Do Your Hands Give You Away?

Since skin care has improved, and rejuvenation processes have become more common, it can be a little more difficult guessing someone’s age. They say the trick is to look at the hands, because they will give the person’s age away. For those who are trying to keep their secret, an expert in cosmetic dermatology can help. For some time now, experts trained in advanced techniques of rejuvenation have been applying some of the same facial rejuvenation treatments to the hands with excellent results.

Are your veins too prominent?

Most people have heard of fillers such as Collagen, Juvederm^®, and Radiesse^®, for filling in laugh lines, marionette lines, filler facelifts and enhancing lips. But most people do not know that in the right hands some of these fillers can be used to camouflage prominent veins on the backs of hands.

Over time, the natural padding on the hands tends to diminish, causing the veins to appear to enlarge and protrude. Replacing the natural padding on the hands is a relatively quick procedure which makes an impressive difference.

Depending on what filler is used, results typically last for a year. Common side effects include temporary bruising and swelling, which usually resolve in a few days.

Does the skin on your hands look old?

The same changes that occur to aging facial skin also occur on the hands. Sun exposure and natural aging causes the skin to loose its radiance, to thin, wrinkle, and develop “liver” or “sun” spots. Some of the same procedures that rejuvenate facial skin by removing discoloration, building collagen, and removing wrinkles can be applied to the hands.

Some of the more common procedures for achieving these results include intense pulsed light, chemical peels, certain lasers, and Portrait^®. The amount of sun damage being treated, and the modality used for treatment, determine both the downtime and number of sessions necessary.

Full results may take months to see, but are worth waiting for. Savvy clients treat both their face and hands simultaneously to keep everything looking similar.

Most of the procedures mentioned in this article are considered to be advanced off-label treatments, so be sure to see an expert in the field of cosmetic dermatology when considering hand rejuvenation. (Off-label is a legal use of an FDA-approved drug or device for treating a disease or condition other than that for which it was approved. Off-label usage of drugs and devices is a fairly common practice in medicine.) When your hands are in the right hands, these procedures have an excellent safety record and success rate.