“Are trends in beauty shifting?”.…that was my question to Dr. Angela Sturm, our uber amazing, contributing facial plastic surgeon, who is our go-to beauty professional keeping us current on just what the latest and the best procedures are in the beauty world. The following is her insight into what she sees as the most important beauty trends in our future…..
Dr. Angela here……and the trend for at least the past 5 years is significant growth in non-invasive treatments, like injections and skin tightening. However, there is also, now, more and more discussion about minimally invasive treatments. That way you get more dramatic and consistent results with not much downtime.
The following are the most popular treatments/procedures at this time….
Soft Tissue Fillers can have beautiful, rejuvenating results that are relatively immediate with very little downtime. Unfortunately, the pervasiveness of injections and the fact that they are performed by so many different people with different levels of training, the results are widely variable. Also, fillers have to be repeated to maintain the results every 6 months to 2 years depending on the filler used.
Because of concern about this variability and limited longevity, many people are looking into other options. For example, the number of people looking into and getting lip lifts over various types is increasing. The lip volume is naturally restored with your own tissue by various techniques depending on the look you are trying to achieve. The incisions can be hidden in the nostrils to also shorten the distance between the bottom of the nose and the lips or inside the mouth to just restore the volume to either the top or bottom lip. These changes are permanent and long lasting.
These procedures can be done in the office under local anesthesia (without going to sleep) with only a few days to a week downtime. The cost depends on your surgeon and can be from $2000-5000, but usually are not much more than you would spend on doing lip injections just a couple of times.
Soft Tissue Fillers
Fat Transfer goes in and out of favor. It was very popular before hyaluronic acid fillers were widely available. It has become more popular recently because of the longevity and presence of some stem cells in the fat. If you love the results of your fat transfer, it lasts for a very long time. If you don’t love the results, it still lasts for a very long time. This procedure is one that if you are interested, you should seek out a surgeon that does a high volume of fat transfer and has significant experience. The cost can vary wildly between surgeons and how much fat is transferred.
Fat Transfer
Bucal Lipectomy: A relatively simple procedure has gotten a lot of social media love lately. Buccal lipectomy is a procedure that is simple to perform and can be done under local anesthesia. So, it is a popular procedure for plastic surgeons to video and post online. It also has incisions only in the mouth and creates more of a “contoured” look to the cheeks. By removing some of the buccal fat, just below the “apple” and beside the corner of the mouth, the face can look more oval instead of round. It’s a great procedure to define the cheeks without adding volume to the area. The cost varies but can be around $1000-4000.
“Treatments to tighten the face and neck without surgery are advancing on what feels like a daily basis. It’s an exciting time to be in aesthetics. None of them replicate what we can do with surgery, but the results are getting better without having to have anesthesia or long downtimes,” says Dr. Angela Sturm
Microneedling with radiofrequency (Profound) is a treatment that stimulates collagen with heat created by radiofrequency under the surface of the skin. This is delivered in conjunction with microneedling, which stimulates collagen as well, but also improves the surface of the skin including the texture and pigmentation. So, you get both texture and tightening in one treatment, which wasn’t the case with some of the earlier skin tightening treatments. This can be used for deep acne scars in all skin types, which can be difficult to treat with other modalities. However, the downtime is a bit more involved. The skin heals the microneedling, so can be messy for a few days and you can have bruising from the treatment, as well as the numbing injections that many physicians use.
Thread lifts have re-emerged as a popular aesthetic treatment. Threadlifts were used a number of years ago and were performed with permanent sutures. These sutures had issues with scarring and coming to the surface. The new threads are dissolvable, which addresses these issues. The composition of the threads also stimulates collagen. So, the threads act not only to lift tissue, but to create some volume. This can be done in the office with local anesthesia. On the other hand, in many cases the lift is not dramatic and the result is dependent on how they are placed and the skill of the person placing them.
Radiofrequency assisted lipolysis (FaceTite) is a minimally invasive treatment for the face and neck for tightening. There is also a larger handpiece for the body. Small incisions are made and a cannula is passed beneath the skin that heats the fat under the skin and the deep layer of skin. This treatment is frequently combined with liposuction under the chin, then the skin is tightened with the handpiece. The ideal person for this is someone with some fat under the chin and a small amount of laxity. Since it is minimally invasive, there are incisions and can be scarring in the tissues making any future surgeries more difficult. This becomes an issue if the results aren’t quite what you had hoped and are looking for more, if you are more of a surgical candidate down the road or need other medically related surgeries on your face and neck.
Dr. Angela’s best advise: “Carefully weigh your options and consult a facial plastic surgeon or plastic surgeon to see what treatment is best for you.”
Dr. Angela’s website: https://todaysface.com/Dr-Angela-Sturm
Feature Image courtesy of Harper’s Bazaar
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