Caracas Before
Caracas Masque Before (Above) and After (Below)
Caracas After
Archive for the ‘Red Carpet Beauty Secrets’ Category
Caracas Masque images Pt. 3
Tuesday, September 1st, 2009
Caracas Procedure -Before & After-
Tuesday, September 1st, 2009Caracas before and after pictures procedure.
Above. Caracas Masque Before.
Below. Caracas Masque After.
Caracas Masque After
The Facelift Alternatives: Tightening Devices and Volume Restoration
Sunday, August 16th, 2009Part II
The Facelift Alternatives: Tightening Devices and Volume Restoration
How much laxity and volume loss you have on a varying scale – mild to moderate; moderate to severe – can help your doctor determine whether or not you need a facelift. But it’s vital that you know, beforehand, so that you come to your doctor as prepared as you can possibly be.
Chapters 7 and 8 are designed to help you discover what non-surgical procedures are right for you and, if necessary, what non-surgical procedures might be complementary to various surgical procedures your physician might recommend. That’s right; gone are the days of one-procedure-fits-all – for everybody.
Today most doctors customize a diagnosis based not just on the degree of laxity and volume loss but that patient’s specific personality, pain and recovery threshold and a variety of other factors. But to perfectly tailor your procedure, or combination of procedures, you and your doctor need to work together as two equal parts of your own personal doctor-patient team.
That is why it is so important for you to be educated before you speak with your physician; being intimidated by all those degrees and pedigrees on the whole behind his or her head is no way to feel like you’re on equal footing with your doctor. However, that is exactly where you need to be; eye to eye, not sitting at his or her feet and lapping up those pearls of wisdom.
You want to discuss your options, openly and honestly; without fear that you are asking “dumb” questions and with the knowledge that your physician is interested in the unique and personal you. A generic diagnosis won’t do here; it has to be personal and unique to you and your specific needs if you are to get the results you desire.
A lot of what we do with our patients is actually “undoing” what the popular media and decades of hearing “facelift” have already done to them. Many people think that a facelift is the ultimate in plastic surgery or the gold standard of surgical procedures; others think that all the creams and lotions and skincare is something you do until the inevitable aging process makes a facelift equally inevitable.
Not true; as we always say in our offices the best procedure is the one you avoid by taking care of your skin in the first place. Just as importantly, through a complement of various surgical and non-surgical procedures, you can avoid the severity and invasiveness of a facelift altogether.
Then again, perhaps the years have been unkind to you and that, combined with genetics has increased the need for a facelift; so be it. Chapter 8 will cover all that – and then some. But for our purposes in this chapter we are gearing the information toward people with early laxity and volume loss that a typical facelift isn’t going to deal with.
After all, a facelift too soon is only going to make matters worse in later years just as waiting too long is going to make the need for a facelift later just that much more imperative. The key is to know what to do and when; we’re here to help you do just that.
The two issues we’ll be talking about in this chapter are:
To be Continued…
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The Facelift Alternatives: Tightening Devices and Volume Restoration
Tuesday, August 11th, 2009The Facelift Alternatives: Tightening Devices and Volume Restoration
“I don’t plan to grow old gracefully. I plan to have face-lifts until my ears meet.”
~ Rita Rudner
Before Botox®, before Restalyne® and Thermage® and all the other lotions, potions, lasers, products and procedures we’ve catalogued throughout this book, the default term for any surgical cosmetic procedure for the last few decades was pretty much this: facelift. “Tight was right” and less wasn’t even an issue; more was better and, quite often, not quite good enough.
“When are you getting a facelift?”
“Did you see Maryanne’s new facelift?”
“The plastic surgeon said I needed a facelift.”
“Do you think I need a facelift?”
“How soon before I can get another facelift?”
Questions like these and so many more were popular fare at water coolers, gyms and PTA luncheons throughout the land and, without any other clear options, facelifts became the end-all and be-all of plastic surgery.
How times have changed. Today there are so many other non-surgical options and so much patient- and doctor-driven education to inform the various surgical procedures that now exist that most of us realize there are many steps on the way to a facelift; that having a facelift is not the inevitable costly, surgical and intensive procedure we all must “face” one day down the road. This chapter is designed to help you discover what those alternatives are and, more importantly, where you fit on the “do I need a facelift?” scale. In other words, we will teach you a new scale to use that doesn’t necessarily involve how old you are or what you think you need.
WARNING: Age is NOT the determining factor in whether or not you need a facelift. In our practices we’ve both learned that age is not necessarily an indicator along the “who does and who doesn’t need a facelift” spectrum. Both of us know dozens of individuals in their fifties who don’t need a facelift – and just as many in their forties who do.
Where do you fall on this scale? To determine the answer we must consider the two mitigating factors that we will be discussing in this chapter:
1.) Laxity: As we have discussed, laxity is our term for “looseness and sagginess,” otherwise known as drooping.
2.) Volume loss: As your skin ages it loses volume and becomes more brittle and less supple, creating a more severe look to the face.
To be Continued…
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Four Recommendations for Beautiful Skin
Tuesday, August 4th, 2009So many people want absolute answers and black-and-white results, but neither life nor medicine works that way. Any procedure we undertake depends on our skill and your participation; be an active participant. You also need to be realistic; beauty is a process, not a procedure.
Accordingly, the first part of the consultation should focus on preventative measures to slow down the aging process. The following considerations will be discussed:
• Anti-aging regimen
• Skin care consultation with professional aesthetician
• Sun protection regimen
• Tobacco cessation
• Image consultation
• Dietary change
Part 2:
Non-invasive Procedures
The second phase of the consultation should address non-invasive procedures to improve the facial appearance. Many people will not need any further surgical intervention.
The options include:
• Laser resurfacing
• Chemical peels
• Soft tissue augmentation and fillers: Restylane®, Juvederm™, Perlane®, Hylaform, Radiesse®
• BOTOX®
• Collagen
• Fat grafting
• Thermage®, Titan™
Part 3:
Surgery Specific
The third aspect of the consultation should be designed to discuss areas of the face that will benefit from facial plastic surgical intervention. All regions of the face must be evaluated in order to achieve a balanced and aesthetically pleasing outcome (more on this in Chapter 2). When applicable, surgical and non-surgical methods are often combined in order to get the optimum outcome; we call these “complementary procedures” and will discuss them at length in future chapters. The following regions and surgical options are typically discussed in order to experience a thorough and realistic consultation:
The brow-eye complex
• Blepharoplasty – plastic surgery of the eyes
• Brow lift – endoscopic forehead lift
• Fat grafting
The mid-face and nasolabial fold region
• Facelift (rhytidectomy)
• Endoscopic midface lift
• Cheek implants (malar and submalar)
• Fat grafting
• Rhinoplasty (nasal reshaping, nose job)
The lower face and neck
• Facelift and Neck lift (rhytidectomy)
• Chin augmentation
• Fat grafting
Part 4:
Aftercare
The final phase of the consultation process should involve professional make-up artists and hair stylists to enhance and optimize the results achieved through non-invasive and surgical methods. After all, you want to keep the results, don’t you? So take pains to learn as much as you can about the beautification process in this all-important step.
Camouflage techniques for the initial healing process should be discussed in order to allow the patient to return to normal daily activities as soon as possible. (Skin care regimen with professional consultation needs to be continued.)
• Image consultants
• Hair stylists
• Make-up artists
• Continue anti-aging regimen
• Continue skin care regimen and consultation
• Continue dietary changes
After all, a facelift alone – be it surgical or not – cannot be considered a complete facial rejuvenation. A comprehensive approach must be utilized to obtain consistent results that are natural and long-lasting results.
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Extra – Beverly Hills Beauty Secrets – Dr. Hamilton
Friday, July 31st, 2009What is beautiful is good!
Wednesday, July 29th, 2009“What is Beautiful is Good…”
The Greek poet Sappho once wrote, “What is beautiful is good, and who is good will soon be beautiful.” Since then, much has been written about beauty and, not surprisingly, Sappho’s quote has proven to be quite astute; at least the first part: “What is beautiful is good.” Indeed, from better grades to more room on the sidewalk, those people we consider to be more attractive get preferential treatment in almost every area of life.
In an article for the American Journal of Sociology, authors Murray Webster and James E. Driskell combine several previous studies to determine that, “The most general conclusion from research is that the world must be a more pleasant and satisfying place for attractive people because they possess almost all types of social advantages that can be measured.”
Which social advantages, exactly? The authors go on to catalogue a myriad list of such advantages, beginning as early as childhood, “Attractive schoolchildren are expected by their teachers to achieve higher school marks than unattractive children, and they usually do so; their misdemeanors are judged less serious and it is predicted that they will have more successful careers.”
Attractive children often go on to become attractive adults, where the benefits continue to multiply: “Attractive adults are thought to have happier marriages than those who are unattractive, and that expectation seems to be fulfilled. Opinions of attractive adults are more likely to be agreed with; attractive adults are perceived as having better mental health; Attractive adults are even granted larger ‘personal space’ on the sidewalk than are the unattractive.”
Of course, we’ve all seen Tyra Banks wear an undercover camera while donning a fat suit and been amazed at how differently the supermodel was treated when compared to when the suit came off, but hard research reveals that what she experienced was no isolated event. Studies prove that attractive people really do earn more and become more successful – in business and in love – than those considered less attractive.
Case in point: a recent study by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis reports that, “Good-looking, slim, tall people tend to make more money than their plain-Jane counterparts”
Writing in the Journal of Young Investigators, author Charles Feng from Stanford University writes, “Psychological research suggests that people generally choose mates with a similar level of attractiveness. The evolutionary theory is that by mating with someone who has similar genes, one’s own genes are conserved. Moreover, a person’s demeanor and personality also influences how others perceive his or her beauty.”
Furthermore, a study from the Archives of Dermatology boasts research to support the theory that, “The best-looking women in high school are 10 times as likely to marry as the least attractive, and they are more likely to marry sooner and marry persons of greater wealth or social status. Sexual encounters are more numerous and varied for attractive people. Better treatment for the better looking extends to the workplace. West Point graduates with facial features more suggestive of dominance are more likely to achieve high rank. In the private sector, the good-looking are more likely to be hired, given a higher salary, and promoted sooner…”
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Beverly Hills Beauty Secrets Blog
The aging process & Its Factors.
Thursday, July 23rd, 2009The aging process revolves around four critical factors:
1.) WRINKLES (Skin ages/loses elasticity): If you’ve ever played an afternoon of pickup basketball with your younger relatives during an extended holiday weekend – particularly if you’re not used to doing so on a daily or even weekly basis – you will know that your muscles don’t quite “bounce back” the way they used to when you were a teenager. Well, your skin is much the same. Skin consistency changes as we age, creating fine lines, aging spots and overall producing an entirely different texture of the skin. We lose what we call the “snap” factor; the skin’s ability to snap back into place if you pinch, press, pound or pull it. Try it now; with your mirror. Pinch a spot on your cheek or neck and time how slowly it snaps back into place; the older you are, the longer this takes. Now try the experiment on a teenager or older relative (if they’ll let you!). The differences can be amazing.
2.) Volume loss: As the skin naturally loses its fullness, or volume, over the course of the years it becomes less supple and more brittle. There is less wiggle room, so to speak, when it comes to handling facial expressions and other environmental factors such as exposure to the sun or smoking. So it’s not so much that the skin is sagging or drooping, as many people tend to claim, it’s merely losing the fullness and suppleness of its younger years. In a very blunt way, we can compare the skin of a younger person to a grape and the skin of an older person to a raisin; this is the end result of volume loss. Several contributing factors to volume loss include:
• Less fat in our face as we age
• Bone, cartilage and facial structure changes – chin, nose, jaws, brows, etc. Think about individuals who have dentures or poor dental hygiene. Their faces look significantly older. That is because poor dental health leads to significant bone loss in the upper and lower jaw bones.
• Loss of muscle over time
3.) Laxity: You may not know what laxity means yet, but you know it when you see it: looseness and sagginess. In other words, the effect of gravity as it pulls already weakening skin down the contours of the face. This has to do with the effects of aging on skin. After all, things do drop; gravity does affect the aging process – and not in a good way. Individuals who have weak bone structure (small chins and cheek bones) don’t have good support for soft tissue (cheeks, etc.). They tend to have more laxity – and at an earlier age.
4.) Dynamic muscle contraction: Unlike other parts of the body, many of the muscles in your face don’t attach directly to bone; instead, many such muscles attach under the skin. This unique feature lets you contort your facial muscles into a variety of features and, in the process, make dozens of expressions: sad, glad, happy, mad – they all take a toll eventually. Despite their advantage to you in conveying emotions, these same muscle movements also cause aging lines (“expression lines”). Specifically, around the eyes and mouth. As you age these lines become more evident; when you’re younger they’re only there during the dynamic movements. In other words, smiling or wrinkle lines appear only while you’re doing the action; when you’re older they stay there even when you’re not doing that anymore. Loss of skin elasticity tends to increase the depth and persistence of these “expression lines.” Ever heard the expression, “Be careful; your face will freeze like that.” Well, your great grandmother might not have been so wrong after all.
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Injectables. How long will they last?
Wednesday, July 1st, 2009
The images above are from actual clients. Pre Artefill and Post Artefill.
Injectables: How Long Will They Last?
The Simple Answers
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“More than anything else, I’d like to be an old man with a good face, like Hitchcock or Picasso.”
~ Sean Connery
Duration of Injectable Products
This handy chart will help you determine how long a particular injectable lasts:
Short Term (3 – 12 months):
• BOTOX® (3 months)
• Collagen products
o Bovine collagen: Zyderm®, Zyplast® (3 months)
o Human-based collagen: Cosmoderm®, Cosmoplast® (3 months)
o Porcine collagen: Evolence®, Evolence® Breeze (6 months)
• Juvederm™ (6-12 months)
• Restylane® (6-12 months)
• Perlane® (6-12 months)
• Fascian™ (Extremely variable; increasing duration with repeat treatments)
Long Term (over 12 months):
• Radiesse® (1-2 years)
• Sculptra® (2-3 years)
• Artefill® (Permanent)
• Silikon® 1000 (Permanent)
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Our Goal, Your Book…BHBS
Monday, June 22nd, 2009
The Best Source for Your Information
Traditionally, the physicians such as plastic surgeons and dermatologists were the experts that clarified the appropriate intervention to address an individual’s concerns. Today, however, the Internet as well as print and television media have become an important source of information for people when seeking the appropriate procedure and available intervention.
Advertisements by physicians and cosmetic products and procedures are abundant. Multiple books have also been published about beauty and health. Most of the advice provided in these books is limited by the experience and specialty of the physicians. Regardless of the significant amount of available information, in our practices we have learned that people are more confused than ever and most do not feel that they have a source that would serve as an unbiased source for facial enhancement and preservation.
Until now. We are Douglas Hamilton, MD and Babak Azizzadeh, MD and our new book is called Beverly Hills Celebrity Beauty Secrets: The Secrets Celebrities Don’t Want You to Know – From Two Doctors Who Work On Them Every Day (?). To our knowledge, this is the first book written by both a facial plastic surgeon and a dermatologist with expertise in facial rejuvenation. This groundbreaking dual format allows for a broad-based – and unbiased – approach to facial rejuvenation.
It is a mixture of excitement and concern that has energized us to write this book. With the proper application of technological and surgical approaches now available, many elements of facial aging can be addressed today in ways that were not imaginable even five years ago. Yet, with this advancing tide of technology and surgery comes some muddying of the waters.
The promises provided by these advancements can be nullified by their inappropriate application in unqualified hands. This may range from doctors far removed from their specialties, with backgrounds as thin as a weekend course certificate, to non-physicians employed in a business model where medical professionalism has been suffocated by the drive to profit.
For individuals seeking to enhance and preserve their facial appearance, our goal in writing this book is to give “insider trading” that most cosmetic health care providers are aware of. These include:
1. Providing the guidelines for understanding the aging changes specific to their face so that they can be educated about alternative treatments
2. Clarifying the available surgical and non-surgical treatments
3. Providing the all-important criteria for choosing the physician specialist who would understand the appropriate procedure
Together, we have over four decades of experience in facial plastic surgery and dermatology, all of which is poured into “Beverly Hills Beauty Secrets”. Through a combination of sound advice, quantifiable research, unvarnished truth and actual case studies from both our practices, the reader will experience a life-enhancing result with money well spent – and hopes well placed. That is our sincere wish.
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Evolence Collagen injection – Dr. Azizzadeh
Friday, June 19th, 2009At what age should I start worrying about facial aging?
Tuesday, June 16th, 2009Start early with prevention by using sunscreens. Most extrinsic aging is due to sun damage.
In your 20’s, skin care home products such as anti-oxidants and collagen stimulating creams become important along with mild collagen stimulation from microdermabrasions.
In your 30’s, lip enhancement (enlargement) and filling of forehead and smile lines (nose to mouth corners) can be treated with botox and fillers, respectively.
The 40’s are a perfect age for Thermage to tighten some early skin sagging and removal of fine lines and color irregularity with lasers like the IPL and Fraxel.
From the 50’s on, the above can maintain youthful appearance for a long time but invasive tightening (facelift or blepharoplasties (eyelids) ) may be needed. Remember for some people, you may be 55 and look 35 or the reverse. These are general guidelines.
