A recent study showed that facial plastic surgery, while it may make some patients look slightly younger (not by much – the average was a paltry three years younger), does not make them look any more attractive. In fact, having plastic surgery on your face can actually make you look less attractive.
This of course is the polar opposite effect of what most people are trying to achieve by going under the knife. While it is mostly women who statistically get their face worked on, they usually cite the reasons for doing so as wanting to look more youthful and beautiful.
Procedures like eye lifts, face lifts, facial muscle freezing injections and other lifting and tightening procedures, often have the undesired effect of looking “off”. Even some very high profile celebrities have shunned these types of procedures saying that they looked scary, frozen or simply unnatural when they tried them.
We’ve also seen how badly these procedures can go and heard too many cautionary tales against getting these procedures. So, why risk undergoing something that can really alter your face? Why not just improve on what you have, so you can still look naturally beautiful, emote as you normally do, and preserve the integrity of the underlying foundation that makes your face look like YOU?
Home Infrared Red Light Therapy
There are multiple inexpensive options for administering infrared red light therapy to the skin now. These devices range in price from $50 on the low end to over $500 on the higher end. Users report some pretty great results with softening of wrinkles and plumping of the skin to fading of age and sun spots.
You must use these devices regularly to get the results you desire, and upkeep is necessary to maintain the results, but it is a totally natural way to help stimulate collagen production, even out the skin tone and keep the skin glowing and radiant over time.
Red infrared light is also very healing to the skin and can help repair damaged skin with repeated use – it is something that is used in spas and dermatologists offices to speed skin and deep tissue recovery. It can also be used for joint pain and discomfort to help calm inflammation.
Microneedle therapy
Sounds painful, and it definitely has the potential to be unpleasant. Dermarolling, or microneedle therapy is a process where one rolls a wheel with tiny surgical needles, ranging in length from 1 mm to 2 or more mm.
The idea with this type of treatment is to stimulate collagen production by subtly wounding the skin, and helping the skin to regenerate new skin which is younger and smoother. It can be painful, so some people choose to use a numbing cream or ice their skin before administering the dermaroller.
The device itself is extremely cost effective, ranging in price from just under $20 to the higher end of $50 to $100. It can also be used to help smooth acne and other types of scarring. Since it punctures tiny holes in the skin, it also helps with product absorption if you use a cream or serum of some sort after you treat your skin.
Facial exercises
Exercising your facial muscles becomes crucial as you get older. The muscles that lay beneath the surface begin to slacken and lose their tone and “lift” as we age, just like any other muscle on the body. And just the same as we work out the muscles in our arms, legs and abs, so should we work on our facial muscles.
The good thing is that most facial exercises you can find on Youtube or other helpful sites that give exact visual instructions are convenient. They don’t take a whole lot of your time, and they can be done while you’re sitting at your desk reading emails, driving to work, or watching television.
These exercises address another crucial component of aging, which is to keep the foundation of the facial skin in shape. When the underlying structure of the face is toned and lifted, it provides a great foundation upon which the canvas of your skin lays.
Danna Norek founded AuraSensory.com, which offers a line of chemical free beauty and personal care products ranging from a popular Nourish & Hydrated MSM and Vitamin C Ester face cream and Hyaluronic Acid Serum to sulfate free haircare.
Sources for this article include:
http://www.thegloss.com/2013/08/02/beauty/plastic-surgery-study/
