region. A significant amount of facial profiles can be hidden by a double chin. And in the event portion of the jaw is still somewhat apparent, it’s obscured by the more rounded neck and chin region.
Another way to define changes due to facial aging can be done by dividing our face into thirds.
| Part of Face | Youthful Contour | Facial Aging Changes. |
| High, arched eyebrows and well-defined upper eyelids are other prominent features of the head’s upper third. | With age,
|
| In the middle third, you may expect to see your cheekbones higher and fuller, and lower eyelid skin be more even and free of wrinkles. There are zero wrinkles and creases visible. | Aging can cause an appearance as,
|
| Full lips, a well-defined, sharp jawline, and a tough and smooth neck characterize the lower third of the face. | Facial aging causes thinning of lips and lines around the mouth. Jawlie isn’t well-defined anymore. |
The lower third of the face, i.e. the lips, jaw, and neck area, is the most concerned area of the face.
Effects on Gender. Another one of Mother Nature’s cruel tricks is that women may experience these changes from young to middle age, but males normally do not experience them until middle age or later. It has also been proven that a woman’s skin is approximately 15 years older than that of a man of the same age.
Most women begin to notice a change in the appearance of their faces between the ages of 40 and 50, with others noting a difference as early as their 30s. But with these aging-related bodily changes comes a change in our facial look.
Factors Affecting Facial Aging.
An important NIH study concluded that many factors are responsible for facial aging, such as genetics, lifestyle, and a person’s medical condition. But we will divide facial aging into external and internal causes.
Internal Causes of Facial Aging.
Some reasons for skin and facial aging cannot be avoided. Our biological age determines the structural changes in the skin and the effectiveness of cell processes. This decreases with each passing year.
- Genetics:
Genetics has a vital role in skin aging. The phototype and skin type we are born with affect the rate at which visible indications of facial aging and changes in the skin surface. For instance:
-Fair or phototype I-II and/or sensitive skin develops wrinkles earlier than darker phototype V-VI skin.
-Phototype III is susceptible to uneven skin tone but develops wrinkles later than other phototypes.
- Low Hormone levels: Since fewer estrogens (the hormones that relay instructions) are being produced, less information is being sent from cell to cell, which may cause disruption and, ultimately, facial aging.
- Loss of Blood Supply: When the skin’s blood flow is reduced, nutrients and oxygen have a harder time reaching the skin’s surface. Skin loses its luster and becomes less radiant as we get older.
External Factors:
Environmental variables that accelerate skin aging result from the same mechanism called oxidative stress. A range of lifestyle variables initiate and exacerbate oxidative stress:
- Sun Damage: The Environmental Protection Agency claims that the sun induces up to 90 percent of age-related skin changes. The sun’s rays generate oxidative stress, the main external cause of skin aging. One of the earliest indicators of photoaging, or sun damage to the skin, is discoloration or uneven pigmentation. Daily exposure to the sun’s rays is just as damaging to the skin as prolonged exposure.
- Smoking: Cigarette smoke contains a combination of chemicals and nicotine that contribute to an increase in the skin’s free radical activity. People who smoke have less elastin and collagen fibers in the skin than people who don’t smoke. Without enough of these fibers, the skin becomes tougher and less elastic.
- Pollution: Exposure to pollution, especially in urban areas, can cause the production of free radicals that can damage the skin. The pollution’s presence amplifies the oxidative damage brought on by UV rays.
- Inadequate Skin Care: If you don’t take good care of your skin or if you use products that irritate your skin, your skin will age more quickly. Proper skin care includes frequent use of a mild cleanser suited to the skin type and a product formulated to address the skin’s main issue. Protecting skin from the sun’s harmful rays is essential in avoiding skin aging before its time.
Even though all the changes that occur with facial aging are connected to pre-programmed mechanisms and genetic makeup, lifestyle changes such as smoking, sun exposure, and diet have been found to affect our perceived effect of aging. But the good news is that it is never too late to restore a slender, young appearance to an aging face. The next article will discuss all the best methods that can be used for sin rejuvenation and Prime with Time!
