I just noticed this the other day. My face, and the faces of most guys in the department are a lot smoother and in better shape than the women who work here and are in our age cohort (late 30s to early 50s). Even the faces of the 40 something women who take good care of themselves (non-smoker exercise, diet) seem to be getting umm… “crepey” like crepe paper. The only women this does not apply to are the black women who work here. Their skin is in excellent shape.
Is it hormone related? Is it because women’s skin is thinner?
Maybe you’re perceiving relative difference. Men treat their skin comparatively harshly – not just by not (generally) using any moisturizing products or other goo in the years between 15 and 30 when almost all women are using such adjuncts, but also by shaving every day. And it some women’s makeup products contain sunscreen, right, whereas few men use it every day. So, through about age 35, when everyone’s relatively young, women may look significantly “better” as far as skin tone, clarity, etc., because they’ve dodged some of the more obvious forms of skin abuse and men haven’t. Then . . . when you turn 35 and the “external” sources of skin non-smoothness, etc. (e.g., lack of moisturizer, shaving abrasion) begin to be outweighed by the subdermal ones (age, hormones, collagen changes), women may experience, relatively speaking, a more rapid transition from superificially-great skin to superficially mediocre – whereas what we perceive as superficially great skin on a 30 year old man is actually kind of mediocre, but thus won’t be as dramatically affected, relatively speaking, when things go south biologically, even if it happens at the same age for men and women. Another way of looking at this is that maybe women and men both have gradual skin aging in, say, their late 20s/early 30s, but that women are able to hide it with makeup – up to a point when they can’t do so, and it thus appears to have “suddenly” degraded.
Hormones also must be involved, as are differential thicknesses of male/female skin layers, oil secretion, etc. (the same things that would contribute to any racial variation you appear to notice).
Men also move their facial muscles when they shave, so their muscles get a workout. Women don’t shave (at least most don’t), so their muscles don’t get that benefit. At least that’s what my 7th-grade science teacher told us.
Hmm. I would imagine the facial contortions/grimaces women go through in applying makeup are not too dissimilar to the ones men perform when trying to shave under their nose, etc.
I’ve heard… I forget where… that it is because men shave their faces and most women do not… The razor acts as an exfoliate(sp?) to the skin, cutting off dead skin cells, therefore building less wrinkles over a long period of time.
Well if it were makeup or thin skin, wouldn’t it apply to black women too? The OP says black women have “excellent” skin, and I would tend to agree. Things that make you go hmm…
I would have to go against this puppy. people who suffer nerve damage to their face muscles and can’t move them usually have faces that looker younger. This is sometimes very pronounced when 1/2 their face has nerve dammage (so you can see the difference).
According to my girlfriend, she read that men tend to have oilier skin than women (a supposition to which I can readily attest) which means moister and slower to dry out and wrinkle.
I think that many women, when applying eye makeup especially, tend to pull and stretch their skin slightly, and this, combined with delicate or thin skin, over time, can lead to many wrinkles.
Also, is there any information to the effect that women may, for whatever reason, be more facially expressive, therefore lending their visages to further wrinkling?
I can’t back that up, but I’ve always noticed that women’s faces tend to be more animated when speaking, thinking, etc. than men’s generally do.
I think it’s a combination of several factors–thicker skin for men, with larger pores, stronger facial features, and possibly facial hair or its traces reducing the appearance some wrinkles. But I think there are also psychological factors at work. The standard of youthfulness for women is perfectly smooth skin. Men are allowed a lot more leeway before they are perceived to look older.
One is the societal standard of “beautiful” skin for the two genders. The ideal for women is perfect, flawless, silkly smooth skin. Men are allowed “character”.
There are hormone differences.
Men tend to have slightly thicker skin.
Also - the lighter the skin the more vulnerable it is to UV damage. Particularly among Caucasians, women tend to be lighter than men, so UV will cause more damage. This would account for some racial difference as well, since a dark female skin has more UV protection than a white male skin (for example).
Women (from what I recall from my youth) tend to be a little more heavy-duty in the sunbathing and tanning areas. I knew lots of girls who would lay out in the sun for hours at a time, but few guys who would. Maybe play pickup basketball, but not delibrating bake their skins and nothing else. This may account for quite a few wrinkles in the 30-somethings.
Also, makeup itself can damage the skin. Amazing, huh? (So says my dermatologist, who’s a big advocate of making skin healthy rather than just painting over its flaws) And from what I’ve seen, white women tend to use more makeup than other racial/ethnic groups.
IMO, makeup and skin care products are extremely damaging to skin. I don’t wear makeup, except on occasional ‘special’ occasions - maybe twice a year. My skin is pretty near flawless. Granted, I’m only 32 (33 in a month) but my skin is better than most women’s in my age group.
About the only thing I ever put on my face is moisturizer, and that’s only occasionally as well. Sometimes in the dead of winter I notice my skin is getting a little dry, so I’ll put on some mild moisturizer after a shower. I forget to do it about half the time. I avoid using soap on my face, unless I’m really dirty (such as after a workout). Plain, fresh water does the trick most of the time.
Last Christmas, Mr. Athena gave me a gift certificate to a day spa which included, among other things, a facial. I’d never had a facial before, and never much wanted one, but I figured I’d try it. I spent an hour getting various crap put on my face. It felt good immediately afterwards, but in the next two weeks I had the worst breakout I’d had in ten years. I’m fully convinced the facial did more harm than good to my skin.
I think some women get into a viscious cycle, especially those who started wearing makeup and using skin products in their teen years when their skin was more resilent and may not have be as easily damaged. They use the products; they break out; they then use MORE products to try and fix it. The products make it worse - or make it better for a day or two, then worse.
It’s interesting that we are getting all these answers to something that is not an established fact to begin with. Astro’s experience is a single anecdote, not at all something that can be generalized.
FWIW, my girlfriend is somewhat older than me and her skin is quite smooth. She did say what I said above, that men (supposedly) have oilier skin and it therefore tends to wrinkle slower, but of course that’s just a tendency, not a uniform rule.