The way neck skin looks is influenced by many factors, from diet to sun exposure and even lack of exercise. Whether you call it “turkey neck” or under-chin skin laxity, this problem affects many women. Luckily, there are plenty of options to deal with sagging neck skin, from exercise to more powerful non-surgical options.
Discover the best sagging neck tips and find out if you’re willing to try surgery for a more permanent fix for this issues.
Skin Care and Other Factors
The way you treat your skin can play an important part in the development of sagging neck skin. Without the proper SPF protection, the collagen in your skin starts breaking down, and your skin becomes less elastic as you age. Use skin care products with peptides and retinol in the neck area. Both these ingredients help build collagen.
One of the best sagging neck tips is staying hydrated, but that has a good overall effect on your entire skin, so you’re not giving your skin the moisture it needs just for the sake of your neck. Fat accumulation also plays a huge part in the “turkey neck” look that women hate. Keeping your overall body fat percentage down can also help. The healthy values for women range from 14 to 24%, while men, who also get turkey neck, needs to keep it between 6 and 17%.
Exercises for Sagging Neck Skin
One of the best sagging neck tips is to exercise the muscles in your neck to prevent flabby skin under your chin. With the right exercises, you can tone your muscles a bit, but don’t expect miracles, because getting rid of fat in the neck area isn’t as easy as burning off fat in other areas.
Rolling your lips over your teeth stretches the neck muscles, but the best exercise for sagging neck skin includes two other important components: opening your mouth and tilting your head back. As you open as wide as possible and raise your chin, you’ll feel the tension in your neck muscles. You shouldn’t hold for more than 30 seconds and a repeat or two after a few seconds of rest is the right way to go.
Another simple exercise that helps tone down your neck muscles entails tilting your head back and chew imaginary food while keeping your mouth closed. Hold for the same time and repeat a few times every day for good results.
Non-Surgical Options for Sagging Neck Skin
If you want a more dramatic change, some of the best sagging neck tips include treatments like fractionated resurfacing and Ulthera. The first is an in-office treatment which uses lasers to create microscopic cuts in your skin. This leads to redness for a few days, but the healing process is very important in building collagen and getting a more youthful look and feel for your skin, with less fine lines.
Ulthera is another option that some dermatologists offer their clients. It works as a nonsurgical face-lift and is approved by the FDA for use in the brow area. Recommended by Dr. Oz, this treatment is also useful for the neck area, but can’t transform a “turkey neck” completely and the effects only last for up to a year. The treatment can also be relatively painful and costly, so it hasn’t gained wider acceptance than surgical cosmetic procedures.
Surgical Options for Sagging Neck Skin
Once you’ve exhausted other options, liposuction in the neck area is a fast way to get rid of the extra fat which makes the skin hang lower than it should. Using only local anesthesia, the 30 minute procedure removes the excess fat, but can leave behind swelling and bruising for up to two weeks. Ultrasound-assisted liposuction is another popular procedure, that liquefies fat before it’s mechanically removed from your neck area. Expect wearing a neck sling for 2 weeks after each procedure.
More drastic options include liposuction and a neck lift performed at the same time for better results. If you’re also dealing with banding (vertical cords), you’ll need platysmaplasty to tighten the muscle permanently, but you can also opt for botox injections to rejuvenate your neck.
Use the best sagging neck tips to treat the problem yourself before going in for a consult, since surgery also has a higher risk of complications and the downtime is significant.
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