It is a truth universally acknowledged that at some point in our lives—especially if we are women—we will begin to feel bad about our necks. It isn’t our fault. It is simply a sad side effect of the human design, whereby that thin-skinned little stalk is tasked with holding up our big, heavy heads, constantly bending and twisting, and all the while being woefully under-endowed with collagen and elastin fibers. Can you honestly say that you remember to put sunscreen below your chin every day? Our poor necks endure such abuse. Are you looking down at your phone right now to read this? Sorry.
I began to feel bad about my neck younger than most. At 32, I noticed an odd little protrusion in the vicinity of my windpipe (a nascent Adam’s Apple?) that was subsequently diagnosed as a thyroid nodule (yech). Due to family history and the potentially nefarious intentions of said nodule (it was benign, but would you trust it?), the decision was made to just yank out my entire thyroid gland. Better safe than sorry. The only downside—other than having to pop a levothyroxine pill every day forever—was that it left me with an unlovely concavity at the base of my neck. Goodbye Adam’s Apple, hello… void. (I also have a horizontal scar above my clavicle, but that’s cool. I tell people I’ve been in a knife fight.)
None of this was a big deal until the wrinkling set in. It was merciless, possibly because the skin had been compromised by the surgery. By 40, my neck had devolved into a crepey mummy-flesh situation, worse in bad lighting, and should I swallow in front of you, please avert your eyes. I knew I had reached a nadir when my mother—who, while not someone to mince words, is also not someone who issues unwarranted criticism—looked at me one evening over dinner and said, “Wow. Your neck is bad.”
That was several years ago. Now, I wear a lot of turtlenecks and scarves. In summer, I pile on necklaces and hope to distract the eye like a magician. Every day when I get dressed, I consider how I am going to hide the crinkly mess beneath my jaw, which is exhausting. It has the same ghoulishly veiny, vulnerable appearance of that gross neck that turns up like an unwanted treasure inside an uncooked turkey; the hopeless look of a body part so far gone it can never be redeemed.
But wait, is it hopeless?
I’ve tried radiofrequency microneedling (ouch!), Ulthera (double ouch!), and various resurfacing lasers. I’ve Botoxed the bejeesus out of my platysmal bands. None of these things has made much difference. I know you’re thinking, Lady, just get a neck lift. Trust me. I’ve considered this. I have consulted with more than a few cosmetic surgeons. And it turns out, there’s really no such thing as “just a neck lift.” You’ve got to do the lower face, too—which will likely require incisions fore and aft of the ears. I’m not ready for that. I don’t know if I ever will be. But I have found something else.
Skinvive is a low-viscosity hyaluronic acid filler that is injected into the skin, rather than under it. You may have heard about it when it landed in dermatologists’ offices in 2023 and was hailed as the U.S. equivalent of Profhilo, the glow-boosting skin treatment that celebrities were getting in Europe. (We’re the lucky ones: Skinvive lasts longer than Profhilo, and has a happier name, the latter being impossible to spell and veering far too close to “prophylactic”.) When I first had it, via the skillful needle of Dr. Macrene Alexiades, a board-certified dermatologist in New York, she predicted that it would be a bigger game-changer for the neck than the face. She was right. The FDA has just accepted a premarket application for Skinvive as a treatment for neck lines, which means it will be fully approved soon.
“In medicine, you’re always looking for something that will help an orphan disorder, which is a condition that gets left behind because there’s no treatment for it,” says Dr. Alexiades. “In this case, it was neck lines. There is no other filler that works in the neck because it has to be injected too deeply, and lasers only give you a moderate improvement. Skinvive is what we call the orphan drug for neck lines—there is no superior treatment.” The beauty of it, says Dr. Robert Anolik, a board-certified dermatologist at Laser & Skin Surgery of New York, is the way that it diffuses into the skin, creating a soft-focus veil of hydration. “It’s very different from the other hyaluronic acids that we inject, because it’s not for lift or volume. Skinvive is essentially a micro-droplet hydration method that attracts water so that the skin looks smoother and reflects light better.”
I can attest to this. I’ve watched in a mirror as Dr. Anolik moved across my neck with a needle, making shallow little jabs—prick, prick, prick—and witnessed my crepiness vanishing as if by a Magic Eraser. I’ve also started slathering Dr. Alexiades’s Macrene Actives High Performance Neck and Decolletage Treatment (which she uses in her practice immediately after Skinvive injections to amplify results) from chest to jaw daily. And you know what? You may be seeing me in a V-neck this winter.
This story doesn’t end with me learning to love my neck. I will never again have the taut swan stem of my pre-nodule youth. But that’s okay. There are worse things in the world. Dr. Alexiades tells me that Skinvive’s transformative effects can last about a year, which exceeds my wildest dreams. A whole year without scarves? I honestly think that my neck looks about 70 percent better—even when I (gulp!) swallow. Though I should probably ask my mom to confirm.
April Long is a New York–based writer and contributing beauty editor at Town & Country
