If your skin’s changed over the last few years and you can’t quite explain why — you’re not imagining it, and you’re not doing anything wrong. I’m Tawa, a registered nurse prescriber, and this is the question I get asked more than almost any other: “Why has my skin suddenly changed, when I haven’t changed a thing about my routine?”
Here’s the honest answer.
It’s not your routine. It’s your hormones.
Collagen is the protein that keeps skin firm and plump, and your body’s been making a little less of it every year since your twenties — that’s completely normal, and nothing to worry about. But in perimenopause, and especially in the first few years after menopause, that decline speeds up a lot.
Research suggests women can lose around 30% of their skin’s collagen in just the first five years after menopause — a much faster rate than at any other point in your life. [Link to British Menopause Society or similar source]
The reason comes down to oestrogen. Oestrogen actually helps trigger collagen production, so as oestrogen drops, collagen production drops with it — and breakdown starts to outpace what your skin can replace. That’s why skin can start to feel less firm, and why fine lines can suddenly look more established, even if your routine hasn’t changed at all.
Why your skin feels drier too
Collagen isn’t the only thing affected. Oestrogen also plays a role in how well your skin holds onto water, and how much oil it naturally produces. As oestrogen drops, skin often becomes drier, and the skin barrier — the part of your skin that keeps moisture in and irritants out — doesn’t work quite as well either.
This is usually why dullness and dryness tend to show up together for the first time in your 40s, even in people who’ve never had dry skin before in their life.
So why has my skincare stopped working?
Put those two things together, and it’s easy to see why a routine that worked brilliantly for fifteen years can suddenly stop delivering the same results.
It’s not that you’re doing something wrong. It’s that the skin underneath the routine has genuinely changed, so it needs slightly different things to do the same job:
- More support for collagen — ingredients like retinol and certain peptides work with your skin’s own repair process, rather than around it
- More support for hydration and the barrier — often more than your old routine was ever designed to provide
- A bit more patience — skin renewal also slows down with age, so results tend to take longer to show than they used to
None of this means your skin is past the point of help. It just means it’s asking for something slightly different than it used to.
What actually helps
The honest starting point isn’t a new serum — it’s understanding what’s actually changed in your own skin, rather than guessing based on what worked for someone else, or what worked for you a decade ago.
That’s exactly why I put together a free two-minute self-assessment called the Skin MOT. It’ll help you work out your skin type and what’s actually changed, without any of the guesswork — and without anyone trying to sell you something you don’t need.
Take the free 2-minute Skin MOT self-assessment →
And if you’d rather talk it through properly, I offer consultations both online and at the clinic in Rainham, Kent — no pressure, just an honest look at what’s going on with your skin, and what, if anything, is genuinely worth doing about it. Book a consultation here https://portal.aestheticnursesoftware.com/book-online/564
