6 Signs of Hand Aging and How to Prevent It
We often prioritize facial skincare but may neglect our hands. Your face contacts the environment daily. The sun, wind, dry air, pollution, and other exposures contribute to skin aging. Yet, your hands may face even more daily exposures. Think about soaps, sanitizers, cleaning products, and all the other things your hands contact daily.
When you look down and see aging hands or “old people hands”, it’s time to extend your skincare routine to include hand care. This article is for you if you’re asking yourself these questions:
- Why are my hands so wrinkly?
- Why do my hands look so old?
- Why are my hands wrinkled at a young age?
- How to make hands look younger?
- How to get rid of wrinkles on hands?
Let’s dive into skin aging on the hands and how to incorporate an effective hand care routine.
What Are the Common Signs of Aging Skin?
Skin aging can show up anywhere on your body but is more likely in the exposed areas, like your face and hands. These are the areas that may need more attention and protection.
Aged hands look rougher, looser, and more wrinkled than younger hands. Let’s dive into some of the signs of aging skin.
Rough Texture
Old hands appear rougher instead of with a smooth, youthful texture. Crepey hand skin may be thinner, less elastic, and more wrinkled. Aging, sun exposure, dehydration, stress, and other factors contribute to this rough texture, but we can slow it down with the right moisturizing ingredients.
Loose and Slack Skin
The skin on older hands can also appear looser and slacker. As your skin ages, it loses collagen that gives the skin structure, elastin, which provides elasticity, and fat, which plumps the hands. Dehydration and other factors also contribute.
Fine Lines and Wrinkles
You may notice wrinkled skin on your hands as you age. Like your face, fine lines and deeper wrinkles can appear over time as part of the aging process as you lose collagen and elastin. Also, your hands have less fat than other areas of the body (and tend to lose fat with age), making them more prone to wrinkles.
Don’t worry; we’ll cover treatment for wrinkled hands below.
Fragile Skin
With age and the skin changes discussed, you may also notice skin thinning on the hands. The skin may appear translucent and thinner, with less volume. Thin skin makes the skin more fragile. Tears and cracks can appear, especially when the hands are dry.
Age and Sun Spots
Age spots and sun spots appear as areas of hyperpigmentation caused by sun damage to the skin. The UV radiation from the sun causes free radical damage to the skin. Sunscreen blocks the radiation, and antioxidants help protect the skin from damage.
You may wear SPF protection on your face and body outdoors but forget to apply it to the back of the hands, contributing to aging.
While prevention is always the best approach, laser skin resurfacing may be an option if you already have dark spots on your hands or face.
Dry Skin
Dry skin tends to be a problem in winter and dry climates. You also become more prone to dry skin as you age and lose collagen, which helps the skin retain moisture. Hydration and moisturizing become essential for hand skin care.
How to Prevent Aging Skin
Get younger-looking hands with facial plastic surgeon-created skincare. Many of the same anti-aging treatments you use on your face, including serums, moisturizers, and sunscreens, can also be used as hand treatments.
Let’s look at some of the prevention strategies for aging, wrinkled hands, and how to make your hands look younger.
Apply SPF moisturizer to Back of Hands
When applying an SPF moisturizer to your face, rub the excess on the back of your hands, even in the winter and on cloudy days. Work to make this a daily habit. Additionally, when you wash your hands and the sunscreen gets washed off, reapply, especially when outdoors.
NassifMD® Simply Hydration is a sheer, un-tinted daily sunscreen with SPF 40. Use it on your face, but it’s also the best hand cream for aging hands because of sun protection. This formula is designed for daily use because it offers deep nourishment and protection. In addition to SPF, you’ll find hyaluronic acid and plankton extract to support hydration, apple and knotweed extracts for antioxidant protection, and vitamin E to prevent premature aging.
Use Hyaluronic Acid Moisturizer at Night
Anti-aging hand creams can double as anti-aging face and body products. Your hands need as much, if not more, support than other areas of your body. Your hands are frequently exposed to the air, sun, weather, and other environmental factors.
NassifMD® Hydro-Screen Hydration Serum is our most popular anti-aging serum because it promotes noticeably healthier skin. We recommend using the serum on your face twice daily, and add it to your nighttime skincare routine for your hands by applying a few drops to the back of clean hands.
This serum contains hyaluronic filling spheres, an innovative hyaluronic acid that swells with application, pulling moisture into your hands for intense hydrating action. It also contains ceramides, retinol, and other potent ingredients to nourish and protect as part of your hand treatment.
Lock in the moisture and active ingredients by using NassifMD® Crepe Inhibitor Triple Action Body Butter on the back of your hands. Use this product all over your body and face for deep moisturizing action, but we especially love it for the hands. It’s a top treatment for aging hands because it slows the aging process, reduces fine lines, and improves elasticity. Use it at night or anytime your hands feel dry and need rejuvenation.
Use a Ceramide Cream During the Day
Ceramides are a natural lipid component of the skin barrier that protects the body from the outside world, while holding in hydration and nutrients. As a topical active ingredient, ceramides can be part of your anti-aging hand care routine.
NassifMD® Hydro-Screen Souffle is another face and body product we love as a hand cream. This formula contains ceramides, hyaluronic acid, and Sytenol A, a retinol alternative, to improve skin firmness, elasticity, and deep moisture. Use it as a daytime hand cream, or anytime you want to boost ceramides. Your face and body will love it too!
Use a Mild Exfoliant on Back of Hands Once Per Week
Exfoliation isn’t just for your face; your hands will benefit from removing dead skin cells and enhanced cellular turnover, too. For these benefits, use your favorite exfoliating face wash or body scrub on your hands weekly.
Our best-selling NassifMD® Detox Pads can also be used on the hands for gentle exfoliation with alpha and beta hydroxy acids. Over time, you’ll notice improved skin texture and tone, and the other hand care products you use will penetrate deeper and be more effective.
Learn more about Detox Pads in this article: Why Detox Pads Should Be a Staple in Everyone’s Skincare Routine.
Drink More Water
Topical solutions like hyaluronic acid work wonders for skin hydration, which helps reduce the appearance of aging hands. However, hydration is also an inside job.
Ensure you stay hydrated by drinking enough water, eating hydrating foods like fruits and vegetables, and including minerals in your diet or as electrolyte supplements. Hydrating your skin from the inside out plumps and smooths the skin, noticeably changing its appearance towards more youthful hands.
Eat a Healthy Diet
A healthy diet is another critical strategy to combat aging skin. Skin requires an abundant nutrients, including healthy fats, proteins, minerals, vitamins, and antioxidants, for optimal function, appearance, and protection.
Here are some tips for adopting a healthy diet to support your skin, including your hands:
- Choose healthy fats like olive oil, avocados, nuts, and seeds
- Eat colorful produce daily, ideally with every meal
- Eat collagen-rich foods like canned salmon with bones and bone broth, or take a collagen supplement
- Eat enough protein each day from high quality-sources like fish, grass-fed meat, eggs, and legumes
- Increase antioxidants with herbs, spices, green tea, and dark chocolate
- Limit or avoid tobacco, alcohol, refined sugar, refined vegetable oils, and trans fats
Turn back the hands of time and prevent skin aging by including your hands in your daily skincare and wellness routines. Eating well, staying hydrated, and using quality NassifMD® facial plastic surgeon skincare will support smoother, hydrated, younger-looking hands.
References
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- Baumann, L., Bernstein, E. F., Weiss, A. S., Bates, D., Humphrey, S., Silberberg, M., & Daniels, R. (2021). Clinical Relevance of Elastin in the Structure and Function of Skin.Aesthetic surgery journal. Open forum, 3(3), ojab019.
- Bukhari, S. N. A., Roswandi, N. L., Waqas, M., Habib, H., Hussain, F., Khan, S., Sohail, M., Ramli, N. A., Thu, H. E., & Hussain, Z. (2018). Hyaluronic acid, a promising skin rejuvenating biomedicine: A review of recent updates and pre-clinical and clinical investigations on cosmetic and nutricosmetic effects. International journal of biological macromolecules, 120(Pt B), 1682–1695.
- Coderch, L., López, O., de la Maza, A., & Parra, J. L. (2003). Ceramides and skin function.American journal of clinical dermatology, 4(2), 107–129.
- Palma, L., Marques, L. T., Bujan, J., & Rodrigues, L. M. (2015). Dietary water affects human skin hydration and biomechanics.Clinical, cosmetic and investigational dermatology, 8, 413–421.
- Cao, C., Xiao, Z., Wu, Y., & Ge, C. (2020). Diet and Skin Aging-From the Perspective of Food Nutrition.Nutrients, 12(3), 870.
