There’s one stage of life that all women must go through: menopause. Yet beyond offhand remarks about mood swings and hot flashes, there’s a lot left to be desired in mainstream conversation about “the change.” This is especially true when it comes to how hormonal fluctuations will impact your skin.
Part of the trouble is that perimenopause, the stage before menopause when women first begin to experience these shifts, doesn’t follow a set script. Some women notice their skin is oilier and more acne-prone than it used to be; some experience more dryness, itchiness, and sensitivity. And others like Christine Tarlecki Trimble, 44, a writer and content strategist for the food industry, experience a combination of both.
"I never had skin issues growing up. I couldn’t relate to those Noxzema and Sea Breeze commercials where people were really broken out,” Tarlecki Trimble says, noting that easy and flawless skin was her family’s “best feature.”
But at 42, her period began to get heavier and her skin started to act up. “Something went haywire and I was bleeding a lot. I started getting breakouts. I was like, 'What's going on here?'"
What Lies Beneath
During perimenopause, which can last anywhere from four to eight years, your monthly cycle can become inconsistent, causing alterations in the levels of estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone in the body. In healthy women of childbearing age, the three sex hormones are secreted in fairly consistent ways throughout the menstrual cycle. But perimenopause changes that.