Skin Changes Around Perimenopause, and What Helps
Medically reviewed by
4 independent reviewers
Andrew Conrad Barile, Fisioterapeuta, Doctor en Terapia Física
Doctorado en Terapia Física (DPT), Fisioterapeuta Licenciado (PT)
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El Dr. Andrew Conrad Barile es Doctor en Terapia Física y CEO y Fundador de Xtreem Pulse LLC. Obtuvo su Doctorado en Terapia Física en Daemen College y aporta más de dos décadas de experiencia clínica y empresarial en terapia física pediátrica, terapia craneosacral e innovación en dispositivos médicos. Su profundo conocimiento de la anatomía humana, la fisiología muscular y la tecnología terapéutica ofrece un enfoque invaluable respaldado por la ciencia para la rejuvenecimiento facial y soluciones antienvejecimiento.
Bertica M. Rubio, M.D.
Director Médico, Clínica de Medicina Regenerativa y Antienvejecimiento | Médico Certificado por la Junta | Escuela de Medicina de Dartmouth
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La Dra. Bertica M. Rubio es una médica certificada y Directora Médica de la Clínica de Medicina Regenerativa y Antienvejecimiento en Redlands, California. Obtuvo su licenciatura en Ciencias en la Universidad Loyola Marymount y su título de Doctora en Medicina en la Escuela de Medicina de Dartmouth (Geisel School of Medicine). Completó su residencia en pediatría en el Centro Médico UC Irvine.
Con décadas de experiencia clínica, la Dra. Rubio se especializa en medicina para el manejo de la edad, medicina regenerativa, cicatrización de heridas y terapias con factores de crecimiento. Su práctica integra la ciencia médica basada en evidencia con tratamientos estéticos y regenerativos avanzados, ayudando a los pacientes a alcanzar una salud óptima y vitalidad juvenil.
La Dra. Rubio siente pasión por educar a los pacientes sobre la ciencia detrás del cuidado de la piel, el rejuvenecimiento facial y las tecnologías no invasivas como EMS (Estimulación Eléctrica Muscular) para el tonificado facial. Sus artículos para PureLift LAB combinan un conocimiento médico riguroso con orientación práctica para lograr resultados reales y duraderos.
Daniel Grinberg, MD, FACS
Otorrinolaringólogo y cirujano de cabeza y cuello certificado | Miembro, Colegio Americano de Cirujanos | Profesor clínico asistente, Escuela de Medicina Mount Sinai
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Daniel Grinberg, MD, FACS, es un otorrinolaringólogo certificado por la junta y cirujano de cabeza y cuello en ENT and Allergy Associates en West Nyack, NY. Obtuvo su título de médico en la Facultad de Médicos y Cirujanos de la Universidad de Columbia, completó su residencia en Otorrinolaringología en el Centro Médico de la Universidad de Nueva York y es profesor clínico asistente en la Escuela de Medicina Mount Sinai. Es miembro de la American College of Surgeons y de la American Academy of Otolaryngology.
La perspectiva quirúrgica de cabeza y cuello del Dr. Grinberg ofrece a los lectores de PureLift LAB una visión clínica más amplia, conectando la práctica de EMS en casa con la anatomía médica subyacente con el mismo rigor científico que aplicamos a cada especificación del dispositivo.
Prof. Dr. med. Ivo Buschmann
Cátedra de Angiología, Hochschule Médica de Brandeburgo | Director de Clínica, Clínica Universitaria de Angiología, Hospital Universitario de Brandeburgo | Ex Consultor Senior, Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlín
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El Prof. Dr. med. Ivo Buschmann es Catedrático de Angiología en la Medizinische Hochschule Brandenburg Theodor Fontane (MHB) y Director Clínico de la Clínica Universitaria de Angiología en el Hospital Universitario de Brandeburgo. Completó su formación médica en la Universidad de Hamburgo, fue becario de la Sociedad Max-Planck en el Instituto Max-Planck de Investigación Cardiaca y Pulmonar, y ocupó cargos de consultor senior en la Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin Campus Virchow antes de ser nombrado Catedrático en la MHB en 2016.
El Prof. Buschmann es una de las principales autoridades europeas en arteriogénesis — el crecimiento y remodelación de los vasos sanguíneos impulsados por el flujo — con más de 150 publicaciones revisadas por pares y varias patentes en EE. UU. y la UE sobre dispositivos que estimulan el crecimiento de vasos colaterales mediante terapia controlada de tasa de cizalladura. Su investigación conecta la estimulación mecánica y eléctrica con la adaptación vascular, la microcirculación y la perfusión tisular.
Las contribuciones del Prof. Buschmann aportan a los lectores de PureLift LAB una perspectiva de biología vascular que complementa nuestra autoría clínica, de fisioterapia y de anatomía quirúrgica existente — explicando cómo la estimulación EMS activa no solo los músculos faciales sino también la microcirculación que los abastece, y por qué la administración inteligente es tan importante a nivel del flujo sanguíneo como en la contracción muscular.
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Skin collagen falls faster in the years around menopause than at any other point in adult life, which is why changes that felt gradual for a decade suddenly seem to accelerate.
This article walks through the routine step by step, such as:
- What changes in the skin
- What to change in the routine
- Where a device fits
- Using one on thinner skin
- What belongs with your doctor
and many more!
The hormonal side of the question belongs with a doctor; what follows is about the skin and the routine.
Key Points:
Skin often becomes drier and thinner, so products that suited oilier skin can stop suiting it.
The barrier is more easily disrupted, which means gentler exfoliation rather than stronger.
Muscle tone is the one part of the picture a home device addresses.
Retinoids still work and may need reintroducing more slowly than before.
Anything about hormone therapy is a conversation with your doctor, not with a device brand.
What changes in the skin
Collagen and elastin production fall, and the decline in the years around menopause is steeper than the roughly one percent a year of the decades before. Skin becomes thinner and loses some of its ability to spring back.
Oil production typically falls too, so skin that was comfortable with a light routine can become dry, and the barrier that oil helped maintain becomes easier to disrupt.
Hydration is harder to hold for the same reason, and the fine surface texture that follows dehydration scatters light, which reads as dullness.
Facial fat redistributes over the same period, and facial muscle loses tone as muscle does everywhere. All of that was happening before; the pace is what changes.
What to change in the routine
Move to a richer moisturiser than you needed before, and include a humectant with something occlusive over it. The face that needed a light gel at forty often needs a cream at fifty, and continuing with the gel out of habit is a common reason skin feels tight.
Exfoliate less, not more. A thinner barrier disrupts more easily, and the instinct to attack dullness with stronger acids usually makes the dullness worse.
Keep the retinoid. It still has the best evidence of anything over a counter for dermal collagen, and if it now stings, reintroduce it slowly, two nights a week, buffered with moisturiser, rather than abandoning it.
Extend everything below the jawline, since neck and chest skin is thinner still and ages faster.
Sun protection, which prevents more than any of the above reverses.
Where a device fits
Muscle tone, which is the one part of this picture within reach of electrical stimulation. Kavanagh and colleagues followed 108 women through 12 weeks of motor-level facial stimulation and measured an 18.6 percent increase in cheek muscle thickness (10.1111/jocd.12007).
Worth noting that the participants in that trial were women in the age range this article is about, which is unusual in a field where a great deal of research is done on younger people. Chang and colleagues ran a double-blind sham-controlled trial (10.3390/ijerph17113783).
Both are category studies rather than trials of a consumer device, and neither examined hormonal status as a variable.
What a device does not do is restore dermal collagen, replace redistributed volume, or affect anything hormonal.
Using one on thinner skin
Start lower than you might have previously. On PureLift, levels 1 and 2 are nanocurrent and microcurrent and do not contract anything, and there is no hurry to leave them.
Use more serum than feels necessary and reapply during the session, since drier skin dries out faster mid-session and a session that drags is a dry patch rather than a weak device.
Keep exfoliating acids and retinoids off the face during a session; a device distributes them far more thoroughly than they were formulated for, and a thinner barrier tolerates that badly.
Three minutes per side is the maximum on any PureLift model, and the ten minute session ends on its own.
What belongs with your doctor
Anything about hormone therapy, whether it is right for you, and what it might or might not do for your skin. That is a medical decision with a real evidence base and real considerations, and it is not ours to discuss.
Also anything that does not fit the pattern: sudden changes, itching that will not settle, new pigmentation, or hair loss.
A device is a reasonable addition to a routine during this period and it is not an answer to the underlying change.
For what each layer responds to, see the six layers of the face, and for laxity specifically, what skin laxity is.
This is general skincare information and not medical advice.