I never really understood why people sometimes say “aging gracefully” when they mean aging without any artificial measures. I mean, I totally get that OVER doing it isn’t graceful at any age, as Meg Ryan, Melanie Griffith, and any Real Housewife Anywhere can attest. But I’ve met and seen plenty of gorgeous, graceful women who are clearly taking discreet measures to fight the progress of time. Diana Sawyer is my hero in this arena. I feel sure she does something, but I can’t pinpoint what (which is how we all want it to be).
Aging Beauty Baby Steps are:
- having your hair professionally colored to cover the gray (the box formulas just do not cut it)
- having some highlights put in around the hairline to brighten up your face (so yes, that’s base to cover the gray and highlights to break up the base. Yes, I know, I’m sorry)
- having your teeth whitened if you haven’t already
- having your brows colored (unexpected, but faded and thinning brows are so aging)
- using some lash treatments like Neulash or Latisse to encourage lash re-growth
- stepping up your regimen to include retinol, serums and a much better moisturizer
Aging Beauty Next Level options are the minimally invasive & maintenance programs that improve your skin texture and work to add back in the collagen and elastic, which diminish with age starting sometime in your 40s. We chatted with the experts at Hunstad Kortesis Bharti to find out what the latest and most popular minimally invasive procedures are . They recommend the following as their Top 5 things you can do for your face as you age :
Microblading Your Eyebrows.
Beauty insiders of every age are obsessed with this preferred form of eyebrow tattooing. In microblading the tattoo pigment is implanted under your skin by a trained technician using a manual handheld tool. The tech will use hair-like strokes with the tool to mimic natural hairs in your brows, and will fill in where your own hairs are sparse. The process results in the pigment being implanted into the skin with semi-permanent results lasting up to three years. With the proper technique, microblade eyebrows look beautiful and completely natural. There’s minimal discomfort ~ patients liken it to little scratches, and little recovery time. Most people are a pink in spots after.
Microneedling
It’s for sure, as you age, the collagen which provides firmness in your skin is reduced. After the age of 20, a person produces about 1 percent less collagen in the skin each year. As a result, the skin becomes thinner and more fragile with every decade. Collagen induction therapy – better known as micro needling – stimulates collagen production by gently using a device with fine needles to make microscopic channels on the surface of the skin. These tiny punctures trigger the body’s healing response to produce more collagen. Completing a treatment boosts collagen production by up to 80%, and micro needling is proven to reduce fine lines and delay the signs of aging. The increased collagen thickens the skin, making scars, age spots, and hyperpigmentation less noticeable. The treatment also helps skin care products sink deeper into the skin so your skin care regimen is more effective = lab tests show that skin serums become up to 1,000 times more effective after micro needling.
Injectables and Fillers
These are the go-to for non-invasive treatments to help minimize the slow march of time across your face. If you go to a reputable practice, like H/K/B or any other you read about on scoop, you will not leave looking like some bloated, puffed up, tightly stretched version of your former self. (At least not unless that’s your objective). Ask the doctor or technician for a light hand, and explain that you’d rather come back for more than walk around for a year with too much.
Botox, and Dysport are injectable RELAXING AGENTS, forms of the neurotoxin Clostridium botulinum that help the muscles that form certain facial lines/wrinkles return to a relaxed position so that the skin relaxes, too, smoothing out your wrinkles. These work well for brow and forehead lines, and crow’s feet.
Fillers like Restylane, Voluma and Juviderm are injectables that are used to fill out hollowed areas like your cheeks, fill out wrinkles like those on the side of your mouth, provide lift to your cheeks and jawline, plump your lips and fill out your undereye tear troughs to help mask dark circles and make your eyes seem less tired and wrinkled. Lots more on the H/K/B Dermal fillers page here.
IPL for Brown Spots
Photorejuvenation (IPL – Intense Pulsed Light) laser treatments are most often used for lightening and removing sun and age spots, and brown blotches on the face, neck, chest, and hands, as well as reducing redness, rosacea, dilated blood vessels and broken blood vessels on the face, neck and chest. IPL is also used to help to control flushing and can have a lesser effect of improving skin texture through collagen stimulation. Similar to, but NOT a laser, the IPL light penetrates just below the skin’s surface and damages either the melanin (skin pigment) or blood vessels. The body’s natural skin repair mechanisms then remove the damaged tissue to produce a smoother skin appearance. It usually takes 3-6 treatments to see significant results and treatments can be spaced out every 3-4 weeks.
ThermiSmooth
ThermiSmooth is a non-invasive laser treatment used to fix sagging and wrinkles. If you have problem areas such as sagging eyelids, wrinkles around the eyes or mouth or sagging jowls, ThermiSmooth Face is an option to consider. The skin is tightened by a tip/head that is applied to the outside of your skin and heat is then generated by sound waves. This tightens existing collagen and stimulates the cells that make collagen to make more of it. It’s a gentle procedure with little or no downtime. You’ll need 3-4 treatments to see results.
The Scoop on Turning 50 is Brought to You by Charlotte Radiology Breast Centers
Charlotte Radiology is one of the nation’s largest radiology practices and has been serving the greater Charlotte area for nearly 50 years. The professionals at Charlotte Radiology believe the key to beating and detecting breast cancer early is quality mammograms starting at age 40 and continuing annually in to your 50s and beyond.
The two biggest risk factors for getting breast cancer are being a woman and getting older. In fact, the cancer incidence rate increases with age, making annual mammography even more important to women ages 50+. Of the breast cancers detected using mammography, over 28 percent were found in women between ages 40-49.
The bottom line is that early detection is the key to beating breast cancer. Annual screening results in lower call-back rates than does biennial screening and finds cancer at the earliest stage – providing a more favorable prognosis.
