By Dr. TRACY MOUNTFORD, MBBS MBCAM
I’m asked a lot by women of all ages: ‘Do you think there is an age limit for cosmetic treatments?’
And the honest answer is no.
There’s no real age limit, though of course, the younger someone is, the better the skin quality, the better the collagen repair, and therefore, generally speaking, the easier the cosmetic effect is to achieve.
At The Cosmetic Skin Clinic we don’t encourage people that are too young to have treatments that they don’t need. I feel that’s not a good move, because they’re on a bandwagon then to continue with treatment long-term.
The 30 year old age category is where I usually start treating patients, and then I alter their treatment plans to address their individual ageing needs throughout their 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, and even 80s.
A lot of my patients are in their 70s or 80s, which is quite surprising to many. The needs of an older patient vary, obviously, from the needs of a younger patient.
Most of my mature patients don’t necessarily want to look dramatically altered. Usually they just want to look fresher and good for their age. They don’t necessarily want facelifts, but simply improve skin texture and the appearance of the lines around the mouth.
A lot of my 80 year olds will come in, have a little bit of freshening up with either some light texture improvement treatments like light laser, or they will have a little bit of light filler around their mouth in their lipstick lines or just across the cheeks to give a bit of lift.
My 50 and 60 year old age category are usually more concerned with really giving much more of a non-surgical lift and definition treatment. So in this case I use a combinations of filler and muscle relaxant to give lift, firmness, and smoothness, and will often combine these with skin tightening treatments.
For my patients in the younger age category from 30 to 40 anything is possible. In this age category, a lot of women are just starting off on the path of light muscle relaxant to smooth the frown lines and to soften the features on their face. When we treat them we’re looking at prevention rather than cure. We like to recommend light laser treatments, stimulatory treatments to get the collagen really working hard and even maybe prescription skincare too.
So in a nutshell, no, there is no age limit on cosmetic treatments. It’s all about looking as good as you can for as long as you can as naturally as you can.*
To find out what treatments are best suited to your age related problem come in for a consultation. Drop an email to [email protected], and be sure to follow my weekly Q&A’s on YouTube for advice and information about our treatments!
