Getting a manicure at your favorite spa or salon is a great way to have more beautiful nails but, what if the rest of your hands are veiny, dry, cracked or rough? It would certainly hurt, if not ruin, the effort you put into having neatly manicured nails. Everyone’s hands, as well as the rest of their skin, will experience increased veins, decreased collagen and wrinkles with advanced age. However, if you are experiencing these problems prematurely, there are things you can do and avoid doing in order to improve the youthfulness of your hands. Here, we will explore those things, from simple, inexpensive habits to pricier options with your doctor or medical spa.
USE SUNSCREEN
As we age, the skin on the backs of our hands naturally thins. This combined with decreased fat and collagen in the backs of our hands makes bones, veins and wrinkles more apparent. While there is no way to entirely stop this process, using sunscreen can slow it down. Our hands and lower arms are generally our most exposed body parts and the sun, just like it does to our faces, damages skin and decreases collagen here apart from natural aging. One of the best ways to slow down and prevent this premature aging of hand skin is to use a strong sunscreen with an SPF of 15 or more. Another tip is that you should remember to use sunscreen on your hands everyday in both the summer and the winter because cold weather does not prevent the sun’s UV rays from damaging skin. People who participate in outdoor wintertime sports like skiing are all too aware of this fact.
USE A LOTION CONTAINING RETINOL OR GLYCOLIC ACID
Retinol and glycolic acid are two different substances with similar methods of action when it comes to the skin. Both retinol and glycolic acid speed up cell turnover to more quickly reveal newer, healthier skin and increase collagen production. Both retinol creams and glycolic acid are also, traditionally, used for facial skin in order to even skin tone, fight acne, decrease fine lines and wrinkles and remove sun damaged skin. However, these two ingredients also work equally well on hand skin and provide the same benefits to this area. Certain preparations of retinol and glycolic acid are both available without a prescription and so you should have no trouble finding one, or both, in the skin care section of your local pharmacy. Additionally, they both have stronger prescription counterparts which you should talk about with your dermatologist or medical spa if you believe your skin requires this.
USE MOISTURIZER
Just like facial skin, the problems which the skin on our hands experience can be worsened if our hands are overly dry or dehydrated. This can not only exacerbate the appearance of veins, fine lines and wrinkles, but it can also lead to rough, dry or scaly skin. Aside from ensuring that you are drinking enough water so that your body is, overall, hydrated, applying moisturizer is one of the best ways to prevent and remedy this issue. Effective moisturizers can be found cheaply and easily in the skin care section of beauty stores and pharmacies and there really is no reason to not moisturize regularly.
FAT INJECTIONS
Some medical spas will offer fat injections, where fat, typically removed from the stomach, is then injected into the hands to increase the soft tissue volume which, in turn, will decrease or eliminate the appearance of wrinkles, veins and bony hands. Some medical spas will also offer other hand treatments such as Botox injections. However, Botox generally does not provide the positive results for hands which it does for facial fine lines. This is because aging hands appear older due to a loss of volume whereas facial fine lines are partially caused by repeated muscular movements. Botox works by temporarily paralyzing muscles which is why it is useful for facial wrinkles but not for hands.
CONCLUSION
In order to obtain the best results from the manicures you get at your favorite spa or salon, you really should optimize the appearance of the skin on your hands. What’s more, optimizing the appearance of the skin on your hands is generally quite cheap and easy so it requires little effort for the benefits you will ultimately get. You cannot eliminate the aging process from happening to your hands but, you can slow it down and minimize its appearance.