One day, holding a strap on the train, you notice that the veins on the back of your hand stand out more than they used to. Or you stretch your fingers and see the cords of the tendons more clearly than before. Changes in the hands are often discovered in unremarkable moments like these.
To make sense of them, it helps to divide the ageing of the hands into two kinds of change: changes in the skin, and changes beneath it. What you see is a single surface, but what is happening occurs in two separate layers.
This article sets out, within the bounds of general knowledge, why veins and tendons become more prominent, and states frankly what hand beauty can do about it and what it cannot.
What happens beneath the skin
Under the skin on the back of the hand lies a thin layer of fat. Young hands look plump because this layer softly covers the veins, the tendons and the outlines of the bones.
With age, that fat decreases, and at the same time the skin itself loses firmness. As the covering thins, whatever lies beneath it shows through. Veins appear bluer, the cords of the tendons run visibly with every movement of the fingers, and the hand takes on a bonier look. This is the change beneath the skin.
It happens to every pair of hands, and it is in part simply the record of hands that have been used. It is also considered difficult to reverse through self-care. A cosmetic product does not add fat beneath the skin, and Soie makes no such promise.
What happens in the skin itself
Alongside this, there are changes in the skin of the back of the hand itself: dryness, dullness, uneven texture, fine lines, and the spots that follow years of sun. These occur close to the surface, and daily habits have a great deal to do with them.
The back of the hand has little sebum and thin skin, and it receives external stress every day from washing, wet work, sunlight and friction. The balance between the water held in the stratum corneum and the sebum film covering it is easily upset, so dryness and dullness tend to appear here sooner than on the face.
The important point is that these changes in the skin can be guarded against with sun protection and moisturising. The change beneath the skin cannot be undone, but the skin lying over it can be kept moisturised and smooth. That layer is where hand beauty does its work.
How the impression changes when the skin is well kept
Two hands with the same prominence of veins can give quite different impressions depending on the skin above them. Dry, dull skin loses its evenness and transparency and casts hard shadows. Moisturised skin returns light softly, and the contours beneath read as gentler.
This is why Soie proposes a moisturising habit precisely for hands on which veins and tendons have begun to show. The aim is not to hide the veins. It is to keep the skin of the back of the hand healthy and to bring out the hand's own beauty.
There is a further reason this matters. Hands on which the structure beneath has begun to show are, almost by definition, hands that have been washed, exposed to the sun and worked for decades. Those same decades have usually been hard on the skin as well, so dryness and dullness often arrive alongside the visible veins. Attending to the skin does not change what lies beneath, but it addresses the part of the picture that is still responsive to daily care.
- After washing or wet work, smooth in a hand serum at once, from the backs of the hands to the fingertips and around the nails. Starting with the dry-prone backs of the hands ensures it reaches where it is needed.
- During the day, apply sunscreen to the backs of the hands. It washes off with every rinse, so reapply roughly every two hours outdoors. Sunlight is considered a cause of spots and of loss of firmness, and protecting the skin of the hands from it is essential.
- Avoid hot water and harsh soaps, and pat rather than rub when drying. Friction is a heavier burden on the thin skin of the back of the hand than it feels.
- When applying, spread the serum along each finger with a light stroke. The act of applying becomes a moment of looking at, and touching, your own hands.
When a change concerns you
Visible veins and tendons are not, in themselves, a medical condition. But if a change is sudden, affects one hand only, or comes with pain or numbness, and if any symptom that worries you persists, consult a dermatologist. Prominent veins and tendons and lost fullness can also be discussed with a dermatologist or an aesthetic dermatology clinic, should you wish to explore that route.
What Soie can offer sits before that point: the daily habit. Accept the change beneath the skin, and attend carefully to the change in the skin. Once the two are separated, feelings about the hands' changing appearance tend to settle. The basics are gathered in our hand beauty guide, and questions about hands and age in our hand beauty Q&A.
Soie's view
Soie (pronounced swah; French for silk) has designed its beauty serum only for the hands, starting from the structural difference between the back of the hand and the palm. For the dry-prone back of the hand, five ceramides and peptides (moisturising ingredients) and EGF and KGF (skin-conditioning ingredients) give moisture and smoothness. We state honestly what lies within reach, and then we ask for that to be done every day.
Hands on which veins and tendons have appeared are hands that have worked for a long time. Keeping the skin of those hands moisturised, beginning today, is where Soie's idea of hand beauty starts.
