Your face is your calling card; it defines you through your look, your expressions, and your unique personality. It’s what you present to the world as ‘you’, so it’s worth looking after.
When your skin is healthy and glowing, you appear more youthful and as a result you feel more attractive and confident, But maintaining this vitality becomes more of a challenge as the natural changes that come with ageing take place.
The Statistics
To get you thinking about your future face, here are some little-known facts about skin and ageing:
Skin is our largest body organ, making up 15% of body weight. Total skin surface adds up to between 1.5 and 2 square metres – that’s a lot of skin to take care of!
Skin is thickest on the palms and soles at up to 4 mm thick, and thinnest on the lips and around the eyes at just a fraction of a millimetre thick.
On average, each square half inch of skin contains 10 hairs, 100 sweat glands and 1 metre of tiny blood vessels.
Every 24 hours, the skin sheds a layer of dead cells, constantly renewing around every 28 days. An average of 40 kg of skin is shed during a lifetime, and dead skin cells make up about 90% of household dust.
Many people believe that only gravity creates wrinkles, but research shows that loss of facial volume and changes in bone structure are much bigger culprits.
Women tend to experience facial bone loss at a younger age than men, which may explain why women are more likely to seek cosmetic enhancement at a younger age than men.
A smoker in their 40s may have as many wrinkles as a non-smoker in their 60s.
Exercise can combat wrinkles. The boost in blood circulation to the skin strengthens blood vessels and increases the renewal of cells.
Stress is hard on the skin. Low-level tensing of facial muscles works to create an aged appearance.
Sun damage is thought to be responsible for 80% of skin ageing. Without sun damage, we would probably not develop wrinkles until we were in our 80s.
Skin cancer is the most common of cancers among both men and women, accounting for more than 30% of all cancers combined.