How Not to Look Your Age (But Better)

Beauty Insider,Face & Body Care,Features,Trending |

February 5, 2018

[By Nadine Harper]

We know that not everyone ages in the same way or at the same rate, but as celebrities are presumably blessed with better genes to give them a headstart, it can be pretty shocking to see how different celebs who share the same chronological age can appear two, three, or at times even ten years apart from one another. Who’s getting it right without looking fake, ‘plastic’ or overly done and who ought to get a little help to not look her age (but better)? To help unravel the mystery of ‘graceful aging’ in Hollywood so that we too can adopt a beauty trick or two to hashtag every other selfie #ageisjustanumber, ReadySetBeauty cornered senior aesthetics physician, Dr. Chua Han Boon from the SW1 Clinic armed with side to side photo comparing pairs of leading ladies born in the same year, giving an insight to why each pair couldn’t have looked more different from one another.

An early headstart in your 30s

Leighton Meester & Lindsay Lohan (1986)

Born in 1986 and turning 30 not too long ago, mother of one Leighton Meester looks hardly a day older than Blair Waldorf, the Upper East Side ‘Gossip Girl’ who first heated up our small screen ten years ago in 2007. Conversely, Lindsay Lohan the cute as a button reigning teen queen in the noughties who went from promising ingénue to ‘girl gone wild’ is clearly paying the dues of her hard partying days even though she had left them behind, looking years beyond her actual age.

Dr. Chua Han Boon:“The way Lindsay aged just goes to show that good genes can only get you that far in life. Wrong lifestyle choices such as smoking, alcohol imbibement, substance abuse and poor sleep pattern can rapidly deteriorate one’s skin health and lead to signs of aging appearing prematurely in life. Compared to Leighton, Lindsay’s dull and blotchy complexion is unflattering looking and added years to her looks. There’s obvious underlying pigmentation showing through her makeup, a plethora of fine lines and fairly prominent nasolabial folds or laugh lines that added years to her actual age.”As with all things in life, you reap what you sow. Good skin habits cultivated early in life will go a long way towards how one aged eventually. As Lindsay is a natural redhead, she’s already more susceptible to certain skin woes such as pigmentation and rosacea. The importance of adequate sunprotection religiously practiced to ward off harmful UV rays cannot be over-emphasized or undermined. She should consider having regular Professional Chemical Peels done to address signs of early pigmentation, uneven skin tone, fine lines and wrinkles. By using a blend of naturally occurring fruit acids, chemical peels are designed to improve and smoothen the texture of facial skin by removing dead skin cells from the skin’s surface to allow younger and healthier skin cells to come through. With the new generation of self-neutralizing peels, one do not have to worry about extreme flush/redness post treatment and if there’s any actual skin peeling, it’s going to be nothing more aggressive than just mild flaking.

Fit and Fabulous in your 40s

Reese Witherspoon & Emma Bunton (1976)

Hitting the big 4-0 not too long ago, academy award actress Reese Witherspoon’s youthful looks could certainly have allow her to reprise the role of Elle Woods in “Legally Blonde” with conviction, the part Valley Girl, part Malibu Barbie character which found her way into our hearts and catapulted the all-American sweetheart to stardom more than 15 years ago in 2001. With saggy jowls replacing adorable chubby cheeks of yesteryears, ex-Spice Girl, Emma Bunton aka Baby Spice is sadly looking ‘more bland than spice’ these days.)

Dr. Chua Han Boon: “Honestly, Emma might be looking completely age-appropriate for someone in her early 40s. However, with the raised benchmarks of Beauty in today’s society and hence increasingly high expectations on how women should look, it is without a doubt that she’s a tad far from being called a good-looking 40.When one ages, we can loosely categorize them into two big groups— ‘sinkers’ or ‘saggers’. But strictly speaking, everyone tend to be a combination of both, just predominantly one over the other. With a face that’s fairly full to begin with and a fair amount of weight gained over the years, Emma aged like a predominant sagger with undesirable heavy nasolabial skin folds and jowls constituting the outstanding features that piled on years to her face.”

Someone who ages like Emma can opt for Ulthera, a non-invasive, game-changing “lunchtime facelift” that utilizes trial and tested ultrasound energy commonly used in medical imaging to lift and tighten lax skin tissues, restoring the contours of a saggy face to more youthful and aesthetically pleasing proportions. In addition, it is possible to apply Ulthera over the lateral parts of the forehead to give droopy brows and heavy eyelids a subtle lift with an appreciable difference, and more complete skin rejuvenation can be achieved by including the neck and décolletage which are further areas that have been endorsed and bear the stamp of approval for skin tightening by FDA.What more, Ultherapy is a remarkable anti-aging modality that’s fully customizable to suit each individual’s needs. It can be used for partial face treatments on only targeted problem area(s) such as the double chin and heavy cheeks, or it can be safely combined with Thermage for maximal lifting efficacy, the ultimate youth reviving experience to turn back the aging clock with synergistic effects that translate to overall improvement greater than the sum of its parts.

Backtrack towards 30 when approaching 50

Jennifer Lopez & Helena Christensen (1969)

A year short of 50, the impossibly glamorous Jennifer Lopez might be “Jenny from the block”, but she certainly doesn’t look like someone who has been round the blocks few times. While Danish beauty Helena Christensen, one of the original supermodels who ruled the catwalk in the early 90’s is by no means a shrinking violet in her heydays, she could no doubt benefit from a helping hand to play catch-up with her ageless peer.

Dr. Chua Han Boon:“For someone with sharp and angular features like Helena’s and had remained slim for most part of her life, volume loss and thinned-out skin are likely to be her main concerns with aging. In the correct hands, dermal fillers are excellent skin rejuvenating tools that replenish volume deficit and correct other signs of aging such as droopy brows and downturned lips. It is not a “one size fits all” procedure and a wide variety of different types of fillers can be engaged to cater to different skin woes for the best looking outcome.”

Voluma High Definition Lift works great to restore sunken temples and sculpt a weak jawline tormented by age with long lasting effects. By introducing small amount of naturally occurring hyaluronic acid fillers via microinjections into targeted area(s) such as the undereye and lips, Revitalift gives instant gratification which can only improve with time as results are gradually build up to perfection following a series of treatments done consistently over time. And anti-aging cannot get more au naturel than Dream Sculpture, an efficacious option whereby Sculptra acting as a natural collagen stimulator, is introduced directly into the skin to act as a “natural fertilizer”, rebuilding and boosting your body’s own collagen stores with resulting effects of firming, lifting and overall skin quality improvement outlasting the longevity of the original biodegradable filler used.

Embracing graceful aging in your 50s and beyond

Nicole Kidman & Laura Dern (1967)

While Nicole Kidman was often chided as the poster child of “Botox gone wrong” a couple of years back with an unnaturally taut face that displayed a paucity of expressions and movement, she had since redeemed herself and been slaying the red carpet season after season, looking way closer to 30 than her actual age of 50. Acting thespian Laura Dern who’s known to take on many different and challenging roles might have a career as illustrious as Nicole’s, but looks-wise the discrepancy is pretty obvious, with Laura showing typical signs of aging that a 50 year old woman is likely to faced.

Dr. Chua Han Boon: “While going under the knife with a surgical facelift used to be the only effective way to deal with pesky signs of aging such as wrinkles and skin laxity says 20 years ago, there are now several non-surgical options that can give pretty satisfactory results. Threadlifting is one standout procedure that’s seeing a resurgence of interest in recent years; especially with the development of 100% biodegradable third generation threads that do not run into common complications that often haunted early facial threads users.”

The Silhouette Instalift which uses longer PLA threads that are anchored close to the hairline is great when maximal lifting prowess is desirable for overall improvement. When one is more concerned about target area(s) such as the double chin or a saggy neck, the Infinity Instalift which engages the help of a variety of shorter PDO threads that are easier to manoeuvre can be customized to address your beauty woes to a T. The efficacy of these newer threads lie in the fact that it’s not just a mechanical lifting action they provide. As these 100% biodegradable collagen threads naturally dissolve with time, they would’ve stimulated your body to produce its own scaffolding of collagen within the skin, translating to results that extend months beyond the longevity of the threads that were originally inserted, making the journey from 50 and beyond smoother, and easier to embark on.

With close to 15 years of working experience in the field of Aesthetics Medicine, Dr. Chua Han Boon (formerly from The Sloane Clinic), is currently a senior medical consultant with the SW1 Clinic, a one-stop aesthetics destination that caters to both non-invasive cosmetics medical skin treatments and cutting edge plastic surgery, addressing all possible beauty woes without prejudice and limitations.