Skin Laxity, Cellulite or Crepey Skin? How to Tell Which One You Have

Most people can see that something about their skin has changed before they can name it. The neck looks a little loose, the thigh has a dimpled patch, the skin under the eye has gone finely lined and papery. All three get lumped together as “ageing skin” and, more often than not, get treated with whatever a friend or a video happened to recommend. That is where it goes wrong, because laxity, cellulite and crepey skin are three different problems with three different causes, and a treatment aimed at one does very little for the others.

Getting the label right is the first and most useful step. This guide walks through what each one is, how to tell which you are looking at, and where to read further once you have. If you are still not sure, that is exactly what a consultation is for.

The three, and how to recognise them

Skin laxity is looseness. The skin and the tissue beneath it have lost firmness and started to descend, so the jawline softens, jowls begin to form, and skin that once sat taut now feels slack when you move it. Press and release the skin on the cheek or neck and it settles back more slowly than it used to. The cause is structural: a decline in collagen and elastin, and a loss of support in the deeper layers, so this is about the scaffolding of the skin rather than its surface. Read the full picture in skin laxity: why it happens and what can realistically be done.

Crepey skin is a surface-quality problem. The skin becomes thin, finely wrinkled and papery, like tissue paper that has been scrunched and smoothed out again. It shows up first where skin is naturally thinnest: under the eyes, on the neck and decolletage, and on the inner arms. Unlike laxity, it is not about the skin descending, it is about the skin thinning, drying and losing its elastic quality, often with sun exposure as a major driver. It is covered as part of skin texture: what causes it and how each type is treated.

Cellulite is different again, and it is not a skin-quality or a weight problem. It is the dimpled, orange-peel appearance that shows on the thighs and buttocks, caused by fibrous bands tethering the skin down while the fat beneath pushes up between them. It affects most women regardless of how lean or fit they are, because the structure that causes it is anatomical. The detail is in cellulite: what it is, why it happens, and what can be done.

Side by side

A quick way to place your concern

If the change is on your face or neck and the skin looks and feels loose or descended, you are most likely looking at laxity. Start with the skin laxity guide.

If the skin is thin and finely crinkled, particularly under the eyes, on the neck or on the arms, that is crepey skin, a texture and skin-quality concern. The skin texture guide covers it.

If the concern is dimpling on the thighs or buttocks, that is cellulite, and it behaves quite differently from the other two. The cellulite guide explains why.

You can have more than one at once

These three are not mutually exclusive, and in practice they often travel together. A neck can be both lax and crepey. Skin that has thinned with age is frequently sitting on tissue that has also lost firmness. This is one reason self-diagnosis only gets you so far: what looks like a single problem is often two overlapping ones that need to be addressed in a considered order rather than with a single treatment.

It is also why an in-person assessment is worth more than any online checklist. At The London Road Clinic, a consultation includes a proper skin assessment, and where it helps we use Observ skin analysis to look beneath the surface. From there the right starting point, and the right sequence if there is more than one concern, becomes clear.

Frequently asked questions