“I was in the operating room, scrubbing my hands to assist a doctor with surgery,” shares Vanguard’s aesthetic nurse Mandy. He looked down at my hands and said in his deadpan, joking way, “You have old hands. They look like zombie hands.”

Mandy continued, “I have a great relationship with this doctor, known for his unusual sense of humor. So we both started to laugh. But needless to say, it further confirmed that I needed to do something about my aging hands!”

Our faces are the calling cards to this world, and many of us have devoted time to cleansing, moisturizing, and treating our faces. We look in the mirror each day and we can’t help but notice changes in our face. Most of our clients understandably ask first about their faces.

It is not until we realize our hands have reached ‘zombie status’ that we start to take notice.

Dr. Renata Prado, a Mohs surgeon at Vanguard Skin Specialists, meticulously protects her hands. She wears sun protective gloves when driving, even when she is only in the car for a short 10-minute commute. This is not for vanity. As a skin cancer surgeon who has cured thousands of skin cancers, Dr. Prado protects her highly skilled hands against skin cancer. This, in turn, has the added benefit of protecting her hands from early signs of aging.

“It is cumulative sun exposure that can result in skin cancer, so it is important to take measures every day as part of your routine,” Dr. Prado notes.

Gloves are prudent, especially since we often do not apply sunscreen to our hands, or if we do, we inadvertently wash it off. Dr. Prado’s gloves provide the protection needed in the car, where hands on the steering wheel take the full force of UV rays through the front windshield. But what if you just can’t bring yourself to wear gloves all the time?

Small steps in our skincare routine can provide additional protection. We recommend everyone use an antioxidant as part of their daily skincare regimen, and the hands can also benefit from a powerful antioxidant.

Executive Director, Leisle Chung says, “I put on antioxidant each morning, and I always include a couple drops for the back of my hands. Because a good L-ascorbic antioxidant absorbs deeply in the skin, it stays with me through hand washing and gives me that extra protection against environmental factors.”

If you think it may be too late, there are options to reverse the damage already present in the hands. Just as our faces lose volume and can be restored with filler, our hands also lose volume and can be plumped with certain filler. Just as brown spots or textural issues can be addressed on the face, the same is true of our hands. The treatment often looks similar to how we address aging faces, but we take into consideration the difference in the skin and the functionality of the hands.

If you wonder whatever happened to Mandy RN’s supposed “zombie hands,” she opted for filler and laser to turn back the clock. It was over a lunch break, and she was back to work that afternoon with no concerns.

“I easily took 10 to 15 years off the appearance of my hands. When I proudly showed the same doctor my hands, he responded with a smile and said, ‘Looks like you’ve got baby hands!’ He fully meant it as a compliment, and I’ll take it,” said Mandy happily.

Vanguard Plastic Surgery & Aesthetics can “Turn Back the Hands of Time.” Learn more about Filler and Laser treatment, also known as Mandy’s Zombie Hands to Baby Hands transformation!