Your Thirties, What Is Starting and What Is Not
Medically reviewed by
4 independent reviewers
Andrew Conrad Barile, PT, DPT
Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) | Licensed Physical Therapist (PT) | CEO and Founder, Xtreem Pulse LLC
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Dr. Andrew Conrad Barile is a Doctor of Physical Therapy and the CEO and Founder of Xtreem Pulse LLC, the engineering company behind PureLift. He earned his Doctorate in Physical Therapy from Daemen College and is a licensed physical therapist.
He brings over two decades of clinical and entrepreneurial experience across physical therapy, craniosacral therapy and medical device innovation, built on a working knowledge of human anatomy and muscle physiology.
For PureLift LAB he reviews how current is delivered across all ten levels, from sub-sensory nanocurrent and skin-level microcurrent to motor-level EMS, and how the Infuse pass fits into the same ten-minute routine.
Bertica M. Rubio, M.D.
Board-Certified Physician, Dartmouth Medical School | Medical Director, Antiaging Regenerative Medicine Clinic
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Dr. Bertica M. Rubio is a board-certified physician and Medical Director of the Antiaging Regenerative Medicine Clinic in Redlands, California. She earned her Doctor of Medicine from Dartmouth Medical School and completed her pediatrics residency at UC Irvine Medical Center.
With decades of clinical experience, she specialises in age management medicine, regenerative medicine, wound healing and growth factor therapies, and her practice integrates evidence-based medical science with advanced aesthetic treatment.
For PureLift LAB she reviews articles for medical accuracy across the whole dial, from the gentle nanocurrent and microcurrent settings through to muscle-level EMS and the Infuse pass.
Daniel Grinberg, MD, FACS
Board-Certified Otolaryngologist | Head and Neck Surgeon | Fellow, American College of Surgeons | Mount Sinai
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Daniel Grinberg, MD, FACS is a board-certified otolaryngologist and head and neck surgeon at ENT and Allergy Associates in West Nyack, New York. He earned his medical degree from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.
He completed his otolaryngology residency at New York University Medical Center, serves as Assistant Clinical Professor at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and is a Fellow of both the American College of Surgeons and the American Academy of Otolaryngology.
For PureLift LAB he brings a wider clinical lens, connecting at-home facial stimulation from microcurrent to EMS to the anatomy underneath, with the same rigour we apply to every device specification.
Prof. Dr. med. Ivo Buschmann
Chair of Angiology, Medizinische Hochschule Brandenburg | Clinic Director, University Clinic for Angiology
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Prof. Dr. med. Ivo Buschmann is Chair of Angiology at the Medizinische Hochschule Brandenburg Theodor Fontane and Clinic Director of the University Clinic for Angiology at the Brandenburg University Hospital.
He trained at the University of Hamburg, was a Max Planck Society Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research, and held senior consultant posts at the Charite Universitatsmedizin Berlin before his appointment as Chair in 2016.
One of Europe's leading authorities on arteriogenesis, with over 150 peer-reviewed publications and US and EU patents, he reviews for PureLift LAB how the evidence on electrical stimulation is read and where its limits lie.
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The thirties are the decade where dermal collagen decline becomes visible and where facial muscle tone has mostly not moved yet.
So the changes people notice around thirty-five are largely skin changes, and the interventions that address skin are the ones that pay.
A device has a role here and it is a smaller one than it will be later, which is worth knowing before you spend.
Key Points:
Collagen has been falling since the mid-twenties and the effect becomes visible in this decade.
Expression lines start setting at rest, which is a folding problem rather than a tone problem.
A retinoid and daily sunscreen outrank anything else available at this age.
Muscle tone is worth maintaining rather than rebuilding, so the low bands and Infuse mode are the useful halves.
Nothing you do now prevents ageing; it changes the starting point you reach it from.
What has actually started
Collagen production has been falling by roughly one percent a year since the mid-twenties, and by the mid-thirties the cumulative effect starts showing as skin that is less bouncy and slower to settle after a pinch.
Expression lines begin appearing at rest rather than only on movement. A frown line forms because the muscle underneath folds the skin thousands of times, and at some point the fold stops disappearing when the face relaxes.
Under-eye changes become more visible as the skin there thins, and the first signs of pigment unevenness from a decade or two of sun show up.
What has not meaningfully changed is facial muscle tone, and fat compartments are largely still where they started.
What matters most at this age
Daily broad-spectrum sunscreen, which prevents more than anything reverses and compounds across the decades.
A retinoid, which has the best evidence of anything over a counter for dermal collagen and which addresses the change that has actually begun. Introduce it slowly, two or three nights a week, buffered with moisturiser.
Sleep, hydration and not smoking, which sound like filler and outperform most purchases.
Those three are the thirties in a sentence, and a device does not displace any of them.
Where a device fits now
The low bands are the relevant half. On PureLift, levels 1 and 2 are nanocurrent and microcurrent, which is where the literature discusses cellular activity, fibroblast signalling and dermal circulation, and that is the layer where your change is happening.
Infuse mode is arguably the most useful feature at this age, since Infusion and iontophoresis deliver whatever you apply further into the skin (10.1073/pnas.90.22.10504), which makes a good serum go further.
EMS is available and is maintenance rather than correction here. Kavanagh and colleagues measured an 18.6 percent increase in cheek muscle thickness over 12 weeks of motor-level stimulation in a population where tone had already declined (10.1111/jocd.12007), which is not the situation most thirty-somethings are in.
The honest inference is that tone responds to use, so keeping it rather than rebuilding it is a reasonable goal. That is inference rather than a finding, since nobody has tested prevention in this age group.
Which model
Face at $499 is the sensible choice. It carries the same PDM engine and the same six technologies as Pro, and 9 mA is more output than the situation calls for.
Paying $400 more for a ceiling you will not use is not clever, and the extra money is better spent on a good retinoid and sunscreen for the next three years.
The expression-line question
Lines setting at rest in the upper face are a folding problem: the skin creases in the same place repeatedly until it stays creased.
That is the problem neuromodulators address, by preventing the fold, and it is not what a stimulation device does. A device works the mid and lower face where tone supports contour.
If forehead and frown lines are your main concern, a consultation tells you more than any device purchase will.
The realistic framing
Nothing done in your thirties prevents ageing. What it changes is the condition your face is in when the later changes arrive, and skin quality and sun damage are the two variables most responsive to what you do now.
Three minutes per side is the maximum on any PureLift model, and the ten minute session ends on its own.
For the decade before, see do you need a facial device in your twenties, and for what changes later, why the face can look less firm after 40.
Two related questions come up often alongside this one, and we have answered both in full: whether microcurrent and EMS are the same thing, and how microcurrent compares with a TENS unit.