How To Support The Skin Of Your Neck and Décolleté
By Kendall Farr, Licensed Esthetician, SPADA Skincare
Party season has arrived and with it the opportunity to dress up with a pretty neckline that’s a bit lower cut than your usual. More skin on view puts the focus squarely on your neck and décolleté. Visible conditions like skin sagging, rough texture, and horizontal neck lines are front and center. The good news is that none of us needs to wear the signs of aging—on the neck especially, like rings around a tree trunk. If you’ve noticed your skin looking more deeply lined and less firm from your chin to your cleavage, it’s a common complaint. The neck is one of the first areas to show visible signs of aging as it has less bone structure to support the skin.
Your ‘face’ (and its care) extends from your hairline to your neck and includes your décolleté, so your skincare—cleanser, mist, moisturizer, exfoliation, any active ingredients, and most vital, SPF—should be applied to the entire area.
First, What Causes Neck Wrinkles Anyway?
Age and sun exposure are two huge factors in neck aging. This is delicate skin with little oil production to maintain skin suppleness. And there’s a new wrinkle in this battle with gravity: repetitive neck bending from looking at technology. Looking at our screens throughout the day means a combination of bending the head forward and bad posture. Known as ‘tech neck’ even people in their 20’s and 30’s are now prematurely aging their neck skin.
Here are 4 things that protect and nourish this delicate skin:
1. Protect Your Neck and Chest—Use SPF
You’ve heard it before and you’ll hear it again from this esthetician. UV damage is the number one cause of skin aging. You can have a great skin care routine but if you are casual about SPF—or skip it altogether—you are doing irreparable harm to your skin. Daily, consistent sunscreen application is critically important. And this goes double for the thin and vulnerable skin on your neck and chest. If you’re applying sunscreen to your face and then taking whatever is left on your fingers and rubbing it on your neck, it’s not enough. Your neck needs an additional nickel to quarter sized dollop of sunblock all its own. Your chest needs the same amount. It’s important to completely shield both areas with separate and adequate applications. Every day. G.M. Collin SPF 50 High Protection Veil offers broad spectrum protection that feels light on the skin. For clean, tinted mineral protection plus hyaluronic acid, smooth on G.M. Collin CC Cream for coverage and camouflage with a dewy finish.
PRO TIP: When applying sunscreen to the neck, start at the front and move in upward strokes from your collar bone and up to your chin. Then, applying sideways, extend it all the way to the hairline on the back of your head. This will ensure that you have entirely and evenly covered the exposed area. If you’re going to be wearing an item of clothing that exposes your chest to the sun, apply a generous layer of SPF there as well. Just let it dry down before getting dressed. Remember here in SWFL the burn rate cab be as little as 20 minutes. Reapply sunscreen every few hours to maintain your levels of protection.
2. Use Ingredients that Help Skin Look (and Act) Younger
Dry, damaged skin is more likely to develop early signs of visible aging. It’s important to give your neck and chest much needed moisture and added support from targeted ingredients that act to tighten and lift the skin. Use a serum designed to smooth neck creasing and to lift the skin. G.M. Collin 4D Visible Lifting Serum is formulated with Progeline™ an ingredient that visibly remodels the skin to make it appear lifted and Majestem® for skin tightening. Daily application delivers firmness and elasticity, smooths horizontal lines, and improves skin texture. On the face, neck, and chest, apply super hydrating 4D Visible Lifting Cream formulated with Skinectura™ an ingredient that visibly firms, promotes elasticity, and minimizes the look of fine lines and deeper wrinkles.
3. Use Active Ingredients
Active ingredients can keep premature signs of aging—including neck lines and skin sagging—in check.
Below are three effective actives worth adding to your current routine to minimize the look of neck and
‘déc’ aging.
Antioxidants
Antioxidants prevent free radical damage (unstable electrons that attack healthy cells and change their structure) and work by “scavenging” loose electrons so that they can’t cause damage in the first place. They also help repair existing damage by reducing skin inflammation caused by the sun’s harmful rays. Inflammation equals skin aging.
Much like the skin on your face, the skin on your neck contacts free radicals daily, whether from UVA and UVB rays, pollution, smoke, or other environmental stressors. These slow down collagen and elastin production—the structure that gives our skin firmness and shape—which can lead to wrinkling. Protect the skin of your neck from free radical assault with an antioxidant-rich serum. G.M. Collin Vital C15 Serum is formulated with a powerhouse blend of ferulic acid plus peptides to shield the skin from damage and visibly improve the tone, texture, and elasticity of the skin. Read more about what Vitamin C does here.
Retinol
Retinol is truly the multitasker of active ingredients. It’s proven to stimulate cell regeneration, boost the production of collagen, and promote skin elasticity. It can make a major impact on the appearance of wrinkles including neck creasing. Goodbye tech neck. Keep this in mind, there is little to no oil production in neck skin which can leave it feeling dry and vulnerable to irritation. If you are a retinol newbie avoid any sensitivity in this area with a handy layering hack known as a ‘Beauty Sandwich’. Apply moisturizer to your neck first and then apply retinol. Then apply another thin layer of moisturizer. This helps neck skin better tolerate the potency of the retinol. Read more about retinol here.
Pro Tip: Don’t apply a moisturizer right after a retinol. Best to let it absorb for about 20 minutes and then apply your moisture.
Peptides
Peptides are chains of amino acids that are the building blocks of protein. When they penetrate skin layers they signal to your cells to produce more collagen and elastin which can have a significant effect on expression lines and wrinkles. If you’ve seen a product described as ‘multi peptide’ this is likely a product that can tick more than a few of your skin support boxes. A formula with different sized molecules penetrates the skin deeply and more effectively. G.M. Collin Bota Peptide Cream is enriched with 8 different peptides formulated to reduce the look of expression lines and visibly smooth and plump the skin. Peptides offer real dermal penetration and results.
4. This Is Easy. Adjust Your Pillows at Night.
Your sleep position also affects the skin on your neck. Back sleepers and people who sleep with their heads elevated on multiple pillows cause a 45-degree bend in the neck as they sleep, leading to the formation of lines and wrinkles.
Whenever your neck remains bent for long periods of time it can cause lines and wrinkles. It’s an easy fix. Sleep on one pillow, and the thinner the better, so your neck remains in a more neutral position. It may not sound like much, but we spend nearly a third of our lives asleep and the cumulative effects visibly impact our skin.
All of the above will help you support and improve the look of skin in this area. With not much added effort you will see improvement. In-spa treatment facials like Hydrolifting and Collagen 90 are both effective options that pamper your neck and décolleté for lifting and smoothing. Book your holiday prep facial and consult with your esthetician to make a plan to boost your results.