Continued from Plastic Surgery: The Cost of Perfection.
Dr. George Semel, co-author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Plastic Surgery, utilizes surgical glue similarly when he’s doing a face lift. Semel observes, the “try it on” approach minimizes the “pulled” look.
Which is something plastic surgeons have been trying to get away from, says Kotler, for years (Joan Rivers presumably notwithstanding). “We’re trying to get patients away from looking like they’ve been strapped to the wing of a 727.”
And coupled with the right laser treatments, fat grafting can now eliminate the last bane of aging – the dreaded Spotted Claw, a definite disability when it comes to showing off that three-karat diamond, if not those $20,000 knockers.
“We can now graft fat into the hollows of the hand and then laser all the skin discoloration and age spots off,” reports Beverly Hills dermatologist Dr. Peter Kopelson.
Factoid: Most Wanted When requesting cosmetic changes, these three are at the top of the wish list:
- All things Victoria’s Secret
- Angelina Jolie’s lips
- Salma Hayek’s nose
Kopelson, who is something of a mad scientist/pioneer in the field of pulsed light not only offers rejuvenation, tightening and hair removal treatments for the face, neck and nether regions, but he has also developed a treatment to reverse the effects of sun damage on the legs, arms and torso.
What lies beyond the horizon, however, goes further and deeper than grafts, fillers, cuts, pulls and controlled burns. The next frontier in beauty, contends Semel, is a three-way marriage not only of techniques in use right now, but also of hormone manipulation and genetics.
“A lot of what we blame people for now as a lack of willpower really is genetically pre-determined,” says Semel. “I had a patient come in, and he’s a couch potato and he looks it. But we got a genetic workup on him and no matter what he does, his body is pretty much programmed to look the way it does.
The trick is understanding his predispositions and then keeping those parts of his genetic traits from expressing themselves.”
To do that, Semel explains, requires behavioral changes, attention to nutrition and depending on the age of the patient, hormone manipulation, usually meaning supplemental testosterone or estrogen.
“It’s very exacting and something of a wild and dangerous frontier,” warns Semel. “But it means you’re taking care of the whole patient rather than just shoeing the horse.”
Safe to say he should expect a stampede.