Fine lines and wrinkles have a nasty way of sneaking up on you and may appear earlier than you expected. The expression lines that occur during natural facial movement suddenly take longer to disappear, before they stop disappearing altogether. If you’re a particularly happy person, you may be worried about developing smile lines, or laughter lines – but what causes smile lines? When do they usually appear? Can you prevent them? Here’s how to get rid of smile lines…

What are smile lines ?

Smile lines are, quite literally, the fine lines or wrinkles that form when you smile. They include the nasolabial folds that run from the corners of your nose to the corners of your mouth and the crow’s feet wrinkles which are visible at the corner of each eye. Some people even scrunch their nose when they smile or laugh which can cause little wrinkles at the top of the nose that are endearingly termed ‘bunny lines’.

What causes smiles lines ?

Smile lines are naturally caused by the repetitive movements of our facial muscles when we smile and laugh. Over time, this movement causes the tissue beneath the expression lines to thin which results in the wrinkles remaining even when we are not performing the facial expression . These wrinkles are then made worse as our skin loses collagen and elastin.

The smile lines around the mouth, better known as the nasolabial folds, begin to appear around the age of 25 and become more noticeable with increasing age. In addition to being caused by repetitive movement and collagen and elastin loss, these smile lines are also a consequence of age-related changes in facial fat and overall facial volume loss .

These changes cause the skin to ‘sag’ which can make the nasolabial smile lines appear deeper.

To a certain extent, this means that fine smile lines and wrinkles are an inevitable part of natural aging. However, deep smile lines and premature (early-appearing) smile lines are largely down to environmental and behavioral factors.

These lifestyle factors include:

• Not Wearing Sunscreen
• Smoking
• A High-Sugar Diet
• Pollution
• Stress
• Lack of Sleep

Of which, the top 3 lifestyle causes of smile lines are:

Approximately 90% of visible facial skin aging is due to the ultraviolet (UV) radiation from sun exposure. UV radiation can be broken into UVA and UVB which both affect the skin in slightly different ways.

UVB rays have more energy than UVA rays but can only penetrate the epidermis. They are easily absorbed by DNA and melanin which causes skin cancers and pigmentation changes.

You can generally tell if you have experienced skin damage from UVB as it causes sunburn. UVB rays are particularly strong in the summer months and during the hours of 11 am to 3 pm.

UVA rays have less energy than UVB rays but can penetrate deeper into the skin where they produce free radicals that can damage DNA and breakdown collagen and elastin. This means that they are the main culprit when it comes to premature skin aging.

The damage caused by UVA rays is accumulative and doesn’t appear until years down the line which means that most people are completely unaware that their skin is being damaged.

To make matters worse, the strength of UVA rays remains relatively constant all year round, which means that even on cold and cloudy days they can still damage your skin. They can even pass through glass!

This means that improper sun protection is likely to be the number one cause of deep smile lines.

Smoking 

Second to sun-damage, smoking is another leading cause of premature skin aging. Smoking reduces the blood flow to the skin which deprives the skin of oxygen and vital nutrients. Smokers also have fewer collagen and elastin fibers in their skin and deeper wrinkles. In fact, the more frequently a person smokes, the more wrinkles they are likely to have. For example, some research has found wrinkling, such as smile lines, to be three times worse in smokers than in non-smokers.

Another way that smoking can contribute to smile lines is via the facial movements that are required to smoke a cigarette. Each time a person smokes a cigarette they contract the muscles around their eyes and mouth which can increase the risk of developing smile lines as well as worsening existing smile lines.

High Sugar Diet

One type of food that is particularly associated with increased skin aging is sugar. This is due to a process called ‘glycation’ which is where proteins, such as collagen, bond with sugar molecules without enzyme mediation. This reduces the ability of the collagen protein to function. The collagen in the skin can experience up to a 50% increase in glycation over a person’s lifetime .

This basically means that a diet high in sugar can reduce the elasticity of the skin, causing it to ‘sag’ and worsen the appearance of smile lines. In fact, some researchers even call this the ‘sugar-sag’.

How to get rid of smile lines ?

Sunscreen !

As mentioned above, up to 90% of premature skin aging is due to the damage caused by UV radiation from the sun, particularly UVA radiation. UVA rays are constant all year round, even on cloudy and rainy days, and, over time, cause the destruction of collagen and elastin within the skin.

The good news is that daily and correct sunscreen use can prevent the majority of this damage. In fact, research has found that those who wore a broad-spectrum sunscreen daily for four-years appeared younger than their counterparts who used sunscreen as and when they felt it was necessary. In fact, the researchers noted that their skin did not appear to age at all in that four-year period .

So, while daily sunscreen use is not going to turn back the clocks on any existing smile lines, it will help to prevent them from getting worse.

Quit smoking !

As mentioned above, smoking is another key culprit in the formation of smile lines. For this reason, avoiding smoking is a must! But what if you’re already a smoker?

It has long been thought that the skin damage caused by smoking is irreversible but some research suggests that this may not be the case!

In other words, quitting smoking improved their skin to the point that they actually looked younger than their biological age!

Use Antioxidant Serum !

It is not the UV radiation itself that breaks down collagen and elastin, but the free radicals that are produced when UVA rays are absorbed by the skin. Free radicals are unstable molecules with missing electrons that try to steal electrons from the healthy molecules within your skin. This causes a chain reaction which ultimately leads to cellular damage.

Antioxidants are molecules that have a spare electron which they are able to donate to the free radical in order to stabilize it and prevent it from damaging healthy molecules. Unfortunately, sunscreen can only prevent roughly 55%  of free radical production. For this reason, a lot of sunscreens now contain added antioxidants to improve protection.

However, including an antioxidant serum in your skincare routine is usually more effective than relying on the antioxidants in sunscreen alone. They often work well when combined together, for example; vitamin C and vitamin E, or green tea and caffeine.

Use retinoid !

The word ‘retinoid’ is a catch-all term for vitamin A derivatives that can increase skin cell turnover and boost collagen and elastin production, as well as acting as an antioxidant. Research has found that retinoids can actually help undo a lot of sun damage, which means that they can help prevent and treat smile lines.

Exfoliate regularly !

While retinoids increase the rate of skin cell turnover by increasing the speed that new skin cells are created and transported to the surface of the skin in order to be shed, they do not actually have an ‘exfoliating’ effect. Combining retinoids with chemical exfoliants, such as AHAs or BHAs, can dramatically enhance their effects.