The headline reads “Hands are the new frontier of antiaging,” and once I moved beyond the missing hyphen — most would write “anti-aging” — I dipped into the article itself, learning of new treatments for wrinkled hands. One beauty connoisseur says she treats her hands as she does her face, including chemical peels and microneedling.

My hands are — to mix metaphors and body parts — my Achilles heel. The combination of sun damage, an active life, and well, let’s just call it carelessness, have made my hands look older than the rest of me.

But … I love my hands, crone-like though they may be. I appreciate their years of service, their willingness to type a blog post, chop celery, or pound through Chopin’s “Raindrop” Prelude.

I appreciate the fact that they are the only part of me that is tan anymore. Because even though I wear long sleeves and long pants to avoid sun exposure, I still bare my hands, slathered in sunscreen, of course.

If I knew in my 20s what I know now, I would have sunbathed less and worn driving gloves. But other than that, I’m happy with my choices. I wouldn’t trade my imperfect hands for the newest, plumpest models on the market.

(Photo of Dante Gabriel Rosetti’s The Beloved, photographed at the Tate Britain, May 25, 2026.)