What are sleep wrinkles?
Wrinkles? What are they? Why are they there? Let’s take a look at how sleep wrinkles and sleep lines form and how they’re different from expression wrinkles.
We’re all aging, it’s a simple fact of life. Though we’ve been taught that wrinkles and fine lines are a negative by the mainstream media and celebrity culture, we’d like to think of wrinkles as a simple fact of life. Embracing age and the aging process is all about being comfortable in your own skin. We like to think that the best way to take charge is to get all the information, because once you’re informed you can choose the right thing for you, your skin and your lifestyle.
Knowledge is Power
Arming yourself with the right knowledge is crucial, especially when it comes to your body and your skin. Often we don’t think about skincare as healthcare, but let’s take a quick tri back to science class: the skin is your body’s largest organ!
Nourishing your skin from the inside out with a balanced diet, drinking enough water and getting enough rest should be the cornerstone of any skincare regimen. Topical lotions and potions will help to boost your skin’s look and feel. But what about the natural effects of aging?
As we age, our body naturally produces less collagen, making our skin lose elasticity. This loss of collagen results in our skin starting to sag and droop. The loose skin starts to form creases and lines known as wrinkles.
Types of Wrinkles
Wrinkles can develop anywhere on our body, but are especially pronounced on our faces, necks and chest. There are two main types of wrinkles that develop: Expression Wrinkles and Sleep Wrinkles.
Expression Wrinkles develop from how we use our faces to express feelings. Frown lines, laugh lines, crows feet - we’re all pretty familiar with these. Fine lines that form around these deeper expression lines are some of the first visible signs of aging we experience in our 20s and beyond.
Expression lines are tightly linked to our facial muscles and the pattern of movement under the skin. There are a number of topical products on the market ranging from anti aging moisturizers, anti aging serums and creams that aim to boost the skin’s elasticity and reduce the appearance of facial wrinkles.
More expensive cosmetic treatments like botox help to reduce these lines by freezing the muscles in the face, neck and chest. Reducing the movement of your muscles will help to reduce the appearance of expression wrinkles, however it’s not a simple or cost effective solution for many.
Other treatments like fillers, work by filling in the spaces between the skin and the muscles that are created by the depletion of collagen. Fillers are a popular way to delay the aging process, but like botox are a costly process that needs to be frequently repeated.
Sleep wrinkles, by contrast, are formed by the way you sleep.
It’s a little bit mind-blowing but at the same time it makes sense. Did you know we spend about one third of our lives asleep? That’s a long time!
When we sleep, especially when we sleep on traditional pillows and cotton pillowcases, our body weight is pushed gravitationally onto our face. The force and compression onto our face, neck and chest leads to the formation of sleep wrinkles.
While expression lines can be treated by targeted cosmetic treatments and improved by topical treatments, sleep wrinkles cannot. The body weight that’s pushed into the face by compression is partnered with shearing, which reduces the skin’s elasticity, creating deep set wrinkles and lines.
Shearing occurs when you move your face across the surface of your pillow. The skin drags when you move positions in your sleep. Though entirely natural, this pulling and tugging creates micro-tears in the skin over time, increasing the rate of sleep wrinkle formation.
How Can You Stop Sleep Wrinkles?
Since sleep wrinkles are deeper than expression lines, treating sleep wrinkles is more about adjusting your sleeping habits than applying topical treatments.
Adjusting your sleeping position can be a difficult task since we often fall into a naturally comfortable sleeping position in childhood that carries through into adulthood. Making small adjustments to your sleeping position can be a simple way to reduce the appearance of sleep lines. Try switching out your traditional cotton pillowcase for an active pillowcase like the Skin+ Pillowcase or adding a Silk Pillowcase to your bed.
Skin+ Pillowcases are made of soft Tencel fabric and feature microcapsules infused with antioxidant probiotic carotenoids. Antioxidants are powerful tools in the fight against free radicals like UV rays and pollutants that can damage your skin and increase the rate of aging.
The Skin+ Pillowcase is the perfect addition to your nightly skincare routine. As you move in the night, the slightly cushioned fabric creates a buffer between your skin and the weight of the compression that leads to the development of sleep lines, while the capsules slowly release probiotics.
Combining a Skin+ with a Silk Pillowcase will bring an instant element of luxury to your bedroom, while also helping to reduce the friction and pulling you experience when you move in sleep. Silk Pillowcases by Beauty Pillow are made of the highest quality Turkish Mulberry Silk. These 22 Momme pillowcases help to reduce skin irritation and prevent hair breakage.
Adding a Silk Pillowcase to your bedtime routine will help to improve the look and feel of your skin. Silk has been proven to have antibacterial and antiallergic properties. While the naturally cooling and moisture wicking smooth fabric is the perfect partner for skincare enthusiasts.
Topical treatments like serums, moisturizers or hair treatments won’t be absorbed into the fabric of the Beauty Pillow Silk Pillowcase. Traditional cotton pillowcases soak up water, oil and products from your skin and hair, transferring them back to your skin as your move your hair in sleep. This makes your traditional pillowcase something of a bacteria filled petri-dish!
Silk’s smooth, natural fibers allow your skin and hair to glide gently over the pillowcase in sleep. Reduced friction means reduced wrinkles and less redness and breakouts. Win, win, win!
Do I Have to Change the Way I Sleep?
The way you sleep has a massive impact on the development and formation of sleep wrinkles.
Side sleepers are most likely to experience development of more sleep wrinkles on the side of their face that they favor in sleep. For example, if you sleep on your right side, the right side of your face, neck and chest will have more pronounced lines and wrinkles compared to the left. Favoring one side too heavily in sleep can also lead to facial asymmetry, where one side has a more pronounced sag or droop than the other.
Stomach sleepers are most likely to experience deep set sleep wrinkles along the points of contact with their pillow. The forehead, neck and chest tend to be the most heavily affected areas of the body for chest sleepers.
Sleeping on your back is the optimal position for real beauty sleep - Disney were onto something! Sleeping on your back reduces your face’s contact with your pillow, leading to less compression and less friction.
It can be very difficult to change your sleeping position. Using sleep support tools like the Anti Aging Beauty Pillow can help to adjust your sleeping position and provide orthopedic spinal support.
Do Beauty Pillows Really Work?
First of all, what is a beauty pillow and how is it different from standard pillows? Great question, we’d love to answer!
The Beauty Pillow is designed to gently cradle the head, reduce facial contact and support the neck and spine in sleep. It’s a little higher than traditional pillows, which helps to stimulate the blood flow and increase lymphatic drainage.
Boosting your circulation while you sleep helps you wake up looking and feeling fresh! Increased blood flow means a brighter complexion and reduced facial puffiness. Traditional pillows tend to be flatter, and don’t distribute your sleeping weight evenly, leading to a duller complexion and a puffy face first thing in the morning.
Reducing facial contact overnight means your delicate facial skin experiences less pulling and tugging. The reduction in facial compression and facial pulling means less sleep wrinkles and reduced stress to the facial skin.
Partnering your Beauty Pillow with a Skin+ Pillowcase and a Silk Pillowcase will help boost your skin cell regeneration and reduce skin and hair irritation.
Have you tried the Beauty Pillow? Let us know what you think on Instagram and TikTok today!
