Are you guilty of skipping your sunscreen application? Are new wrinkles and saggy skin making an unwelcome appearance on your face each time you look in the mirror? Save yourself from the “I told you so’s”. It’s not too late to get those wrinkles and sagging ironed out. And here’s the good news, we won’t need to get scalpels or needles involved.

For starters having a diet rich in protein, healthy fats, antioxidants, water, vitamins and minerals is essential. Cutting out smoking and alcohol will also help immensely as these speed up collagen and elasticity loss in the skin. Avoiding smoking and alcohol will also help maintain bone structure that often recedes with age, smoking and excessive alcohol intake. Above the bone, lies muscle and fat. Volume loss from muscle atrophy often also comes about with ageing, disease or treatment side effects, that then lead to saggy skin and creases on the face.

As you might have guessed, the cause of fine lines and loose skin is multifactorial. There are many factors at play in each person’s facial structure on a macro and micro level that bring about these problems. But the general principle is this: If the overlying amount of skin is disproportionate to the volume of the underlying structures (bone, muscle, fat), wrinkles form and excess skin will hang loose. So the more contributing factors addressed, the closer you’ll get to regaining your youthful, firm skin.

Where can we begin?

Well, put bluntly, if the problem is excess skin, we can consider snipping it off with a facelift. This invasive procedure is definitely not an option for the faint-hearted or pain-intolerant ones amongst us. Not to mention, surgery does come with risks and complications like bleeding, infection, scarring and significant downtime.

If you’re looking for something more conservative, threadlifts are a minimally invasive option that involves passing a needle through the target area to insert a thread. When strategically placed, the thread provides tension, pulling the saggy skin ever so slightly to stretch it out and remove the appearance of fine lines. This procedure may also result in collagen production thereafter, which will further help to smooth over fine lines. Injectables like botox help rid wrinkles by paralysing select muscles on the face to prevent expression line wrinkles. Another injectable called filler can simply replace lost volume, or even stimulate collagen production which helps build volume in that area of the face over time.

Another strategy to build the volume of your face back up would be to target the muscle component of your face. Much like how macho men bulk up their biceps, bulking up face muscles can help lift and tone your face to improve sagging.

On a more micro level, bulking up the face with collagen can smooth those wrinkles out. There are several different ways in which we can increase our skin’s collagen- oral supplements, creams, radiofrequency treatment, just to name a few. But time is of the essence! Which method will yield visible, long lasting results quickly? Here’s a quick analysis of some of the most popular options out there.

Creams do bring some benefit, though only to a limited extent, as collagen molecules in creams are too large to penetrate beyond the outermost superficial layers of the skin.

The evidence for the efficacy of supplements are promising as they have been proven to have a significant benefit on the skin’s elasticity and hydration. The downside to relying on supplements is the fact that this approach does not allow us to target any particular problem area of the body and it does take a few months before results appear.

Radiofrequency treatment has been shown to be still more superior as compared to supplements as a solution for saggy skin and wrinkles. This is mainly because RF treatment is not only able to be targeted at selected problem sites, the effects from RF appear quickly after just a few sessions. Moreover, effects are long-lasting: improvements continue over the months that follow as the skin continues to produce collagen even post-procedure!

One final strategy for getting rid of sags and wrinkles on the face is to target and tone the muscle layer. Admittedly, it’s not easy to do face exercises. It can be tricky to isolate the specific facial muscles. And the other tricky bit about it is that a lot of exercise needs to be done over a long period of time in order to see visible results…. Unless we leave it up to tech. Yes believe it or not, there are machines now that can “exercise for us”. Sounds like music to my ears!