We found abnormal dermal papilla structures and differences in the dermal papilla structures between face and other body site. With these taken into consideration, we could precisely investigate the aging alteration of normal dermal papilla structures in the face.

The viscoelasticity of the facial skin changes with age. Viscoelasticity has been related to the tactile softness of the skin as well as the morphological sagging of the face. 1 Hence, skin viscoelasticity is an important skin physical property for esthetic purposes.Skin viscoelasticity has been measured through various methods. Conventionally, viscoelasticity is measured starting from the skin surface using a typical device, such as Cutometer 2 or Venustron. 3 These measuring devices detect alteration in the skin surface by applying stimuli such as suction and vibration onto the skin surface. The viscoelasticity of the whole skin depth is estimated from the change of the surface. Meanwhile, the skin is made up of multiple layers such as stratum corneum, epidermis, dermis, and subcutaneous fat layers, with different physical properties. Therefore, the abovementioned devices only provide physical properties appearing on the skin surface

The PCA results showed that there were two characteristics in the images of fibrous structures: clearness and directionality. The clearness of fibrous structures decreased and directionality isotropy increased with age.

In medical and cosmetic fields, skin color and texture have not been investigated quantitatively so far despite of the importance. Ordinarily, melanin is produced increasingly due to excessive stimulus such as ultraviolet rays, and excessive melanin causes pigmentation such as spots and freckles. Therefore, since melanin pigmentation is one of the important barometers to express skin color and texture, we focus on estimating quantity and uniformity of melanin in corneocyte for quantitative analysis of skin texture. Extraction methods of melanin by image processing have been developed and then quantitative indices obtained through image processing have been proposed. By using multiple linear regression analysis, we find that visual appreciation score about quantity and uniformity of melanin by human expert is highly predictable by using these quantitative indices. Though human expert takes much time to score, proposed method is able to shorten the amount of time remarkably, and it comes into practical use since June 2010.

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