Doctors have a new incentive to entice women to quit smoking and cut back on the booze, with research highlighting the heavy toll the two habits have on facial ageing.

The Monash University-led international research involving more than 3200 women aged 18-75 from Australia, the US, Canada and the UK is the first large, multinational study to demonstrate the link between smoking and alcohol consumption, and how women look.

For the study, the women completed an online survey about their lifestyle and scored the severity of ageing (from none to severe) for 11 facial characteristics using picture examples as a guide.

Characteristics included crow’s feet, glabellar lines, under-eye puffiness, perioral lines and oral commissures.