CosBeauty Magazine #83

While women may
be the fairer sex,
men enjoy some
significant cosmetic
advantages when
it comes to ageing.
Tara Casey reports.
Men and women age differently –
and the process tends to treat men
more favourably. So, apart from the
obvious, how do the sexes differ?
Bone size
Male bones are generally longer and larger
than female bones and have more obvious
muscle markings. Men also have bigger skulls,
with more prominent brow ridges, bigger jaws,
chins, cheekbones and noses, giving men’s
faces a squarish shape and stronger features
than women’s.
These differences in bone structure are
hormonally triggered at puberty. Increased
levels of testosterone trigger the growth of
certain bony facial features so boys’ faces
grow more than girls’. Female faces remain
relatively childlike. High levels of oestrogen
in growing girls prevent the growth of facial
bone and result in increased thickness of lips
and fat deposition in the cheek area, whereas
a male face is often ‘chiselled’ in appearance.
Faces with masculine features – such as a
large jaw and prominent cheekbones – appear
dominant, and dominance is associated with
male reproductive success in many species,
including humans.
Using CT scans of 100 men and women,
researchers at Duke University Medical
Center in the US discovered that the bones
in the human skull change as people age.
The forehead moves forward while the
cheekbones move back. As the bones move,
the overlying muscle and skin moves as well,
subtly changing the shape of the face. ‘The
facial bones also appear to tilt forward as
we get older, which causes them to lose
support for the overlying soft tissues,’ says Dr
Michael Richard, an oculoplastic surgeon at
the Duke Eye Center. ‘This results in more
sagging and drooping.’
The dramatic ageing of facial bones also
happens at a significantly younger
age for women than men, according to Dr
David Kahn, assistant professor of plastic and
reconstructive surgery at Stanford University
School of Medicine in the US. Women’s
facial bones begin to shrink at the onset of
early middle age, while men don’t exhibit this
until they are at retirement age.
www.cosbeauty.com.au 87