Why Your Neck Looks Older Than Your Face—and What Skincare Can Actually Do with Esthetician Katy Bacon

Gloss Angeles

Esthetician and global educator Katy Bacon joins the show to demystify why the neck, chest, and hands often age faster than the face. She breaks down how hormonal

Key takeaways

• Katy Bacon notes that visible aging often accelerates in distinct hormonal bursts around ages 38, 42, and 44 due to perimenopausal shifts.
• Only about 10% of skin aging is genetic; UV exposure, lifestyle habits, and diet are the primary drivers of collagen degradation.

Main topics

• Neck and décolleté aging mechanisms
• Hormonal shifts and perimenopause

Notable quotes

"I think skincare is super overwhelming and it should be joyful first and foremost."

Conclusion

Listeners gain a clear, science-backed framework for neck care: prioritize consistent use of

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) G-L-A-M, Los Angeles. Speaker 3 (0:05) Hi Kirby. Hi Sarah. Welcome to Los Angeles! Speaker 3 (0:14) Our necks, chests, and hands deal with the same sun exposure, collagen loss, and hormonal shift as our faces do, but we pay them less attention. Then one day it can feel like everything in those areas aged overnight. Today, Speaker 2 (0:27) Katie Bacon, esthetician and global educator at Murad, is helping us understand why the skin outside of our face can age differently, what topical products can realistically improve, and which ingredients have the best evidence behind them. You can also read real reviews from 300 of our listeners about their experience with Murad's new neck serum through Gloss Angeles Confidential, which the brand has partnered with us on. Katie, welcome to Gloss Angeles. We're thrilled to have you. Thank you. I'm so excited to be with you. Well, we have a lot to get Speaker 3 (0:59) into. Speaker 2 (1:00) We have a laundry list of different questions that we have been wanting to talk about. This episode is focused on the neck and the décolleté. how it ages and what we should be looking out for. And also, you know, do we need a product specifically for that area? Why is it better than a product that's made specifically for the face? So to kick things off, it seems like oftentimes, especially women, they wake up one day and then suddenly they feel like they Speaker 3 (1:32) look older. Speaker 2 (1:33) Does visible aging actually accelerate at a certain age? Or are we just finally seeing years and years of cumulative change, damage, Speaker 1 (1:42) et cetera? That's Speaker 2 (1:44) a Speaker 1 (1:44) great question. And there's probably a lot to unpack there. Yes, on both counts. So of course we have environmental factors that are going to accumulate. So the sun exposure we have, the lifestyles we lead, our necks really exposed. And if I'm honest, most of us aren't always taking our sun cream down on our necks or our chests. I know for me, I would always put it on my face, but I would always forget to apply it to my chest or even the backs of the hands. Yes, there is a lot of accumulative exposure that creates aging, especially in pigmentation and those concerns that we see. But hormones do play a big role. And so we know that there are kind of big bursts when it comes to skin changing. And I think that was all over social media for a while. 38 was one big burst with aging where you start to notice maybe textural changes, a bit of loss of elasticity, the unevenness of skin. And then there's another burst at 42 and then around 44 to 45. And these are where our hormones start to decline or shift and change in line with that perimenopausal year as we kind of approach that next stage. And so that's where you start to see that loss of elasticity, maybe even I would say my partner calls it a wobbly neck, but you start to notice crepiness or that tightness, that firmness isn't quite the same. And that definition of the jawline starts to change. So in terms of should we have a treatment for that neck, for sure, if that's a concern for you, that area is quite sensitive as well. We have less oil glands, so it tends to be slightly different in structure and function to the face. So having something purposefully created for that neck and decollete area is really key if aging of those areas are your concern. Speaker 3 (3:23) So what exactly is happening beneath the skin when it is starting to look thinner and looser and crepier? and less resilient. Speaker 1 (3:32) Well, we have structural changes that occur. So estrogen is one of the hormones. We have many, but it's one of these hormones that starts to decline with age. And estrogen is responsible for a lot of functions in our skin. It keeps our skin nice and hydrated, which is where in your twenties, you look beautiful and bouncy and juicy like a baby. You know, it's that radiant translucent skin. But as we age, we start to lose lipids and ceramides in our skin. It gets drier. And so our skin can lose water. It loses the ability to attract, hold and retain moisture in the skin. So in the neck, what we start to notice is it can be crepey. It can be a little bit drier. The skin does start to get thinner. We lose more water. And so we start to get less resiliency. So you may notice more of those lines and wrinkles, uneven skin tone. Additionally, skin starts to appear thinner. Hmm. Okay. Quick question. Back Speaker 3 (4:24) to Speaker 1 (4:24) the 38, 42 age range. Is Speaker 3 (4:27) that the same for men? No, Speaker 1 (4:29) because they have a different hormone profile. Men age, of course, sadly, they seem to age very well and it's frustrating, but their skin is slightly different. Men's skin is typically thicker. They do have estrogen. Men have estrogen as well. Actually, by the time women go through perimenopause into menopause, men actually have more estrogen than women, which I think is the most wild. to think about. But their aging trajectory is more stable because they don't have the ebbs and flows and fluctuations of hormones. Like if you think of our everyday life from the minute we hit puberty, we obviously had our surge of our hormones as we went through our teenage years and got us ready for womanhood or manhood as it would be. Then we have our menstrual cycle, right? So we have changes and fluxes with menstrual cycles. And then pregnancy. So if we're going to fall pregnant, there are changes and postpartum straight through to perimenopause and menopause. So women have such a breadth of changes throughout their life that all link to hormones. What a fun ride for us. Yeah. Speaker 2 (5:27) And also kind of close together. Totally. From 38 to 42 to 44, that's like a lot to handle in a short amount of time. I feel like psychologically, it's probably really hard. Speaker 1 (5:40) Yeah, I think that's where a lot of women just go, what happened? They look in the mirror. I know I have these moments sometimes myself. I'm in my 40s and while I don't wish to be 20 and I think I look better most of the time than I looked in my earlier years. I suddenly can look in the mirror and go, oh, when did that dark spot appear more visible, right? That's the one most people notice. Or when did the jowl look less defined? Yes. When did those deeper lines and wrinkles sort of become more dynamic? When did these neck lines start to show up? Exactly. The elasticity in the neck is a big one. And that's what our customers tell us all the time. Where is the neck products? That's what we're noticing because we look after or we maybe do tweakments for the face. But this is where we're kind of noticing those first signs of aging. Yeah. Okay, I was going to say, so Speaker 2 (6:24) you were saying that we notice signs of aging more so on the neck and maybe decollete and maybe even hands more so before the face. Yes. Really? And is that, that's because of the, like the lack, you said lack of oil glands in those areas? Speaker 1 (6:40) Yeah, we have lack of oil glands, the sebaceous gland activity, the skin, as I mentioned, is typically thinner and it's more exposed to the environment as we discussed. And we're often with our face, we're applying our products, our serums, you know, our juicy treatments. We're doing professional services and or having our injectables for most of us. Yeah. But we're not necessarily treating the neck. Yeah. And so perhaps we would age at the same stage if we weren't doing those things. But for most of us, this is an area that is not serviced. And we often forget about the chest because we're wearing clothing. And it's not till the summer months come out and we start revealing the skin that we notice things like the pigment changes, et cetera, on the skin. So there is a discrepancy in terms of how we treat and service that area. Okay. So how Speaker 3 (7:26) much of the way our skin ages is determined by genetics versus sun exposure, lifestyle habits, skincare habits? I Speaker 1 (7:35) would say around, I don't want to be quoted, but around 10 % is genetics. Okay. So we do have a part of, we're going to age. If you look at your parents, we're going to age, but a lot of it is lifestyle orientated, the exposures that we have. There's actually a really good study which I can send to you in link where they studied twins throughout their life. One was a smoker and one had a huge amount of UV exposure and one ended up looking like the sister sort of 40 years later. It's profound. And I think there was also a viral thing on TikTok with the trucker. You may have seen one side. Yes. Yeah. And you could see how much UV has an impact on degrading collagen because we don't really think about how much ultraviolet light. and our environment plays in the ways that we age. It degrades our collagen and elastin. Also diet plays a role. So I know we are busy. Midlife women are busy, right? We run around with caffeine and dry shampoo. We try just to get through the day. And we're not always thinking about have we eaten enough protein to support our skin health? Are we having the antioxidants to fight the environmental factors that are causing aging? So nutritional supplements as well are really important, but there are a lot of factors. I would say environment is one of the biggest. Okay. 10 % is a lot lower than I Speaker 3 (8:49) thought. Speaker 2 (8:50) So let's say. someone has taken excellent care of their face. They do the antioxidants, they have the sunscreen, they have their serums that they integrate throughout the week to help with cell turnover or whatever. Maybe they also do treatments and they're going to their esthetician and doing them once a month, twice a month, whatever. But then they've neglected everywhere else. Where do you start? Is this a place where you, for instance, as an expert say, okay, for your neck, you actually need to go into a professional and get microneedling done. Then I'm going to suggest this product to you. Then I'm going to have you do this or, or like how, I just feel like it's overwhelming to think about, especially if that's an area that bothers you. So how do Speaker 1 (9:37) you, where do we begin? Where, where do we begin? I love this question because I think skincare is super overwhelming and it should be joyful first and foremost. It's a part of a ritual of our life. I always think the best thing you can do to get started is use a really good quality product at home. I always tell my clients it's a bit like brushing your teeth and going to the dentist. You need to do both, right? But your home care is the brushing your teeth twice a day every day that's going to give you the bulk of your results. So a great product that's specifically designed for that area to target whatever your concern may be, whether it's pigmentation, discoloration, loss of elasticity, et cetera, and then do your professional treatments as well. So one does not replace the other. synergistic. I love microneedling. I think it's