The term crepey skin refers to when the skin looks thin and wrinkled and similar in appearance to crepe paper.
What is Crepey Skin?
When your skin thins over time due to a lack of collagen and elastin, it takes on a tissue-paper-like quality. The skin looks wrinkled, fragile, and fine. It may also sag or feel loose. While crepey skin is similar to common wrinkles in many ways, the condition tends to impact larger areas, and this skin feels noticeably more fragile and thinner.
The Causes of Crepey Skin
It is caused by a lack of collagen and elastin in the skin—collagen makes skin look super plump, so a loss leads to that paper-thin exterior. But as we referenced above, there are a multitude of factors that can cause this loss of collagen. Sun damage is the most common cause of crepey skin, but it certainly isn’t the only cause. Crepey skin can also result from aging, a lack of moisture, excessive weight loss, or any combination of these. The ultraviolet light in the sun’s rays break down collagen and elastin in skin that help it stay tight and wrinkle-free. Once these fibers break down, the skin can loosen, thin, and wrinkle. Age is also a factor. You produce less collagen and elastin — the fibers that help your skin look supple and smooth — the older you get. Pollution, stress, and smoking cigarettes all take a toll on skin over your lifetime and can contribute to visible signs of aging.
As you age, your skin produces less oil than it did when you were younger. These oils create an important lipid barrier that protects your skin and helps seal in moisture. Hormonal changes can also lead to drier skin and less natural oil production. Dryness for any reason can cause crepey skin. If you have crepey skin that comes and goes depending on the day or the season, a lack of moisture is most likely the cause.
How to prevent Crepey Skin
It’s incredibly important to properly protect your skin from sun damage to prevent crepey skin. Stay out the sun as much as possible, and always wear sunscreen and sun-protective clothing. A good moisturizer or body lotion can also go a long way. It is recommended to use products with glycerin or hyaluronic acid to prevent or improve the appearance of crepey skin. These ingredients pull in and hold moisture so your skin stays hydrated and looks plump. Moisturizing oils like coconut oil, olive oil, and cocoa butter can also help moisturize and soften your skin.
The treatments
Topical retinoid – Either in a cream or gel, retinoids encourage exfoliation and speed cell turnover. However, these products can be drying and make crepey skin worse if they aren’t also used with proper precautions and a hydrating moisturizer.
Fractional laser treatment (Fraxel) – This treatment uses lasers to heat up small areas under your skin, which encourages the growth of new collagen. This helps to support your skin and smooth out wrinkling from the inside out. This can cause scarring that can be permanent.
Discoloration of the skin, change in texture, or formation of depression and bumps can also affect the treated
Ultrasound – It is a skin-tightening procedure that uses targeted ultrasound to heat the supporting tissues below your skin. This intense heat breaks down some of the cells and stimulates the growth of collagen to tighten your skin. You should expect swelling, redness, soreness, bruising, and numbness or tingling. The treated skin areas can sometimes become flushed or red in the hours after the procedure, and short-term sensations including tingling, swelling, and tenderness may occur.
Cryolipolysis – It is a noninvasive procedure that helps to remove localized areas of fat. The treatment freezes the lipids in fat cells to cause them to slowly dissolve. Cryolipolysis is used when loose skin is over excess fat, as the treatment tightens skin by removing the fat underneath the surface. Common immediate side effects include, redness, firmness, pinching sensation, minor swelling, tenderness, bruising, stinging, tingling, numbness, skin sensitivity, mild to moderate pain, muscle cramping,…
At Spade, we customized two technology platforms to successfully treat this condition with no downtime or side effect. Within few short sessions, you would realize a great skin.
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