A face-lift can knock years off a woman's appearance, but a new study in a plastic-surgery journal suggests that her hands may still rat out her age.

In the study, which used digital photos of only the hands of females of various ages, 71 women and 22 men at two British hospitals were asked to study the images and estimate the ages of the hands' owners.

In most cases, more than half the volunteers were able to correctly estimate the age within 10 years - that is, younger than 20, or 20 to 30, 30 to 40, and so on.

For instance, 60 percent estimated the right age from a photo of the hands of a 17-year-old, and 90 percent correctly identified the age of the hands of a 78-year-old, according to the research published in the June edition of the journal Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.

The volunteers also studied hand photos that had been digitally altered to remove blemishes or pronounced veins and added nail polish or jewelry. Age estimates generally went lower for 40- and 50-year-old hands, but most volunteers still weren't fooled by the hand photos of women in their 90s.

Overall, the physical characteristics that most commonly gave away age were thin-looking skin and prominent veins and wrinkles. Removing those features was most likely to result in lower age estimates, although youngish jewelry and polish also helped.

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