This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.

Women's facial treatment preferences appear to be tied to age

Women younger than 45 years were more likely to prefer cosmetic treatments for the upper face, while women older than 50 preferred treatment to the lower face, according to new data.

Vic Narurkar, MD, and fellow researchers conducted an online survey of 603 women aged 30 to 65 years who were considering aesthetic treatments. The results were published in Dermatologic Surgery.

Vic Narurkar

They found that younger women sought aesthetic treatments to retain youthful appearance, while older women sought to reverse adverse events of aging, including facial lines, folds and volume loss, according to a press release from the American Society for Dermatological Surgery.

Crow’s feet lines were most likely to be treated first (82% of the first preference), followed by oral commissures (74%) and tear troughs (72%), according to the study.

Most participants (82%) were married or living as a couple, “perhaps suggesting that women did not undergo treatment to attract a partner, but rather to achieve their personal beauty goals or to retain their current partner,” the researchers reported in the press release.

The study was the first to examine preferences of women with the means to pursue the cosmetic treatments, having a mean household income of $106,000 per year, according to the researchers. “Although individual physicians may have general perceptions in their practices, there are no systemic data available that describe either the specific concerns that prompt women to seek treatments or their preferences for facial areas requiring treatment,” the researchers wrote.

Disclosure: Narurkar reports serving as an investigator for Allergan, Merz Aesthetics, Solta Medical, Myoscience, Polyremedy and Syneron/Candela and a consultant for Allergan, Philips and Revance. Please see the study for a full list of the other researchers’ relevant financial disclosures.

Reference: www.ASDS.net