Reflections on Beauty

While some patients are more upfront about the aesthetic enhancements they’ve had done, others prefer to be more discreet. According to a recent study from the U.K., a lot more patients prefer to downplay their cosmetic enhancements or even hide the fact that they have had work done.

Transform, Britain’s largest cosmetic surgery group, reported a drastic increase in patients seeking more subtle changes to their appearances. The reason? To conceal their procedures from their acquaintances.

According to Transform, more than half of women surveyed concealed non-invasive treatments—like Botox or Juvederm—from their significant other. Another 72% of women admitted to hiding said treatments from their family and friends.

Women apparently aren’t as bad as men. Transform reported hat 81% of male patients admitted to keeping their treatments a secret.

Not only that, three in five patients ask for subtle changes to their appearance that have a more gradual effect.

In the way of most commonly hidden surgical procedures, liposuction took the top spot. Thirty-four percent of women hid the fact that their weight loss was not a result of long gym sessions.

With plastic surgery becoming mainstream in the media, why are patients opting to be so discrete about their treatments? Perhaps the onslaught visibly “plastic” celebrities is giving patients a better understanding of what they don’t want to look like.

Here at the Reflections Center for Skin and Body, our motto is “People will notice, but no one will know”. We strive to enhance your beauty while giving you natural looking results.  At our offices in Livingston and Bridgewater, NJ, we have a plethora of non-invasive treatments available that offer little-to-no downtime.

Don’t worry—your beauty secrets are safe with us!

You know the saying: “Everything goes south with age.”  Well, that encompasses earlobes, too.

Sure, earlobes aren’t the first things that come to mind when you consider your aging appearance. However, the signs of aging affect every part of your body. Earlobes are just as susceptible to drooping, thinning and wrinkling as the skin on the face and neck are.

Avoiding excessive sun exposure and heavy earrings can slow the signs of aging earlobes; still, completely stopping them is impossible.

Doctors are now using dermal fillers—which are already commonly used for facial wrinkles—to treat maturing ears and improve their appearance.

For patients who don’t have wrinkly lobes, but rather pierced ears that have begun to droop from heavy earrings, fillers such as Juvederm, Restylane or Radiesse can be used to add support. The use of fillers will also reduce how large the earring hole appears.

The results are indeed less permanent than an otoplasty. That being said, dermal fillers in the earlobes has no down time and immediate results.
At Reflections Center for Skin and Body we’re all ears. Our friendly staff would be happy to address any of your questions regarding dermal fillers in earlobes.

Melanoma, though a less common type of skin cancer, accounts for about 75% of skin cancer deaths. The five-year survival rate for melanoma, if caught early, is 98 percent. That number drops drastically if the cancer is detected late or if it returns.

Because of this, it is important that the initial surgery to remove cancerous cells is accurate enough while leaving healthy tissue in tact.

Up until now, there has been no imaging technique that adequately defines the boundaries of the malignant tissue. Because of this, doctors usually remove excessive tissue around the cancerous cells to ensure a minimal chance of recurrence. Two scientists from Washington University in St. Louis have engineered technologies that promise to alleviate this problem.

The solution combines an imaging technique and a contrast agent that were developed by Lihong Wang, PhD, and Younan Xia, PhD, respectively. The combination of technologies provides an accurate three-dimensional rendering of the cancerous cells.

The technique, which is based on the photoacoustic effect discovered by Alexander Graham Bell, uses light and sounds waves for imaging purposes. Basically, when light pulses through tissue at the right frequency, the tissue generates sound waves as it expands and contracts. A computer then uses a mathematical problem to reconstruct an image from the sound waves.

The use of sounds waves in imaging works a lot better than light because light scatters much more often in tissue, creating a distorted image. The technology is called photoacoustic tomography (PAT).
“PAT improves tissue transparency by two to three orders of magnitude,” says Wang.

Not only that, PAT is a lot safer than other deep imaging technologies, like X-rays, because it uses up to 100 times less voltage output. In addition, photoacoustic images to no require patients consume contrasting agents for the image to be seen.

Although the technology is a vast improvement on other imaging resources, the images still come out fuzzy around the edges of the malignant tissue. In order to improve the image, Xia loads the tissue with gold.

“Gold is much better at scattering and absorbing light than biological materials. One gold nanocage absorbs as much light as a million melanin molecules,” says Xia.

The gold nanocages can be tuned to absorb and scatter light at many different wavelengths. In addition, gold particles that are injected into the body naturally accumulate in tumors because the malignant cells are disorganized and leaky.

In experiments in mice, the photacoustic signal with the addition of the gold agent was 36% stronger. Subcutaneous melanomas that are barely visible show up clearly, and in great depth, on photoacoustic images.

This advancement in melanoma imaging is not only important in the early detection of skin cancer; however, it can assist surgeons in accurately removing advancement malignant tissue. This means that patients who are diagnosed at a later stage may have a higher survival rate than in the past.

Another celebrity with a goofed up tattoo? Rihanna recently joined the list of stars to sport a tattoo with a typo, grammatical error, or completely different meaning.

The songstress’ latest tattoo reads ‘rebelle fleur’, which should translate to ‘rebel flower’ in French. The only problem is that, in French, adjectives typically come after the nouns they modify. In other words, ’fleur rebelle’ is the grammatically correct version of the phrase tattooed on her neck.

Rihanna isn’t alone. Britney Spears infamously had a Chinese character tattooed on her that was supposed to mean ‘mysterious’, however, it actually meant ‘strange’. Actress Hayden Panettiere has ‘Vivere senza rimipianti’ tattooed down her side, which translates into ‘live without regrets’. Somehow, an extra ‘i’ was slipped into the phrase…the correct spelling is ‘rimpianti’.

If bad tattoos can happen to celebrities, they can most definitely happen to the average person. The next time your favorite neighborhood tattoo parlor spells ‘mom’ wrong, rest-assured that you won’t have to live with that typo for the rest of your life. Laser tattoo removal makes it easy to get rid of those little mistakes.

The most common type of laser used for tattoo removal is called Q-switching, although the skin’s pigment may dictate a more suitable option. Lasers work by producing intense light that is projected into the skin. The light is absorbed by the tattoo pigment, which then fragments into smaller particles and is flushed out by the body’s immune system.

Lasers work by producing short pulses (billionth of a second) of intense light that pass through the top layers of the skin to be selectively absorbed by the tattoo pigment. This laser energy causes the tattoo pigment to fragment into smaller particles that are then removed by the body’s immune system. Different tattoo colors require various wavelengths.

Following a laser treatment, skin may be red with pinpoint bleeding or blistering at the treatment sight. Initial lightening of the tattoo can be seen approximately two weeks following treatment and will continue for four to six weeks. Multiple laser tattoo removal sessions are usually required and the number of sessions depends on the tattoo color, size and depth. Treatments are generally performed in six-week intervals.

If you are a New Jersey resident that is considering laser tattoo removal, it is important that you seek out a qualified doctor to perform your procedure. New Jersey laws states that only a licensed physician can perform laser treatments. At the Reflections Center for Skin and Body in New Jersey, we have a plethora of lasers and fully-trained staff of physicians to accommodate your tattoo removal needs.

Forget watching your weight, the latest key holder to your health is through your waist. According to a recent study conduction by the American Cancer Society (ACS) found that people with a wider waist had nearly double the risk of dying—from any cause—than their more slender counterparts.

The ACS study followed more than 100,000 subjects over the course of nine years and was published in The Archives of Internal Medicine. Dr. Eric J. Jacobs and his colleagues at the ACS studied a total of 48,500 men and 56,343 over that age of 50 from ’97-’06. Of the subjects who participated, 5,332 women and 9,315 men died during the study.

The findings showed that, no matter the person’s body mass index (BMI) or weight, having a larger waist was associated with a higher risk of death and disease. Not only that, women who were at a healthy weight had the strongest association between mortality risk and waist size.

“The take-home is that it’s important to watch your waist as well as your weight,” said Jacobs. “Even if your weight is normal for your height, if your waist size is increasing, if you’re moving to a bigger pant size, that’s a warning sign that it’s time to start eating better and exercising more.”

A thick waist, which was once deemed a risk factor for heart disease, is now also said to increase the risk of dying from respiratory failure, cancer and other causes.  A wide waist is attributed to fat tissue deep within the abdominal walls. This tissue can cause insulin resistance, inflammation, high cholesterol and other health problems.

Not sure how you measure?  A waist size of 47 inches in men or 42 inches for women, or larger, is considered unhealthy and can double your risk of death and disease. Lifestyle changes, such as a healthy diet and regular exercise, can help you lose some of those additional inches.  This waist-to-hip calculator from FitSugar.com is another useful tool in judging how healthy your body is.

Most men believe that bigger is better…and when it comes to Botox®, a bigger dose is indeed better for men.

Dr. Alastair Carruthers, a Botox® pioneer, presented a study during the 61st Annual American Academy of Dermatology meeting that proved men needed higher doses of Botox® Cosmetic to achieve the same results as women. Not only that, the level of smoothness of a man’s skin does not plateau with a certain dosage like it does in with women. In fact, the more Botox® a man gets, the better the results and the longer it lasts.

Dr. Carruthers injected 80 men and 80 women at seven different locations along the forehead. The women, who were separated into four groups of 20, were injected with 10, 20, 30 or 40 units of Botox®; the men received 20, 30, 60 or 80 units. While there was a great difference between the women who received 10 units and the women who received 20 units, the larger does did not extend the duration of the results.

In a previous blog post we discussed the importance of collagen for the skin. Higher levels of collagen reduce the appearance of wrinkles and leaving the skin looking younger and plumper. While there are a number of lasers, dermal fillers, and Botox® available to treat wrinkles, you may be able to eat your way to a more youthful complexion.

The following foods help your body produce collagen and improve the quality of your skin:

1. Soya Bean Milk, tofu and any soy-based products: soy contains an isoflavone called genistein. Genistein blocks enzymes that would otherwise destroy the body’s collagen.
2. Garlic: garlic contains sulfur, which helps the body to produce collagen, as well as taurine and lipoid acid, which support damaged collagen fibers.
3. Tomatoes: tomatoes are rich in lycopene, and antioxidant that inhibits enzymes that destroy collagen. Antioxidants also neutralize free radicals, which also destroy collagen.
4. Fish: fish is rich in omega fatty acids that help keep skin soft and supple.
5. Citrus Fruit: citrus fruit, such as oranges and lemons, are rich in vitamin C. Vitamin C helps the body to produce collagen.
6. Spinach: spinach is also loaded with vitamin C, iron, and a whole load of other nutrients that keep the body young and healthy.
7. Pig’s Feet (Yum!): pig’s feet are loaded with collagen and other nutrients that promote the production of collagen.

There are plenty of recipes available that include these different collagen-boosting foods. For optimal beauty, try eating these foods raw to absorb the most nutrients (except the pig’s feet, that is).

This is not the first—nor will it be the last—time we have heard about black-market buttock injections gone awry. Back in March, six New Jersey women were injured as a result of faulty injections. Now, a Los Angeles woman has lost her life after undergoing knockoff cosmetic surgery. According to Fox News, 22-year-old Mayra Contreras passed away on July 24, just one day after being injected in the buttocks with silicone from an illegal cosmetics business.

The Los Angeles Police Department is currently searching for Guadalupe and Alejandra Viveros, two sisters who were in charge of cosmetics business at the time of Contreras’ death. Guadalupe Viveros claimed to be a doctor in Mexico, however, she was not licensed to practice medicine in the United States.

The Viveros sisters were arrested earlier in the summer on charges of practicing without a medical license. Patients complained to police that fillers they were injected with hardened, while others developed infections. The sisters were released on bail and continued to perform cosmetic procedures illegal up until Contreras’s death in July.

The duo was expected in court last Monday, however, failed to appear. Reports claim that Guadalupe and Alejandra have fled to Mexico to avoid prosecuting in the U.S.

This is another textbook case as to why patients must be smart about finding a doctor to perform their cosmetic procedures. There are no shortcuts in the cosmetic industry that are worth risking your life fore, and it is important to find an experienced medical professional to perform your surgery or treatment. As always, your health and safety are more important than your beauty.