Do You Have Old-Lady Hands?

Allure Daily Beauty Reporter

By Kate Sullivan, Allure magazine

This morning, while riding the subway, I looked up at my right hand struggling to hold onto the horizontal bar over my head (can we save the vertical poles for the short people, fellow passengers?), and noticed that my hand looked more weathered than my beat-up leather jacket. Shudder. How did this happen?!

Well, I haven't been moisturizing enough in this dry weather, and worse still, I haven't been applying SPF to my hands. (I swear, I'm always on top of my face and neck; and when the weather is warmer and I'm more exposed, I'm diligent about slathering my whole body.)

But I'm going to be taking better care of my hands from now on, especially since a recent poll of allure.com users found that 30 percent thought that their hands were the body part that showed their age the most.

In the April issue, associate editor Elizabeth Siegel asked the experts for the best tips for notorious age-revealing (and sometimes age-exaggerating) body parts, including the hands. Turns out, we should be treating them a lot more like our faces, not only during the day with SPF, but also at night, with retinols that will increase collagen production.

Writes Siegel, "Howard Sobel, clinical attending physician in dermatology at Lenox Hill Hospital and Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City and founder of DDF, recommends DDF's Retinol Energizing Moisturizer to patients in their late 20s and a stronger prescription retinoid, such as Renova, as they reach their 40s. If bulging veins are the problem, Sobel says that a hyaluronic acid filler, such as Juvéderm or Radiesse, can make them less noticeable by plumping up surrounding skin."

For more tips on targeting specific body parts in your anti-aging routine, check out "Body Talk" in the April issue. And if you want to know more about hands-like how many minutes it takes for them to prune in the bathtub, what SPF top hand models use, and who invented the high-five-check out Beauty By Numbers in that same issue.

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Photo Credit: WWD