All About The Neck
Don’t forget about your neck! While we often focus on our face, it’s important to focus on prevention and rejuvenation strategies for the neck as well.
The following are some of my favourite neck treatments:
1) Skin Care: I always remind patients how much the sun can contribute to photoaging and that even as we remember to sunscreen our face, we often forget our neck. Remembering to apply your skin care and sunscreen to your neck and décolletage is a great first step.
2) Complexion:
a. Microneedling - I like this for fine lines and crepey skin. You will need multiple treatments to see improvement.
b. IPL - This can help with discolouration which is common especially on the more sun-exposed sides of the neck. In fact though the dermatological term is poikiloderma, the layman’s description is chicken skin where you see red, white and brown colour change and some textural differences. So evening out the skin colour with IPL can definitely make a difference.
3) Tightening:
a. Thermage and Ultherapy - Both of those treatments can help to stimulate collagen and tighten and lift the neck. The results are longer lasting and preventative all at once.
4) Lift and reduce neck banding: Many people get wrestler neck when they strain their neck and while those bands at rest may not seem like a big deal, the platysma muscle is one of the major depressor of the lower face and can contribute to the dreaded jowl and downturned lip corners.
a. Neuromodulators ie. Botox, Dysport, or Xeomin - can all be used to treat the platysma muscle, lift the neck and contribute to a more defined jawline. This is known as the Nefertiti lift.
5) Necklace lines or “tech neck”: These are often genetic and we are also seeing these lines pop up more on social media and because of social media as everyone looks down at phones and devices contributing to those accordion like lines.
a. Juvederm Volite or Restylane Skin Boosters: These softer hyaluronic acid fillers can gently soften the lines on the neck.
Check out this amazing before and after of my patient whose necklace lines were softened with hyaluronic acid filler directly into the lines in combination with skin tightening of the lower face and neck.
