The Role of Collagen and Elastin in Your Skin

The Role of Collagen and Elastin in Your Skin

Youthful skin is smooth and taut. It bounces back readily and resists wrinkles and lines. As you age, though, your skin is susceptible to sagging, creases, and thinning. While you can blame sun damage and lifestyle habits as well as the effects of gravity, these age-related changes are usually due to decreased production of two important building blocks of youthful, healthy skin: collagen and elastin.

At Plastic Surgery Arts Center, we offer therapies that boost collagen and elastin production to help you achieve a more youthful glow. Dr. Jan Garcia and our team want you to understand how these compounds work so you know why investing in products and treatments that boost their production can make a dramatic difference in your skin’s appearance and health. 

Why should I care about collagen and elastin?

Collagen makes up more than 80% of your skin’s composition. It is a protein that helps provide structure to your skin. Collagen works together with elastin to give your skin a supple, youthful appearance. Collagen provides your skin with a natural supportive structure. As it degrades, you’re prone to wrinkles, lines, and sagging. 

Elastin makes your skin stay resilient; when it starts to break down, drooping and sagging accelerate. Facial jowls, thinning lips, hooded eyelids, and facial wrinkles can all be blamed on a loss of these compounds.

In your youth, your body produces a lot of collagen and elastin to give you resilient, smooth, taut skin. As you age, however, production slows down. Pollution, sun damage, smoking, alcohol, and some dietary choices accelerate the loss of collagen and elastin.

While you can’t stop time or change your biochemistry entirely, you certainly can slow down the amount of collagen and elastin you lose. Certain habits and treatments, offered right here at Plastic Surgery Arts Center, can even start to restore some of your lost collagen and elastin.

How can I change my collagen and elastin levels?

Collagen and elastin sit in the dermis, your skin’s middle layer. The dermis also contains hair follicles, oil glands, nerves, blood vessels, and sweat glands. 

You can slow down the loss of collagen and elastin with simple, healthy skin care habits like:

Dermal fillers offered at Plastic Surgery Arts also help prompt greater production of collagen and elastin. In addition, they correct the wrinkles, sagging, and thinning of tissue caused by a loss of these compounds so your skin looks more lifted and youthful.

Botox® can also smooth some of the effects of aging, like fine lines and wrinkles around the eyes, across the forehead, and between the brows. 

If you have severe sagging and facial creases, even the most healthy habits and cosmetic injections are unlikely to give you the youthful look you desire. We can help with a facelift or browlift to rejuvenate your face’s appearance even after collagen and elastin are lost. You’re in luck, too. For the month of September, the practice is offering 20% off facelifts. 

Other treatments are discounted by 20% this month, too — facial resurfacing and facial skin toning. Both treatments can help with collagen revitalization and remodeling. 

You can also save on other ways to boost your skin’s look and health, such as liposuction, laser hair removal, and laser treatment for spider veins.

If you’re ready to boost your collagen and elastin production and see how it can make a noticeable difference in how your skin looks, contact Plastic Surgery Arts Center. Call today or use the “book online” button on this website to request an appointment.

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