No matter how well you take care of the skin on your face, it’s the skin on your hands that can give away your true age. Whereas women of the past had to disguise the problem or draw attention away from it with jewelry or expensive manicures, today there are more options for making your hands look younger.

There are three areas of hand aging that we will look at: coloration, plumpness and texture.

Coloration

As we age and years of sun exposure begin to catch up with us, extra melanin in our skin begins to clump together to form the brown blotches we call age spots. At the same time, as the veins in our hands age and lose elasticity, they can become more prominent in color – spider veins. When skin lightening compounds just don’t cut it anymore, a possible treatment for coloration issues is laser therapy. There are a wide variety of these therapies available. Visit any dermatologist or even a plastic surgeon and you will see your options firsthand. Based on your desired results, your doctor can recommend the type of laser and intensity that is best for you. With several prices hovering around what you might pay for a really nice pair of shoes, this option is both affordable and effective.

Plumpness

One of the most telling signs of aging hands is a lack of plumpness. Even though other parts of your body may expand with age, your hands tend to sink inward on themselves. This is a result of the skin’s natural aging process where collagen and elastin break down and skin that was once taut and firm now hangs more loosely that we’d like. Fat injections are one option, but many plastic surgeons warn against them because fat cells have a tendency to clump in unlikely places, giving an overall appearance of lumpiness – not the plumpness you’re looking for. IN addition, the fat must be harvested from somewhere else on your body. As enticing as that may sound, they’re not harvesting enough to make a visible difference on any particular “problem area.” And then there’s the matter of duration and cost. While fat injections last the longest of any of the injectible options we will discuss, they also cost the most.

A more subtle and effective treatment might be injections of what are called dermal fillers made from hyaluronic acid. Designed (and FDA approved) to correct facial folds and wrinkles, these volumizers have also been used successfully in “hand lifts.” Another possible injection is a collagen stimulator that is designed to not only fill space, but also help the surrounding tissue to produce more collagen. Volumizers and collagen stimulator injections are roughly half the price of fat injections, but are more short-lived, with volumizers lasting six months to a year and collagen stimulators lasting up to eighteen months.

Texture

Your skin naturally changes in texture as you age, but you can help slow the hands of time with a deep-reaching moisturizer with a powerful sunscreen. Remember that it’s the sun that’s to blame for most of your skin aging woes. Try products rich in vitamins E and C. Also look for ways to keep your hands from drying out. For instance, most hand sanitizers rely on alcohol to evaporate the product from your hands. Choose instead to wash your hands in mild soap and water and patting them dry. Avoid antibacterial soaps as well as the triclosan can both dry and irritate sensitive skin.

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