Meg is a frequent flyer at Charleston medispas, and she looks forward to every visit as if it were her first. She requested anonymity because, she explained, “My friends don’t ask me if I’m tired anymore, and I don’t want them to know what my secret is.”
Before taking advantage of nonsurgical options to give her a more youthful glow, she said every glance in a mirror “took some spark away.”
At 50, she said, “I felt like a vibrant person, but the energy I felt wasn’t reflected in the mirror.”
Meg explored plastic surgery options, but her hesitancy about anesthesia, no matter how low the dose and the expense, inspired her to take advantage of nonsurgical options — Botox and microneedling, to name two.
While we can’t stop ourselves from aging, there are ways to change the way we age. Some people opt for surgery, but there are plenty of nonsurgical procedures that can reverse the impact of time.
As skin ages, it loses volume. The two main causes of that loss are sun exposure and hormonal changes, explained Ashley Lovett, an aesthetic nurse injector for Mount Pleasant-based Plastic Surgery in the Carolinas. Between the ages of 41 and 47, estrogen decreases rapidly, leading to less elasticity and more sagging skin.
Tightening and brightening the skin should begin at home first, with a consistent clean-exfoliate-and-moisturizing routine, local experts confirm. Daily use of sunscreen year-round is another at-home step people can take to ward off signs of aging.
“Skin is an organ; it has to be healthy. It is not all about vanity; it’s about keeping your skin healthy. An at-home regimen with really good products is the first step,” said Lovett.
Kerri Weiss, licensed esthetician and owner of The Skin Care Studio in Charleston, said the best way to prevent aging skin is to see a professional regularly for a consultation.
“Brightening skin can be as simple as getting a facial, which involves a deep clean to remove toxins, bacteria, and dead skin cells,” Weiss added.
Some of the most popular nonsurgical methods to tighten and brighten skin include:
Laser surgery — one of the most common methods for tightening skin at the surface level for fine lines and wrinkles. A handheld device uses high-intensity focused ultrasound technology to heat and stimulate collagen production in the deepest dermis layer of skin, resulting in tighter, more youthful-looking skin.
Microneedling — or collagen induction therapy, is a treatment that requires pricking the skin with tiny, sterilized needles, which causes your body’s healing response to generate more collagen and elastin, and as it heals, helps your skin look younger.
Morpheus8 — a treatment that can be done in under an hour, but full results are not evident until after a year. Clients “get injections into the face and when the needles are in radio frequency heats up the tissue to around 60 to 70 degrees Celsius to tighten the skin. The heat causes the tissue to contract,” Lovett explained.
Microcoring — a new method that does not require heat. This treatment “takes out little plugs of skin” with a device called Ellacore. The skin shrinks to heal, which tightens clients’ skin.
Bio generators — are injections like fillers, but they change the skin. “They stimulate your body to make collagen and elastin [which] gives your skin a firmer, tighter look [while also adding] blood vessels,” Lovett explained.
Each time Meg completes a nonsurgical procedure, she said that she feels “overjoyed.”
“How I look matches how I feel,” she added. “And my face is still mine — it just has a more youthful look.”
By O’Tia Prioleau
