When we look at a person’s face, we seem to have in us the inborn ability to judge that that face is of a certain age. There seem to be certain “Universal Markers” of aging that instantly affect our perception. Whether it’s sagging skin, heterogeneous pigmentation, or blunting of anatomic landmarks, our brains take all this separate visual information and, seemingly without effort on our part, arrive at a diagnosis of “old,” When we start evaluating faces for aesthetic intervention, however, that process has to become more conscious and more proactive. Because chances are, the person, now sitting in your office, has looked in the mirror long enough to have reached the exact same conclusion. And now they’d like your help in rolling back the years.

So what are these markers of age? Let’s try breaking it down into its component parts: Read more next week on our Facial Assessment series – Facial Assessment: Part I – Symmetry