Cosmetic treatments blog posts and news

Borba And Vitamin C

I've been wondering whether Vitamin C on the face is as good as it is cracked up to be. I use it pretty much daily, as a very expensive serum that I bought with one of my Obagi skin care series. And now I notice that Borba also includes it in the company's "Age Defying Fiber Knit Technology." So I decided to do some research for both you and me.

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Pulsed Light Treatments Soon To Be Available At Home

Pulsed light has long been known to heal wounds, and now GentleWaves LED Photomodulation(R) has been cleared for over the counter use without a prescription. Does this mean we will be giving ourselves photofacials at home?

GentleWaves has been used since 2003 by estheticians under the supervision of physicians, and has been "scientifically proven" to reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles through pulsating amber LEDs.  The LEDs are coded to stimulate collagen production and slow collagen breakdown.

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Thermage Launching Cellulite Product

Just read a press release about Thermage's 4th quarter results last year. Apparently, their revenues are up and continuing to climb.

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Yummie Tummie: The Shaper You Can Bear To Wear

Who among us has not sported a few extra pounds after the birth of a child? That's what happened to Heather Thompson, fashion industry veteran, co-creative director for Tina and Beyonce Knowles' House of Dereon, and former Creative VP of Jennifer Lopez'  Sweetface brand. So she left the Knowles company to put together her own solution: Yummie Tummie. After months of experimenting with various fabrics and a sewing machine in the bedroom of her New York apartment, Heather developed what she thinks is a groundbreaking design for a modern shaper.

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Laser Technology

I am very interested in technology, but I rarely connect the beauty interests in my life with the technology interests. So imagine my surprise to learn that the first lasers used to treat skin problems were developed in Palo Alto -- the heart of Silicon Valley. The talent of Silicon Valley engineers is legendary, but I've always associated it with computer chips.

Nope. It's also lasers.  Over the past decade, laser skin resurfacing has become very popular. In order to remove aged, sun-damaged and scarred skin, a laser beam is passed over the surface of the skin, gently and precisely painting away unwanted cells, one layer at a time.

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Accent RF Body Contouring

I just got an email from the medspa I usually go to about their new Accent RF Bodycontouring equipment. So I went out on the web looking for some advice. I found a great site that we all ought to be looking at: It's a site specifically for the doctors who treat patients at Medspas.

I went directly to the physician to physician Q&A section, and found out that the physicians were sharply divided.

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My Invitation To A Botox Party

Sometimes when I write this blog, I feel like the old war veteran who has been in combat with this aging process for a very long time. I started using products on my face when I was in my mid-thirties, which turned out to be (fortunately) the right time to do it if you want to have any success. But I didn't have any of the fillers and paralyzers until I was nearly sixty. Quite frankly, I didn't think I needed them, because I had an eye job (at about age 45) and a brow lift (at about age 50) and both of them produced the effect I wanted.

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CBS Investigates Lipodissolve

Yesterday I wrote the post on Lipodissolve, in which I quoted from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. Today I received an email with a link to a CBS investigation on Lipodissolve, featuring several former patients. Several of the women who spoke in the video cited the pain involved in the multiple injections, which was not explained to them beforehand. One woman had some kind of reaction to the shots, during which she lost some of her eyesight and clumps of her hair.

Another swelled from a Size 4 to a Size 16, and had trouble breathing. Several thought they were dying.

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Stryvectin Works For Me

I'm a week into my trial of stryvectin.

If you have been following me, you know what when it arrived I almost thought I had ordered the wrong product, because the box had all this stuff on it for stretch marks. I almost left it in my daughter's medicine cabinet, because she wears bikinis and I don't. But then I realized she has no stretch marks, so I got over my feeling of weirdness and put it on my face.

Well, I am here to tell you it works.  In fact, this morning I look at my face after I'ved washed it with plain water, put on the stryvectin, and then applied the foundation/sunscreen (Neutrogena Healty Skin Enhancer) that I always wear, and I think perhaps I look too flawless for a woman my age, and perhaps not "natural."

This is a big problem for women who are addicted to beauty treatments. Can we look too flawless and thus look fake? I never want to look like one of those women who has had too much work done, which is why I avoid the knife.  Wouldn't it be ironic if the skin creams got good enough to produce the same effect?

On another note, I sat through two more hours of mini-torture over the weekend to have my lips tattooed again.  I had so much sun damage that it hardly took the first time, but this time looks more promising.  Yes, I swelled up like Julia Roberts again, but I am coming down nicely.  Now if the color just doesn't fade out the way it did last time...

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Microdermabrasion With Photofacial Works Better

I am feeling like a human experiment lately as I try to help you decide what treatments work best for your face. Mine has a lot of sun damage, so the usual creams produce some result, but nothing compared to what I'd like. About twenty years ago, I had an eye job and about fifteen years ago I had a browlift, both of which are still working, so now it's a question of wrinkles, discolorations, and tightening.

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