SINK or SAG

Are you aging vertically or horizontally? Here is what that means.

- JAMIE ROSEN

I have spent 20 minutes a week, for the last month, with three wide, sticky patches attached to my face. Once they're hooked up to BTL Aesthetics' facial toning device, Emface, in the musically themed Elton John room at the West Village office of dermatologist Paul Jarrod Frank, I submit to the sensation. It feels as if hundreds of tingly insects are trying to do pull-ups to lift my cheekbones and my forehead. My cranium is buzzing. Hold me closer, tiny dancer.

Emface and a host of new topical launches are aiming to reverse vertical aging that is, the slow slide caused by gravity and lower muscle mass, as opposed to horizontal aging, which manifests as those fine lines you get from UV damage, facial expressions, and other environmental factors. There are countless creams and procedures that can successfully treat wrinkles, but until recently, drooping proved to be a much more complex issue to tackle.

"The facial anatomy is so poorly understood," says Sebastian Cotofana, an associate professor of anatomy at the Mayo Clinic who has become known for research that focuses on the aging face and how it's affected by outside interventions such as fillers and lasers. "In the past it was thought to be twodimensional: left and right, up and down. In the last couple of years there's a third dimension that is deeper to the skin. And three dimensions over time gives you a fourth dimension, which is time itself."