Expression or dynamic wrinkles occur as a result of repeated muscle contraction with facial expressions such as frowning, squinting, scowling. Over time the muscle contraction creases the skin resulting in frown lines between your eyebrows (the infamous "11"), horizontal forehead lines and crow’s feet or vertical lines around the mouth (the infamous 'barcode" or 'smoker's wrinkles') All causes by your facial expressions or movements with facial muscles. Photos below…
Sleep lines or sleep wrinkles have nothing to do with muscle contraction or expression and are caused by the repeated pressing of our face into a solid surface (often our pillow) while we sleep. These lines are usually more vertical in nature while expression lines tend to be more horizontal or diagonal. Sleep lines and can be found on forehead, cheeks, chins, and even cleavage lines.
The Sleep Wrinkle Test: How can we tell the difference? Sleep wrinkles and lines cannot be recreated by facial expressions but they can be recreated by the hand test (see below) which mimics the pressure of our face and head against our pillow. See photo below:
Dermatologist, Dr. Samuel Stegman, was one of the first to observe that most people tend to exhibit these creases and imbalances on the side they prefer to sleep on and made a habit of telling them which side they slept on. Sleeping on their sides (and therefore their faces) was causing “sleep wrinkles”. As our skin ages these sleep lines become permanently etched into our faces.
THE SOLUTION: Dr. Stegman said the only way to get rid of permanent sleep lines was to SLEEP ON YOUR BACK and minimize facial contact with your pillow. We have a better idea!
Dr. James Fulton published a follow-up article in 1999. He confirmed Dr. Stegman’s findings and warned patients against filling these lines with facial fillers (juvederm, restylane etc) which do not offer long term relief. More importantly Botox (which only works on dynamic or expression lines) is futile on these wrinkles (Non-Botoxable). Facial creases will reappear within hours of treatment because the underlying behavior that created the lines continues to be unchanged…. sleeping on our faces!
Yes, you can adjust the way you sleep to prevent them but breaking our bad sleep habits is not so easy. The enVy, Anti-Aging pillow was developed to deal with these sleep wrinkles by ALLOWING ergonomically supportive side sleeping while MINIMIZING face-to-pillow contact… brilliant.
