About one hundred years ago humans doubled their life expectancy. This was a monumental feat, given that the number of years the average person was expected to live was a relatively constant number throughout most of human history. Nutrition, modern medicine and technology were mostly responsible for this dramatic change. In 2007, average life expectancy was 80.4 years for women, and 75.3 years for men.¹ This gap may be narrowing, but one thing is clear – there is virtually a new population in the human experience, and women are the chief contributors. The aging female client is the backbone of our industry. Anti-aging skin care, led by cosmeceutical sales, is the leader in the multi-billion dollar skin care industry, and it is not going away anytime soon.

Female life expectancy has increased dramatically over the years, while the age of menopause onset has remained stable at around 50 years of age. This means more and more women live in a hormone-deprived state, a relatively new phenomenon in human existence.⁴ There is no decisive reason as to why women in particular live long past their reproductive years, but there is an interesting hypothesis that may shed some light. In fact, it is called the “grandmother hypothesis” and it argues that having an older female to help nurture children ensures that the younger generation reaches its maximal evolutionary potential. That is, having Granny around the house to help with the kids ensures they are well-behaved, fed and safe so they too can have long, healthy lives. Although extended longevity seems like a great advantage of the 21st century, it opens up a lot of doors for age-related changes and disease. Many of these changes also take place on the skin, so having a full understanding of how hormones – and the lack of them – affect skin will benefit the professional skin therapist in everything from consultation and skin analysis to providing effective and realistic solutions to the aging, hormone-deprived client.