Our mouths can tell secrets about us that we don’t want the world to know, like our age. Just as the face ages in essentially three ways, so does the mouth, by
wrinkling, sagging and thinning. The pouting and seductive lips of youth gradually become a pair of thin clamped lines. The upper lip gets long, concealing the upper teeth. The lips turn in and get skinny, making one look rigid or bitter. The corners of the mouth turn down with age, creating an unhappy look.
Researchers have concluded that there are six fundamental expressions of emotion:
sadness, anger, joy, fear, disgust and surprise. Although these emotions are spontaneous and their expressions only temporary, over many years permanent anatomic changes can occur that make the face appear to be animating even when in a “neutral” position, called repose. “The problem comes when these expressions are not the reality of how one feels, but are symbols that inaccurately convey the mood, personality or physical condition of an individual,” according to Dr. Byron Poindexter, partner and surgeon at The Austin-Weston Center for Cosmetic Surgery in Reston, Virginia. “For instance, we are immediately thrown to believe that a tired or unhappy expression means that the person is tired or unhappy. Ideally, the face in repose should be neutral for emotion and reflect a youthful and rested condition.”
(Related article:
Mini
facelift)
| These symbols are even more damaging when we become what the symbols say about us. It seems to work like this: The feedback from our mirrors and the feedback from other people act as instructions. So, gradually, without realizing it, our personalities shift to match the symbols. If we look sad, we become sad. If we look angry, we become angry.
“One job of cosmetic surgery is to create a harmony or a ‘truth’ between what is seen on the outside and what is felt on the inside,” says Dr. Robert
Sigal, a colleague of Dr. Poindexter. “Cosmetic surgery
is about altering the symbols that tell lies about
us." (Related:
ContourLift) |
|
A
facelift can help reduce the visible signs of aging, yet without special attention to this area, the mouth remains visibly old in appearance. An older looking mouth in the center of a face that has been rejuvenated makes the person look old, not young, and this may become an obvious giveaway that he or she has had cosmetic surgery.
Continued: Plastic surgery procedures for face
that reduce signs of aging
Related:
Browlifts
Placenta
beauty products |