Wrinkles – How they form and how to erase them

Once you understand how skin wrinkles actually form, it becomes pretty clear how you can erase them without spending a fortune on topical creams, patches, or surgery.

First, just so we’re all on the same page, it’s important to understand that wrinkles begin to form when we are in our teens. Yes, surprising but true. And here’s why.

Our personalities and habits are pretty well established throughout our childhood. We have characteristic frowns, smiles, looks of disapproval or disgust, concentration. These do not tend to change as we age, barring accidents or trauma. So, The holding patterns of the facial muscles are fairly well established by our teenagers..

What do facial muscles have to do with wrinkles? Think about it: a muscle can swell and stretch the skin on your arms if you lift a lot of weights. But a muscle also pinches the skin when you contract it when frowning, for example.

Over time, facial muscles will get tighter or shorter around areas that get a lot of pinching. Between the skin and the muscle is a thin layer of connective tissue or fascia and this too can begin to harden and dry out in pinching patterns.

You now have muscles and fascia that are working to pull the skin together around the facial patterns. Slowly, over time, as these work together to draw the skin above them into a wrinkle, what happens? Tight skin has less circulation. uh oh.

When we are children, our faces are usually very animated. Muscles, fascia, and skin can be pinched, but then open up in wonder, peace, or the deep relaxation of sleep. Circulation can then flow easily through the skin and repair or refresh the muscles and skin, restoring fullness to a child’s face.

Over time, as our patterns of expression become established, the circulation’s ability to flow and repair itself as easily diminishes more and more. With insufficient hydration, forbidden diets, smoking, trauma, etc., blood supply to restore skin fullness becomes an uphill battle. Wrinkles are the result, the result of time and clothing.

Obviously, the best time in life to prevent wrinkles is in our teens. Daily facial massage, especially around the areas where wrinkles can be seen with different facial expressions, is a real help. Use olive oil, which your skin and muscles love, or almond if your skin is naturally dry or sensitive, or coconut if you like.

In addition to a good morning or evening massage after washing our faces, we do well to drink enough water to keep our cells hydrated, as well as avoiding junk food. If you are young, start now to keep that beautiful face. Older? Roll up your sleeves.

Well, now we understand how these things form, and if you’re young enough, you can avoid wrinkles with simple common sense practices. But for those of us who are no longer teenagers, our massage practice needs to be more focused and specific.

Think for a minute about those wrinkles that form above the upper lip, the ones you see in the mouths of the elderly. Those can come over time from smoking, drinking soda through a straw, pursing your lips in thought or disapproval, these kinds of movements that bring your lips together. (I wouldn’t rule out kissing, since it’s so beautiful, but it’s easy to see how it can contribute to those little lines on the lips.)

First, select the type of oil you like best. Sophia Loren always said that her absence of wrinkles in her 70s and 80s was due to daily facial rubs with olive oil, and most skin likes this oil, as does all muscle. If you live in dry areas, you may want to make a mixture of oils and rose water for added hydration on top of what you get from drinking enough water.

Let me share with you a blend that I have used since I was 30 years old and that I believe has helped keep the wrinkles on my 70+ face at bay: In 2 ounces of rosewater, add 3 ounces of peanut oil organic, 2 – 3 ounces of organic olive oil and a tablespoon of liquid lanolin. Older skin would appreciate an ounce of wheat germ oil as an anti-aging aid. The driest or most sensitive skin types would like an ounce of sweet almond. There are 7 to 8 ounces of facial bliss that help restore vitality to the skin and help eliminate wrinkles depending on where they are on the face.

(PS: Why peanut oil? Good question. Peanut oil is a food for connective tissue, most of which we think of as found around joints. But remember fascia, the thin connective layer between the skin and the muscles?This layer helps maintain skin firmness and firmness, along with muscle tone.This blend is also perfect as a full body massage oil, as peanuts help other joints to some degree to prevent arthritis, according to the readings of Edgar Cayce from which I (I have adapted this formula).

The Daily Beautification of Your Precious Face

With the morning or evening regimen, first wash with a mild soap/cleansing cream/lotion, using a good fiber cloth or loofah or loofah circle to remove dead skin cells. Use a nice deep circular motion over your forehead, cheeks, chin and throat.

Never, ever, ever press or rub around your eyes or temples. The skin tissue around the eyes is too delicate and can easily tear with too much pressure. We would do well to appreciate those smile lines around the eyes as they are only positive on the face.

When you rinse your face, it should feel clean and almost squeaky clean. If it feels like a film is still covering the skin, as it does with so many commercial soap products, get another brand. Castile soaps are generally thorough cleansers and leave no film or residue on the skin.

Dry your face and apply a small amount of oil that you have rubbed on your palms. (The mixture I described above needs to be shaken each time as the contents separate as no harmful chemical emulsifiers are added.)

Spread the oil over your forehead, cheeks, chin and throat, gliding a little over your eyes but not deeply. Use circular motions with your fingertips to increase circulation to these areas and move the underlying muscles.

Please note that the throat is included with the daily facial massage. There is no reason why this skin should be allowed to loosen over time if you give it attention and circulation to keep your skin, muscles, and connective tissues healthy.

When massaging your forehead, remember that the muscles that pull your eyebrows up or down when you frown are vertical muscles. These will relax if you rub them, left to right, front to back. Go up to the hairline and down to the eyebrows in criss-cross motions, targeting the muscles under the skin.

Cheeks are easy to rub in circles, and be sure to pay a little extra attention to the areas in front of your ears where your jaw muscles can get tight with all the stress of living in the 21st century. Rub up and down your nose and to the side, opening your mouth to allow fuller circulation to a part of your face that barely moves on its own.

To work the muscles around the lips, pull them through the teeth in a tight smile and rub the entire edge of the lip with your fingertip, gently and deeply, creating good circulation around and around. Back and forth across the top of the lip and that muscle just below the nose that can tighten and contain wrinkles. If you have lines starting to form here, you may want to double the massage time to really get the circulation going.

Lastly, give your throat some good circular massages along the side of your neck and the front where your vocal cords are. With your thumbs together under your chin, press along the bottom of your jawline to your ear. Do this a few times. It helps stimulate an immune reflex point that we all need these days.

Finish with a one-time massage all over your face with your palms on your cheeks and your fingers on your forehead. Visualize circulation flowing through all the cells of your skin and muscles, refreshing, rejuvenating and revitalizing them all. Feel the youth and beauty flooding the cells. Mmmmm.

For a more specific treatment

To work on existing wrinkles on the forehead and around the mouth, you can follow the general facial massage, which only lasts a minute, with a more specific treatment of individual wrinkles.

Dip a cotton swab into the oil and press it against the side of the jar so it doesn’t drip. Using a magnifying mirror or simply approaching a mirror, place the point at the end of a wrinkle with one hand and, using the fingers of the other hand, open the wrinkle. Press deep into the wrinkle in small back-and-forth motions along the wrinkle to specifically activate circulation along that line.

There is an interesting cosmetic acupuncture treatment for wrinkles that basically does the same thing. Using tweezers, tiny filament needles are inserted along a wrinkle to draw blood where it has been pinched. But you can do the same thing with a Q-tip and nourishing oil. It just takes some time, a little patience, and a lot of love.

So how long will all of this take before I see results?

Remember that there are seven layers of skin, the oldest at the top and the newborn cells at the bottom. The oil and massage regimen you adopt will immediately benefit the new cells, but it can take 30-45 days for those cells to develop into the top layer.

During this time of self-love, your regimen is helping to release the holding patterns of the underlying muscles and fascia. Imagine how you will feel when you start to see results! And believe me, it will show itself to others too, with a happier and healthier face.

Be patient. And to be honest, don’t you want to stick with a healthy face regimen for the rest of your days? Taking a day a week here and there doesn’t hurt, but making facial massage a regular part of your life will go a long way toward allowing a more youthful glow to shine on your face for everyone you meet.

If you’d like some extra help at the DNA level, I’m offering readers of this article a huge discount on Trinity8’s remote anti-aging sessions for facial rejuvenation. Send me an email with “Wrinkles” in the subject line and I’ll tell you all about it. You are worth it? Bet!