22 signs of ageing (wrinkles are not on the list)

by Basia Wlodkowska
Years of persistent marketing have conditioned us to believe that face ageing is all about wrinkles and the skin. But we live in times of unprecedented access to skin care and skin interventions, as well as digital technologies that can smooth the skin of any celebrity or influencer.
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Yet, no matter how perfectly wrinkle-free a face is, the subtle signs of ageing are still present.
Let's break down the signs of ageing in detail:
  1. Jowls - volume gain at the jawline, often times accompanied by developing a double chin. 
  2. Jowl sucus - an indentation forming between the jawline and the chin.
  3. Lips become thinned and stretched to the sides.
  4. Lip corners point down.
  5. The philtrum ridges and "cupid's bow" become flattened and less pronounced
  6. "Marionette lines" or other groves and wrinkles forming near the lip corners
  7. The line, where the upper and lower lip meet, sits lower on the face
  8. Nose alars become permanently flared and the whole nose area looks tensed.
  9. Nose tip rotates downward.
  10. The nose base sits higher, giving an impression of elongated philtrum .
  11.  A grove forms between the nose and lip corner, the so called "nasolabial fold", a.k.a. smile lines
  12. The eyelid fold becomes slopped, rather than parallel to the lash-line
  13. The eyelid fold at the outer edge of the eye slopes down shrinking visible lid space.
  14. Eyes become rounder in shape
  15. Eyebags and sunken under-eye area
  16. Nasojugal grove - an indentation forming between the eye and cheek border
  17. An indentation form in the upper inner corner of the eye socket area
  18. Lower water-line of the eyelid becomes everted
  19. The inner eye corner becomes elongated
  20. The upper lids can become permanently lowered giving a "sleepy" eye appearance
  21. The outer parts of the brows tilt down
  22. The inner parts of the brows travel up

All of those signs of ageing are a natural consequence of changes happening below the skin. The main driving force of the transformation are facial muscles, as they become hardened and shortened, allowing the skin sitting on top of them less space to be stretched over. The muscles also push on the underlying fat tissue, displacing it and creating irregular shapes on the face.

As long as we cling to the idea that ageing is about wrinkles and the skin we will never truly and fully address the true signs of ageing.

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