Wrinkles are natural and, whether we embrace them or not, inevitable. Understanding why they form is the first step toward making peace with them, but the second is learning the habits and ingredients that might slow them down.
Between intrinsic aging, sun exposure, facial expressions, and everyday habits, a lot is happening beneath the surface of every fine line. And with a social feed full of filters and a billion-dollar anti-aging industry making unverified promises, it's easy to feel like wrinkles are something to fight rather than something to manage.
So- what are wrinkles? In this guide, we're breaking down the real science behind what causes wrinkles along with a routine that actually supports your skin as it ages.
What Are Wrinkles?
Wrinkles (scientifically known as rhytids) are creases in the skin. Outside of the scientific community, wrinkles go by many names: fine lines, crow's feet, laugh lines, brow furrows, and others.
Here are the core categories of wrinkles we have to contend with:
Fine Lines:
These are small, shallow, mostly surface-level creases, often around the eyes and mouth. They go by many different names, including crow's feet and micro-wrinkles.
Expression Lines:
Unlike the wrinkles related to sun exposure, expression lines are caused by repeated muscle movement. A life spent smiling, squinting, frowning, and raising the brows eventually carves out deeper wrinkles around your most dynamic facial features.
Deeper Wrinkles:
Often, deeper wrinkles remain visible even when the face is relaxed. These are called static wrinkles, and they are caused by the combination of sun exposure and expressive movement over many, many years.
Whether we like it or not, wrinkles are an inherent facet of aging. As we move from one year to the next, wrinkles will appear and gradually deepen, especially on areas of our body that get the most sun exposure (think face, hands, chest, and neck).
No matter how many beauty treatments claim otherwise, wrinkles and aging are natural, healthy, and… inevitable. They are a physical representation of years spent laughing and adventuring.
But even if fine lines and expression lines stem from good memories, it doesn’t mean we all welcome their physical manifestation. It's part of the reason why there is a billion-dollar anti-aging industry. So don’t feel bad if you’re one among many women wondering what they can do to stop- or at least slow down their progression.
What Causes Wrinkles?
Wrinkles develop through a combination of normal biological aging alongside cumulative environmental and lifestyle exposures. These factors affect the skin’s collagen-rich support network, elastic fibers, hydration, and ability to recover after repeated folding.
Here are just a few of the main causes behind wrinkles:
The Natural Aging Process
Also called intrinsic aging, this is the gradual, genetically and biologically driven aging of skin. The older you get, the less collagen, elastin, and hyaluronic acid your skin can produce naturally.
These three elements in particular provide structural support, springiness, and hydration. As they fade, the skin slowly becomes thinner, drier, and less resilient. Cell turnover slows as well, which can contribute to a duller surface and slower recovery from everyday environmental stressors.
Sun Exposure
Photoaging is premature skin aging caused largely by frequent ultraviolet (UV) exposure. While a tanned, sunny glow is epitomized as a beauty standard, years of exposure to the sun's rays, specifically UVA, actually promotes a significant increase in oxidative stress and enzymes that break down collagen and elastin.
What does that mean in practice? Too much sun and not enough sunscreen will gradually contribute to more visible fine and deep wrinkles, not to mention uneven pigmentation and rougher or even leathery texture.
Facial Expressions
Similar to the natural aging process, wrinkles caused by our moment-to-moment facial expressions are mostly unavoidable. Like pleats in a pair of dress pants, smiling, squinting, frowning, and other larger expressions repeatedly fold skin in predictable locations.
Early on, these show mainly when your facial muscles are in use. But as skin loses collagen and elasticity during the aging process, the folds may not completely rebound, leaving them visible at rest and transforming them into what are known as static lines.
Dry Skin
Dry and dehydrated skin is a root cause of fine lines and wrinkles. It causes underlying structural changes responsible for their appearance because less water on the surface of the skin means it loses its natural smooth, plump appearance. Without that added hydration cushion, existing fine lines and textures become much more visible.
Lifestyle
Smoking, alcohol, poor sleep schedule, chronic stress… These also contribute to the fine lines and wrinkles that appear as you age. Typically, these involve increased oxidative stress or even deeper, genetic-level changes that reduce our skin’s ability to recover and produce collagen.
Healthy habits and a good diet really support healthy, happy skin, which in turn helps your skin maintain its protective barrier. One greasy burger or one cocktail won’t speed up the appearance of wrinkles, but repeated, frequent unhealthy habits will add up over time.
The Science Behind Collagen Loss
Collagen loss is one of the biggest factors contributing to the appearance of wrinkles. It happens gradually as we age, but it is sped up by environmental stressors, unhealthy habits, and other more controllable factors.
The dermis—the skin layer beneath the surface—is a collagen-rich matrix with several types of collagen, including type I and type III collagen. Together, these collagen fibers create a supportive, structural framework that helps skin resist sagging and folding.
The skin produces this unique collagen matrix through dermal cells called fibroblasts. The scientific response to “What are wrinkles?” comes down to the function of your fibroblasts. It's natural for their collagen production to slow down as you age, while any existing collagen fibers gradually start to break apart.
Without a structured collagen matrix, the skin has trouble keeping its firm, plump molecular-level tension. What's even more frustrating is that as the skin loses tension, it's a vicious cycle that triggers even less collagen production.
This is not a sign that your skin is failing you. All of this is a normal part of aging. So what can you do if you want to get rid of wrinkles on your forehead or prevent wrinkles altogether? Many elements in this complex puzzle are indeed just a part of being human—but many others are controllable (sun exposure, healthy habits, etc), and there are helpful additions to your skincare regimen that can slow down their appearance.
Can You Prevent Wrinkles?
If there's one certainty in this lifetime, it's that aging (and yes, wrinkles) is inevitable. We can't slow the biological clock any more than we can stop the sun from rising.
But that doesn't mean there aren't proven ways to support your skin's collagen production, soften the appearance of fine lines, and slow their development. The goal should never be to prevent aging entirely; that's the stuff of science fiction. Instead, the goal should be to age well and to age beautifully.
That starts with the fundamentals: daily sunscreen, consistent daily moisturizing, gentle cleansing that respects your skin's barrier, nourishing nutrition, good sleep, and managing the stress that shows up on your face before it shows up anywhere else.
How Antioxidants Help Protect Skin
If you’ve been looking into skincare for wrinkles, chances are the topic of antioxidants has popped up already.
Antioxidants are the skin's backup support system, helping to fight off everyday exposure to damaging UV rays, pollution, and environmental stressors that all generate free radicals. Free radicals gradually and methodically break down your skin's collagen and elastin.
This is why anti-aging skincare is filled with so many antioxidant-rich ingredients like vitamin C, vitamin E, ferulic acid, and niacinamide, which help neutralize free-radical-related damage before it takes hold.
But be aware that not all antioxidants and formulations are created equal. So much matters apart from just the ingredients. Concentration, formula stability, and whether an ingredient can actually absorb into your skin matter more than the word "antioxidant" on a label.
Start Here: A Nourishing Nighttime Skincare Routine
How do you get rid of wrinkles? There may not be a magic pill to eliminate wrinkles overnight, but there is one secret that’s worth sharing: putting your most powerful skincare to work at night.
Over a 24-hour cycle, your skin is constantly working with its own biological rhythm. It regulates everything from cell turnover to hydration to barrier repair, and at night, this skin cell renewal work kicks into high gear.
This becomes an especially important time for deep, penetrating skincare. Because at the same time your skin enters its natural turnover mode, removing the old and producing the new, the barrier becomes more permeable. Now is the time for antioxidants and other nourishing ingredients to really get to work.
Enter Prima Night Magic
Nighttime is exactly where Prima Night Magic comes in as the final step in your evening routine. Formulated with botanical oils like prickly pear and moringa, along with 300mg of organic hemp CBD to calm and balance, Night Magic works with your skin's natural overnight rhythm to replenish hydration while you rest.
Hemp seed oil helps strengthen the barrier and ease redness, while moringa's blend of vitamins A, C, and E works to protect and nourish for a brighter, more even-toned complexion by morning.
The results speak for themselves: in an independent clinical study, Night Magic improved skin hydration by 33% and visibly enhanced firmness by 16%. The study also found that 86% of women saw a noticeable improvement in fine lines and wrinkles around their eyes, and 93% saw an overall improvement in how their skin looked after just 8 weeks of use.
Wrinkles Are Natural, But Let’s Welcome Them On Our Own Terms
Many of us are guilty of Googling “How to get rid of under eye wrinkles?” or “How to get rid of under eye wrinkles?” With a social feed filled with beauty filters, it's hard not to worry about the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles.
If you take only one thing away from this article, let it be this: Wrinkles are proof of a life spent laughing and feeling things fully. They aren’t a flaw to fix or a sign of neglect. They are a part of the human condition.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t welcome them on our own terms, under our own timeline. We can and should help support our skin health as it ages gracefully. That means never missing your daily sunscreen and upgrading your skincare routine to support a strong skin barrier and healthy collagen production.
