To add insult to injury, females also age faster than males, but only after the age of 50. It turns out menopause has a devastating effect on your skin’s collagen, but it’s not all bad news.
There are some steps you can take to help stimulate collagen production to keep your skin looking fresh and firm. Here’s everything you need to know about women and ageing, and what you can do to slow the effects menopause has on your skin.
Women and Ageing: The effects of Menopause on Skin
You know hormones create huge changes in the way you feel, but did you know they also change how you look?
During periods of hormonal flux like adolescence, pregnancy and menopause, your skin goes through huge changes from breakouts to dryness and even changes in pigmentation. The most exaggerated of these though, is menopause. The huge hormonal change and rapid drop in oestrogen creates havoc with your otherwise balanced skin.
Here are just a few of the hormone-related changes that happen to your skin during menopause:
+ Loss of collagen
+ Loss of elastin
+ Diminished fibroblast function (cells that form new skin cells)
+ Decreased blood flow
+ Increased matrix enzymatic activities that cause skin degradation leading to dryness, wrinkles and impaired wound healing.
+ Decreased defence against reactive oxygen species (free radicals)
While most of these don’t sound great, the most important change is the loss of collagen. Collagen is a protein that forms the building blocks of your skin.
What are the Symptoms of Collagen Loss?
Collagen loss in women after menopause accelerates the look of ‘ageing.’ More specifically, collagen is what gives your skin that bounce or elasticity. After menopause, many women notice they ‘look older suddenly,’ and that’s due to the depletion of collagen caused by the sudden drop in oestrogen. This drop makes your skin feel different too. When you touch your face, you may feel as though your skin feels thin and paper-like. It may also feel dryer, and your wrinkles seem suddenly deeper.
But there is a silver lining. While you can’t change the fact you’ll go through menopause, you can combat this loss of collagen and prepare for it ahead of time by protecting your skin. Here’s how:
There’s one huge step you can take to fight skin ageing during and after menopause, and it’s all about collagen. By adding collagen supplements to your diet, as well as trying collagen-boosting skincare routines like dermarolling, you can help keep you skin’s collagen turnover moving.
Collagen supplements directly help create more accessible collagen for your skin to use, allowing your skin to fight wrinkles and other signs of ageing. Science agrees: One study found collagen supplements boosted skin health, pointing at the direct effects collagen peptides had on fibroblasts and M2-like macrophages as the reason behind the improvement.
In other words: Collagen supplements help your skin rebuild and replenish; perfect for post-menopause when you need extra help with these vital functions.
Dermarolling is a form of microneedling you can do at home that helps boost collagen and blood flow in your face. Considering both of these things become depleted during menopause, dermarolling might just be the skin treatment you never knew you needed.
Dermarolling as a microneedling treatment works wonders and science agrees: One study found that four microneedling facial treatments improved wrinkles, fine lines, skin laxity and texture, at 90 days and 150 days after the first treatment was administered.
While women’s skin ages faster than men’s over the age of 50, women also seek out the best ways to care for their skin so they’re more likely to look better with age. Two of the most significant ways to care for ageing skin are dermarolling and collagen supplementation, as they’re proven to help minimise the effects of ageing on skin.
So whether you’re preparing to go through menopause or you’re already on the other side, don’t let your skin age faster than you want it to; add supplements and dermarolling to your routine. We bet your friends will say you’ve never looked better.
Shop the best collagen for women right here at ProPlenish, and enjoy the marine collagen benefits your body deserves. Looking to experience Dermarolling as an anti-ageing treatment to naturally address the signs of ageing? Try our Regeneration Beauty Tool available to shop here.
Image by wayhomestudio
