The response of the skin to common in vivo tests (in-plane uniaxial stretch, torsion, indentation and levarometry) is analyzed in terms of their suitability for ageing studies. The analysis suggests that low-load indentation and small deformation levarometry are well suited for ageing studies since the skin response under these tests can be directly related to its structure and constituent properties (known to be affected by ageing). The measured forehead skin response under these tests in ‘young’ (20–26 years) and ‘old’ (64–80 years) subjects is presented and compared with predictions of corresponding models. The results show that levarometry is more sensitive to ageing than i