Hands take a bashing don’t they? From dish soap and hand sanitisers to UV rays and pollutants, they are for the most part unprotected from all the factors that age us. Natural ageing is fine. Premature ageing isn’t so easy to swallow, and it’s the latter that happens when you neglect the skin in this area.
I say all this because a few months ago I caught sight of the backs of my hands in a different light. The skin had morphed from smooth to crepey in texture – something my daughter used to call pastry skin (albeit endearingly) when talking about her grandmother’s decolletage. “Out of the mouths of babes”, my Mum would say, chuckling.
Although this is no laughing matter. I’m 50 and my hands look a good 10 years older. They’re not giving my age away, as the saying goes, they’re up ageing me – and I only have myself to blame.
In the past when I remembered to, I would slather whatever SPF was leftover from my face onto the backs of my hands. Now I make it a priority. Not just my hands but, when I’m wearing short sleeves, my forearms also. Not just a smear, either, but a thick layer, covering every inch. Furthermore, I began applying a vitamin C serum to my hands in the morning and a retinol at night. It’s been six months of doing so and I can attest to noticing a visible difference in the brightness particularly – my colour is more even in tone and less mottled from the sun.
Given that I’ve been a beauty editor for years, I don’t why I didn’t think of this sooner. Ordinary hand creams always felt greasy to me and tend to lack the active ingredients hands need to stay free from age spots and crinkling. After all, the skin on our hands is thin and robustly tested day in, day out, whether it’s gardening or washing up. Thus it needs more, not less intervention.
My skin tone had improved but the crepiness was still apparent and so I began researching treatments that would activate damage reversal. Now that I’d put preventative measures in place I was on a roll and determined to have hands that matched my face.
I tried the injectable Profhilo (hyaluronic acid) a couple of years ago to rehydrate and plump the skin on my hands. It was miraculous at first but as with most things, it needs topping up regularly and I didn’t have the patience or budget for it. Plus, injectables in the hands sting and I wasn’t committed enough to subject mine to regular needles in the name of vanity.
I considered following Madonna’s lead and donning a pair of fingerless gloves from here on out. Then I was invited to trial Augustinus Bader’s new radiofrequency treatment for hands. Radiofrequency works by emitting a type of energy that heats up the dermis (deeper tissues) triggering a healing response that leads to a natural boost of collagen and elastin. The results from a cohort of women with age spots and wrinkling were impressive.
One woman even reported an improvement in her arthritic fingers. By the end of a course of six treatments they were less stiff, the practitioner told me at my first appointment. As radiofrequency is a method that hacks into the skin’s own natural healing processes, this didn’t sound so far-fetched. If it can rewind arthritis, surely it can reverse a few fine wrinkles.
On my first appointment at The Skin Lab in Dover Street London, the therapist explained that they are the first to offer the Bewei machine, a printer-like device that delivers the energy via a robotic hand piece that moves over the area in a figure-of-eight motion.
The treatment began with a warm cloth to cleanse the hands, followed by an application of conductor gel after which each hand is put in the machine for 10 minutes each. The sensation is warm and soothing, and not at all painful which can be the case with facial therapies of the same ilk. When the treatment was over, the therapist gave me a therapeutic massage with Augustinus Bader’s hand cream which left my hands plump and glisteny.
I was instructed to have six treatments spaced a couple of days apart. However, I only managed to have one a week over a six week period. I noticed a difference in the smoothness of my hands after the first and by the fourth the crepiness had diminished.
I can’t say it was transformational as my wrinkles were subtle to begin with, but after completing all six treatments I can say my hands feel softer to touch – less rough in texture and are visibly fresher looking.
The thing I liked the most is that it’s quick. Each appointment is 20 minutes long and the cost is £75 per session. Not cheap per se, but for radiofrequency, which for a whole face can cost upwards of £2000, it’s not outrageous.
Moreover, energy treatments continue to work weeks afterwards as it wakes up the collagen and elastin factory within our skin. Hence, I expect to reap the benefits well into autumn. Especially since I’ve continued to double down on active skincare for my hands.
For those of you who are in your thirties, now is the time to start treating your hands as you do your face. A targeted serum followed by a liberal application of SPF50 in your early years will save you having to fend off age spots in your forties.
Try these...
Best all round hand cream: Augustinus Bader The Hand Treatment with TFC8, £44
Best for overnight: Korean Beauty Wonderbalm, £29
Best brightening serum: Sarah Chapman C1 Vitamin C Power Serum, £90
Best for fine lines: Beauty Pie Super Retinol Hands £12.50
Best hand soap: Aesop Reverence Hand Wash, £33
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