Keeping Your Hands Beautiful

While you’re busy keeping the skin on your face young and healthy, your hands may be neglected, aging faster than any other part of your body. Your hands will give away your age no matter how perfect the rest of your body looks. Often they will even make you look older than you really are because your hands take the most abuse and get the least care.

The sun is your biggest enemy

Your hands get the most sun out of any part of your body. Most people don’t bother using sunscreen on their hands, and even if you do, it’s hard to keep it there as you go about your day. Your hands are getting sun even when you don’t feel like you’re in the sun, and even if they never seem to get burned.

UVA rays penetrate glass. They don’t produce a sunburn; they go into the deeper layers of your skin where they cause wrinkling, aging, and skin cancer. After years of driving without gloves, your hands get maximum exposure to these aging rays.

Age spots are sun damage and they are the first sign of aging hands. Too much sun also contributes to wrinkling or the hands and varicose veins. Fortunately, even if it’s too late to prevent the ravages of the sun, there are some things you can do to restore your hands’ beauty.

Correcting age spots

Age spots can be faded by a variety of treatments including:

• Laser treatment

• Intense Pulsed Light (IPL)

• Chemical peels

• Retin-A

• Alpha hydroxyl

• Topical bleaching agents

Age spots will return if you don’t protect your hands from the sun after treatment.

Losing their plump

Over time your hands lose their youthful fullness. This is a normal part of aging that can happen without sun exposure. It makes your hands look bony, veins more visible, and allows wrinkling even of healthy skin. Like your face, your hands can be restored to their youthful plumpness with cosmetic solutions, such as injectable fillers.

Adding volume and smoothing wrinkles

Some of the treatments for age spots perform a double duty by stimulating collagen production and adding volume to thinning hands. These include:

• Laser treatment

• Intense Pulsed Light (IPL)

Microdermabrasion can smooth fine lines and freshen up weather skin. It will also stimulate collagen production and bring back some plumpness.

If you really want to add some volume to your hands you can choose fat grafts and make use of the fat from other parts of your body.

Visible veins

If plumping up your hands doesn’t take care of visible veins, there are some treatments that target the veins themselves. Sclerotherapy involves injecting saline into your veins causing them the die off and be absorbed by your body. Laser therapy can be used to get rid of unsightly veins, too.

Your hands get the harshest treatment of any part of your body. Give your hands a little pampering and keep them beautiful for life.