Subcutaneous fat, or the fat beneath your skin, gives your face volume and plumpness. As you get older, you tend to lose some of this fat. This loss makes your face appear thinner and bonier. Changes to your skin can also make your face to look more aged.
The reason behind excess face fat is poor diet, lack of exercise, aging, or genetic conditions. Fat is usually more visible in the cheeks, jowls, under the chin, and neck. Facial fat tends to be more noticeable in people with rounded, less-pronounced facial features.
Studies have shown that by the age of 35, the natural aging process causes us to lose about 10% of the fat in our faces, and we lose an additional 5-10% of your facial volume every 5-10 years thereafter.
Dermal Fillers For Facial Volume
Facial fillers are a series of injectable dermal fillers that serve to fill out areas of lost volume in your face. Dermal fillers can be combined with sterile gels, hyaluronic acid, and other helpful chemicals to round out areas where you've lost skin volume.
Facial volume loss is caused partly by the breakdown of proteins such as collagen that provide structure to your skin. This change occurs as we age. Our youthful balance of fat changes – we lose it in some areas and gain it in others. Inherited genes appear to intensify the process.
Sunken cheeks occur when you don't have a lot of tissue (flesh) between your zygoma (the bony arch of your cheek under your eye) and your mandible (your lower jawbone). Both women and men can have them. Sunken cheeks are often attributed to the aging process, which causes you to lose facial fat.
OPTIONS: Facial volume can be restored with injectable fillers or your own fat. Unlike peels and superficial fillers for skin lines, reflation is a procedure that uses filler or fat deeper in the face to prop up the skin and recreate lost contours.
For those looking for a more permanent solution, the best treatment for restoring lost facial volume is fat grafting to the face. In fact, your own body fat is the safest, most natural filler material available.
A gaunt face may be caused by the natural aging process, or it may be a sign of an underlying medical condition. Your face naturally loses volume as you age. Regular sun exposure without sunscreen and poor dietary habits can speed up skin aging.
Collagen's role in the body
"Collagen is what keeps our skin from sagging, giving us that plump, youthful look," says dermatologist Dr. Ohara Aivaz.
Both collagen and elastin give our soft tissue and skin stretch and resilience. Fibroblasts start to become less active as early as our twenties, so skin thinning can begin when we are still very young (1). Most people won't notice this until they reach their sixties and their skin becomes more fragile and delicate(2).
Most people begin to notice a shift in the appearance of their face around their 40's and 50's, with some also noticing a change in their 30's. But with these physical changes brought on by aging also comes a change in the appearance of our face - Luckily, there is treatment available.
Sunken cheeks can be addressed via facial rejuvenation treatments designed to add youthful contours. Because hollow cheeks are the result of volume loss, restoring volume offers the most successful cosmetic outcomes. The most popular outpatient treatment is injectable fillers, also commonly called dermal fillers.
Loss of fat in our face
As we age, these areas of fat begin to diminish. This allows the skin to sag. The areas where fat loss is most noticed is in the temples, under the eyes, and in the cheek area. When the fat pads under our eyes diminish, it can give us a tired or hollow look.
Volume loss occurs well before the visual signs of skin sagging. At around age 35 we start to notice specific facial fat pads disappearing in a particular order, causing distinct signs of aging; loss of jaw line, saggy face, tired look, nose to mouth lines and under-eye shadows.
The natural aging process and your genetics are the major causes of facial volume loss. However, certain medications, weight loss, stress and other lifestyle factors may contribute to exacerbated facial volume loss.
Exposure to light is a top cause of premature aging: Sun exposure causes many skin problems. Ultraviolet (UV) light and exposure to sunlight age your skin more quickly than it would age naturally. The result is called photoaging, and it's responsible for 90% of visible changes to your skin.
This is called extrinsic aging. As a result, premature aging can set in long before it was expected. In other words, your biological clock is more advanced than your chronological clock. Controllable factors such as stress, smoking and sun exposure can all play a role in expediting extrinsic aging.