Wrinkles

Wrinkles

As you age wrinkles settle on your skin. This is nature. Your skin would have a tendency to loosen and show up wrinkles all over. Women worry about this to a greater extent than men. The wrinkles tend to make people look older with age.

Wrinkles are lines or creases on the surface of your skin. They are a natural part of aging. But even young people's skin can develop wrinkles if it's damaged by too much sun or by smoking.

Normal healthy skin has a nice epidermis with a smooth cornified, or outer, layer that acts as a good barrier to water and environmental injury. Skin color and tone is even and unblemished. Components such as collagen (which provides skin firmness), elastin (which supplies skin elasticity and rebound) and glycosaminoglycans or GAGs (which keep the skin hydrated) are all abundant. It is interesting to note that under a microscope a biopsy of a wrinkle exhibits no telltale signs that reveal it to be a wrinkle. So what causes the skin to look wrinkled? It is probably a multi-factorial process of intrinsic aging and extrinsic aging.

Intrinsic aging is the natural aging process that takes place over the years regardless of outside influences. After the age of 20, a person produces about 1 percent less collagen in the skin each year. As a result, the skin becomes thinner and more fragile with age. There is also diminished functioning of the sweat and oil glands, less elastin production, and less GAG formation. Wrinkle formation as a result of intrinsic aging is inevitable, but it will always be slight.