How Lips Change as We Age + The Best Anti-Aging Lip Treatments
When it comes to anti-aging skincare efforts, lips tend to be overlooked. And often, when one notices aging on the lips and around the mouth, it prompts a game of restorative catch-up and care. Ironically, studies show that lips are one of the first and most prominent areas that show signs of aging, starting with gradual loss of volume and increased lines that accumulate as time progresses.
In this article, we’ll delve into how and why lips age, plus which lip care products have the biggest anti-aging impact in preserving their youthfulness and helping you (to the furthest extent possible) restore what’s been lost.
What causes lip thinning, lines, and loss of colour?
Lips are one of the most visible areas of the face, and as we age, they can start to show signs of wear and tear, here are some of the most common causes:
- As we age, the supporting collagen’s elasticity, fat pads, and muscles in and around the lip area steadily diminish, resulting in thinner lips that are more visibly lined.
- Simultaneously, the redistribution of soft tissue can result in a flatter look of one’s lips.
- Bone loss may also contribute to a more caved-in appearance of the mouth/lip area.
- Blood vessels decrease in the lip vermillion (the border between your lips and the surrounding skin), causing the richness of your lip’s colour to weaken, resulting in a more aged, “drained” appearance.
These changes typically start becoming noticeable in your 40s, progressing more rapidly as the years go on.
In addition, beyond genetics, contributing factors such as cumulative UV damage from unprotected sun exposure, smoking, and other lifestyle habits play a role in lips' loss of volume, wrinkled appearance, and weakened colour. Of these, UV damage is thought to inflict the most damage.
How to slow down the lips’ aging process
While some of the aging factors mentioned above are inevitable, protecting your delicate pout from the sun is one of the most crucial things you can do to preserve its youthful appearance and decrease the risk of lip cancer. The harsh reality is most of us forget about SPF when it comes to the super-vulnerable lip area.
Finding a lipstick, lip gloss, or lip balm with SPF that you like well enough to reapply throughout the day is key, especially here in sunny Singapore. Otherwise, regular eating and drinking will cause it to rub off, taking the protection with it. Just like with face and body sunscreen, it’s important that your lip care product be rated at least SPF 30.
Interestingly, although a lip care product with sunscreen is important, research has shown that simply wearing opaque, richly coloured lipstick provides some protection from sun damage. This is likely due to the pigments that such lipsticks contain.
Ingredients to target existing lip wrinkles and loss of volume
In addition to sun protection, lips benefit from a mix of youth-restoring skincare ingredients to offset/slow down the aging process. Below, are a few of our favourites for a plump, smooth pucker.
- To address volume loss and lip thinning, a combination of reparative and hydrating ingredients can result in both long-term and more immediate effects. Humectants, like hyaluronic acid, deliver a plumping result to the lips. This class of ingredients absorbs water from the lower layers of your lips, creating an expanding effect that then boosts hydration in the upper layers, smoothing out lines and restoring natural fullness from within. Hyaluronic acid also happens to be one of the natural components of skin that becomes depleted with age and sun damage, so a topical application can help bridge the gap.
- Peptides are restorative ingredients that work via various pathways to help strengthen underlying support structures of skin, including that on the lips. This helps preserve the natural shape of lips and encourages a fuller, less-lined appearance. If applied around the outer lip area, peptides have the potential to help with lines around the mouth as well. Think of this kind of repair as the scaffolding that gives lips a plush appearance over time.
- Replenishing emollients (such as squalane and castor oil) instantly help restore a supple appearance to lips. The reasoning behind this instant change is simple and straightforward, fine lines look more severe on dry, dehydrated lips. Emollients prevent moisture from escaping skin, giving your pucker a surge of lasting moisture that goes a long way to softening the appearance of aging.
- Seek out ingredients that promote lip skin barrier strength. Examples include fatty acids, antioxidant-rich plant oils, and ceramides. A stronger barrier helps lip skin resist external stressors that would otherwise deteriorate its appearance.
Because lip aging is multifactorial, it takes a well-rounded approach to fight the signs of aging via multiple pathways. You should opt for a non-invasive anti-aging lip treatment that combines these types of ingredients for the best results. Even if you don’t see a dramatic difference overnight, remind yourself that replenishing your lips with these types of ingredients helps preserve youthfulness over the long haul, minimising the signs of aging that you would have seen later.
You might have noticed we didn’t provide solutions for enhancing/restoring lip colour. While all the ingredients above will help improve the natural lustre of lips, they aren’t known to specifically enrich the actual depth of lip colour. The physiological causes of weakened lip colour go beyond what skincare ingredients can repair. Luckily, lipsticks and lip tints are a quick fix. A lip treatment with a glossy finish can help lips appear to be more vibrant.
Advanced lip treatments
Deeply etched lip lines (sometimes described as “smoker lines”) may require more in-depth corrective cosmetic procedures such as laser treatments or injectable fillers. Likewise, if you’re hoping for a dramatic increase in lip volume, you’ll need to consult a dermatologist who specialises in this regard to discuss options. Either way, using good lip care products is still important for a healthy, moisturized pout.
According to Board-Certified Dermatologist Dr. Corey L. Hartman, “Most patients neglect the protective aspects of treatment and only start to consider specialised help for the lips once the changes start to manifest. From an anti-aging standpoint, it is important to remember to address the lips from a younger age. Neurotoxin and dermal fillers help correct lines around the mouth and restore contour, structure, and hydration, but I always add a topical product to help to enhance the treatments, providing support for all the genetic and environmental changes that cause loss of youthfulness in this area.”
Learn more about anti-aging and wrinkle solutions.
You may also shop for other lip care products by Paula’s Choice here.
References for this information
PLoS ONE, December 2009, pages 1-10
Proceedings of SPIE, April 2018, pages 1-15
Aesthetic Surgery Journal, August 2020, pages 1-3
Polish Journal of Public Health, September 2016, pages 112-115
Aging, June 2019, pages 3,551-3,560
Skin Research and Technology, June 2020, pages 41-48
Cancer Causes and Control, 1996, pages 458-463
European Journal of Dermatology, October 2019, pages 383-386
Journal of Cutaneous Medicine and Surgery, July 2019, pages 357-369
Dermatologic Surgery, February 2005, pages 173-176
Anticancer Research, April 2012, pages 1,543–1,546
Dermato-Endocrinology, August 2012, pages 253–258
Cosmetics, May 2017, pages 1-14
International Journal of Cosmetic Science, June 2019, pages 281-291
