Can face beauty be actually related to muscle functions? The two are much more closely interdependent than one can imagine. It has even become one of the essential approaches in the world of aesthetics and beauty.
Let’s start with a short physiology reminder: we are all used to looking at the skin, more exactly the face skin, without wondering where its beauty comes from. And yet, beyond certain criteria, like the skin colour or texture, it largely depends on what lies below the skin. And there is quite a lot to talk about, in particular the fatty tissue, the bags of fat which provide volume, but also an essential structure: superficial skin muscles.
A superficial skin muscles, said “skincier” muscle too, is a muscle with at least one end bound to the internal part of skin. It is a subcutaneous insertion. The other muscle insertion is usually bound to the bone, which makes the skin crease. This human body area is particularly rich in muscles which, due to repeated skin tractions, are responsible, over time, for the formation of fine lines and wrinkles in gradually less elastic skin. Indeed, the internal surface of the skin is bound to the muscular structure by thin collagen filaments which prolong the fascia.
Doctor Jean-Claude Gimberteau perfectly showed this in his work on the tissue structure. Filaments maintain the skin by directly bonding to the muscles.
As a matter of fact, like all collagen systems, the collagen fibres composing this network are contractile, which means every muscle movement pulls on these sort of ropes, making them tense up and shorten. This results in the septa pulling on the skin and making wrinkles deeper. On the contrary, with ageing, the septa tend to relax, leading to a tissue ptosis related to a loss of firmness. This whole phenomenon plays a major role in the effects that mark the skin with age.
However, our elders did not know about this particularity. The relationship between muscles and beauty had long been suspected by beauty specialists, but as is often the case, the initial interpretations were wrong. The first hypotheses were based on the belief that the causes of skin ageing included muscular weakness. The supposed relationship between muscles and wrinkles implied that as face muscles got weaker, the skin sagged and creases appeared, the final result being the formation of wrinkles. So, according to this hypothesis, anything that helped strengthen face muscles would make the skin firmer, improve face contours, and reduce the formation and appearance of face lines. That is why specific products and enhanced massage techniques were imagined. But this hypothesis was progressively abandoned, although a few aspects remained, since related beauty practices and routines still exist.
Muscles did not disappear from beauty experts’ toolbox. Better knowledge of skin’s physiology helped develop completely different products, to the extent that one of the basic techniques of anti-ageing medicine emerged: toxin! Indeed, acting on muscles, or at least on the complex system related to muscles led to one of the most significant advances of the past 30 years. So it is a relevant approach to skin ageing to keep taking interest in the interaction between skin and muscles.
Massages, mechanic stimulation, and more recently biomechanics still represent relevant methods to tackle this issue. But substances that directly target these structures to cosmetically improve the skin quality do exist: Botox – and its cosmetic application called “botox-like”.
We invite you to rediscover the different time periods related to this concept.
- The first part will deal with massages and muscle oils.
- The second will be focused on the Botox
- The third will develop the Botox-like
Maybe this adventure under the skin will help you better understand certain practices aimed to enhance face beauty. This issue has always been at the core of the different techniques developed over time, and after some doubts and errors, which is only natural during periods of knowledge acquisition, it has become a reference… until the next paradigm!!!
Jean Claude LE JOLIFF
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