Few of us are fond of the way our necks look. But the good news is a huge range of treatments have emerged over recent years that can help alleviate the crepey skin and saggy jowls that plague us as we age.As a beauty journalist reporting on ‘tweakments’ for nearly 30 years, I’ve tried a lot of them in the name of research – and vanity.Now, in this special guide, I’ve pulled together every neck tweak available – from the simple cover-up that cleverly conceals wrinkles to the very invasive treatments which get results – though some are not for the faint-hearted.But first, from the skin rejuvenator made from my own blood to the jaw filler that disguised my jowls, here are the treatments that have worked best to rejuvenate my 63-year-old neck.Toxin to ease tight musclesYou know how some people have necks that look like there are thin tight vertical bands running down them? I’m one of them.To soften the pull of these platysmal bands, part of the platysma muscle that runs from the jaw to the collarbone, I have a wrinkle-relaxing toxin, such as Botox, injected into here every three months in a procedure sometimes known as the Nefertiti lift (from £400, cosmeticskinclinic.com).This means a dozen or so injections (it’s a fine needle but you do feel each pinprick). How does it help? With the tension on those bands reduced, my skin snaps back into my jaw, so it looks firmer and my neck looks softer. A huge range of treatments have emerged over recent years that can help alleviate the crepey skin and saggy jowls that plague us as we age To soften the pull of vertical bands in the neck, a wrinkle-relaxing toxin such as Botox can be injected in a procedure sometimes known as the Nefertiti liftMicroneedles which smoothe the skinI was in my mid-50s when I decided that I needed more than just skincare to firm and tighten my neck. I’ve since tried many types of radio frequency (RF) needling – where radiofrequency energy is fired into the skin through a mass of tiny needles that stab repeatedly from the surface – and yes it’s quite intense.But all types are great for improving skin texture and tightening up the skin by provoking more collagen production, particularly across the neck and lower face.However, the one that made a massive difference in just one session was Profound RF which was, admittedly, the most intense of all, with 7mm needles which slide into the skin at an angle. You need a good deal of local anaesthetic to get through this, especially as the process takes the best part of half an hour.I did this in 2021 when we were all still wearing masks amid the Covid-19 pandemic, thankfully hiding the bruising and swelling which took a week to go. However, the results were worth all the discomfort. Not only was my jawline more pronounced, my neck was smoother, firmer and less saggy.This specific treatment has since been discontinued; the nearest equivalent is the Profound Matrix Pro (from £750 with Dr Ahmed El Muntasar, theaestheticsdoctor.com).The skin rejuvenator using my own blood I’m sure you’ll have heard of the vampire facial – as tried by celebrities such as Kim Kardashian – where skin-rejuvenating, platelet- rich plasma is extracted from 15ml of your own blood (about 1 tbsp), then injected or needled into your face.It’s a decent tweak for skin- conditioning and now there’s a version for the tender neck area too. This is made even more potent because the extracted plasma is put into a meta-cell technology (MCT) machine, where it is zapped with light rays to multiply the skin- boosting growth factors and exosomes – microscopic bubbles which signal to nearby cells to trigger repair – before it is injected. It sounds very sci-fi, but is effective.I had three rounds of treatment (from £1,050 a session, drsophie shotter.com) to firm, strengthen and tighten the floppy bit of skin beneath my chin. My neck was very red afterwards but this only lasted for 90 minutes and the result was very localised but definite – and, at my age, I count any improvement as a win.Contouring for your jawDid you know that as we age we lose bone mass from all over our skulls? We never notice it happening until we’re in our 40s – our jaw becomes blunter at the corners, and its edges start to lose definition and blur into our neck.What to do? Well, dermal filler is one option (Dr Tapan Patel, from £400, phiclinic.com).Just a touch is needed in that corner of the jaw and along the jawline to sharpen it up, which makes the neck below look a whole lot better. It sounds counter-intuitive, but it works to disguise a jowly neck too and it lasts for between one and three years.I’ve also tried injections of fat, extracted from my thighs by liposuction, to my jawline for the same reason, to strengthen the contour of the jaw. That’s a much more invasive – and expensive – procedure, but it looked great and lasted for several years (Dr Tunç Tiryaki, from £7,000, tunctiryaki.co.uk).Soundwave energy to tighten and liftAs we age, one of the reasons our necks go floppy is because along with the loss of collagen which keeps skin firm, we also lose elastin, a protein that keeps skin springy.Step forward Ultherapy – a treatment that deploys focused beams of ultrasound energy to tighten and lift this loose skin (from £2,750, quinnclinics.co.uk).Launched in the UK in 2013, I was one of the first people to try it, and I’ve had the treatment a couple of times since. It’s a slow-burn, taking up to nine months to see results but it definitely makes a difference to skin elasticity and appearance.Sofwave, which uses ultrasound energy in a slightly different (but equally uncomfortable) way, and which I tried more recently, definitely made a difference, showing a bit of tightening around the neck and jawline within three months (from £3,600, drgalyna.com).What type of neck you have – and how to fix itThere are a great many unkind descriptions for the way our necks look as we age. Thankfully, there are also an ever growing range of treatments designed to tackle every issue. As the stigma falls away from cosmetic procedures and so many more of us are open to trying a ‘tweakment’, find out what neck type you are – and what you can do to fix it.Parched: Injectable moisturiserThe skin on our necks is prone to dryness, so if you’re already lavishing on hydrating creams and serums to no avail, the next thing to try is an ‘injectable moisturiser’ treatment that acts like a long-lasting layer of hydrating serum just below the surface of the skin.These ‘skin booster’ treatments have been around for a while and the one that is catching all the attention this year is Skinvive, not least because its ambassadors include TV presenter Cat Deeley and actress Keeley Hawes, who said last week how delighted she has been with the results, which left her skin looking great.Dr Rashpal Singh has been hearing this sort of praise from his Skinvive patients over the past year. ‘We measure their skin hydration before and after treatment and we see a significant improvement in the moisture-metre readings.‘The neck is a challenging area to treat because the skin is thinner and, unlike the face, the neck also has less structural support and is more prone to dehydration, crepey texture and laxity.‘Traditional boosters don’t last that long, whereas Skinvive has clinical evidence to show it lasts up to nine months. Patients can see their neck skin looks better but the big thing for them is how it feels, which shows that skin firmness improves too.‘I really love using it to brighten necklines as well, particularly for Asian patients, as it takes away the dark pigmentation you can get in the neckline.’From £600 with drsclinic.co.uk in Middlesbrough, Newcastle and London The skin on our necks is prone to dryness, so treatment often focuses on hydrating the areaBulky/jowly: Laser away fatSurgery may be the gold-standard treatment for a heavy, jowly neck but – depending on how the fat hanging around under your jaw presents itself, there are non-surgical options that can make a huge difference.One of these is Endolift, where a miniature laser is attached to the end of an optical fibre so fine that it can be slipped into the skin and break down the fat on the inside.Dr Priya Verma has been honing her expertise with this device for longer than most. ‘If you’ve got excess heaviness in the neck, and pockets of fat, with a visible double chin or jowls, we can use Endolift to get into that fatty layer, to melt down the fat very gently,’ she says. ‘Your lymphatic systems clears this fat away and the effect of lasering the skin from the inside and the heat it creates means you get new collagen created and a skin-tightening effect, so you’re not left with saggy skin where the fat was.’It takes a few months to show the results, as the melted fat is cleared from the body and the new collagen tightens the skin.From £2,500 at art-clinic.co.ukTech-neck: Intense light therapy The first signs of an ageing neck used to creep up on us in our early-40s. But now skin specialists say they are seeing ‘tech neck’, lines appear in people years younger. The culprit? The huge amount of time we spend gazing down at phones and other electronic devices, which squashes our skin into wrinkles that quickly become embedded. TIP Combat tech-neck by holding your phone higher, roughly at eye level. Pop a tiny sticker on the front of your phone to remind yourself to lift your chin and see if that helps To combat this, a good starting point is to try skin-conditioning injectables such as Plinest or hydrating skin boosters like Profhilo or Restylane, to plump up the skin and iron out creases.Then treat your neck to a couple of Broad Band Light sessions, a strong form of Intense Pulsed Light (IPL) that has been scientifically shown to alter ageing skin at a genetic level.Studies have found that regular treatments, once or twice a year, stimulate cells to repair themselves and show genetic behaviour similar to youthful skin cells – while clearing away sun damage, wrinkles and redness into the bargain.Injectables, from £700; Sciton BBL treatment, from £400, drmaryamzamani.com‘Necklace lines’: Deep hydrationWhat are ‘necklace lines’? Those unloved horizontal creases that settle into our necks with age, as if a tight necklace has sunk itself deep into our neck and left a dent: the sort that only gets exacerbated by the amount of time we spend looking down at devices.What to try? Dr Aggie Zatonska has developed a treatment she calls the Linea Lift which uses injections of Profhilo Structura – a kind of heavyweight, twice-as-concentrated version of the original hydrating treatment.She injects it into the offending lines, fanning out the product to give just enough support to the skin to soften those necklace-shaped dents, without producing unsightly bumps.This isn’t a filler; it’s a hydrating treatment that encourages the skin to make more of its own supportive collagen, and results start to show up after two weeks.From £575, atelier.clinicDull/uneven: MicroneedlingWhen you tot up the level of sun exposure the neck gets, and factor in friction from clothing and a natural tendency towards dryness, it’s no wonder that the skin here loses its radiance faster than the face, becoming rather dull and rough in texture.Microneedling is a brilliant treatment for tackling this and it’s hugely popular. TIP The muscle of the neck is thin, just 2mm, and the skin gets dry, so it’s one of the first places that we see ageing, as Hollywood favourite Dr Ivona Igerc points out. Her Swan Neck lift includes supporting the ‘scaffolding’ of the skin with super-fine micro collagen threads. (from £500, drivylondon.com) Dermalogica clinics and treatment rooms alone deliver some 35,000 of these treatments a year, so you’re in well-trained hands. Its Pro Microneedling treatment costs £150.For the Rolls-Royce treatment, the Exo Booster Microneedling steps things up a notch by needling in a revitalising serum. This not only leaves your skin glowing but you get a bottle of the magic potion to use at home for seven days.The only downside is a red neck, but it only tends to last for the rest of the day.From £330, dermalogica.co.ukCrepey curse: BiostimulatorIf your neck is becoming weathered and soft with a mass of small lines, resembling crumpled crepe paper, some of the best treatment options are injectable ‘biostimulators’.These are not fillers. Instead, they contain substances that prompt your skin to start making more youthful, firmer skin cells. The best-known biostimulator is Sculptra, but that isn’t appropriate for use on the neck area.Dr Jonny Betteridge recommends Radiesse. ‘Patients at my clinic are increasingly seeking treatments that improve skin quality,’ he explains. ‘Hyperdiluted Radiesse is my go-to for the neck because it works with the body’s natural processes,’ he adds.‘It stimulates fibroblasts [a type of cell that contributes to the formation of connective tissue] to produce collagen and elastin, helping to strengthen and support the skin rather than simply adding volume.‘Over a series of two to three sessions, it gradually improves crepey texture and laxity, with results that look subtle and natural.’From £600, jbaesthetics.comChinless: FillerWhen your face blends into your neck – without the definition that you’d like along your jaw – a small, appropriate dose of dermal filler along the jaw-line, in the chin and also in the back corner of the jaw can work wonders to give you the definition you weren’t born with.Where to go?You need to find someone who is a master at this, such as Dr Bob Khanna, who has been teaching other practitioners the art of medical aesthetics for decades.From £670, drbk.co.uk, Reading and London