Looking Like Your Mother

If He Would Only Shave His Head

This is a bit off topic for me, but damn if if Matt Dallas
isn't the spitting image of Demi Moore.

Laser Hair Removal for the Face

Judging by my mailbox, lots of people are interested in facial hair removal. Here's a bit more detail.

On lasers, the beam passes through the skin and is absorbed by the dark pigment, or melanin, present in the hair follicle shaft. The heat from this beam damages the follicle enough so the hair cannot grow back. Because the process is based on pigment-attraction, lasers worked best on people who have light skin and dark hair. Dark skin was always a problem because the skin absorbed the laser before it got to the follicle. And blond, gray, or white follicles didn't have enough melanin to attract the beam, so it didn't work in that situation, either.

New lasers, however, were developed to address these limitations, but on anything other than dark hair and fair skin, success will depend upon the doctor’s skill level and the equipment he or she has in the office. If you fall into one of the hard to treat categories, mention this when you book your appointment and ask what type of equipment the doctor has.

I reached out to a few manufacturers. Cynosure produces the Elite laser that combines two lasers into one system that allows the doc to treat any skin type with one machine. Fair or white hair is still a challenge, Cynosure acknowledges, so make sure you find out if your doctor has experience and training in treating that type of hair. Lasers work well on coarse hair, so it is well suited for the chin, Cynosure adds. Cutera has the Coolglide laser, which was the first laser cleared by the FDA to permanently reduce hair in patients of all skin types. Palomar carries a LuxR line for all skin types, and the LuxY line for fine hair, and will soon have the LuxYS for finer, lighter hair, but Palomar, too, admits that without pigment, the process does not work. Lumenis offers Lightshear and IPL treatments for all skin types and hair that has at least some pigment. And Candela has the GentleYag for all skin types.

To wrap, lasers have overcome skin color barriers, but weak hair pigment remains a challenge and if anyone says otherwise to, well, watch your wallet. Oh, and permanent means permanent reduction in the number of regrowing hairs. It won't be chihuahua city forever. Some of the hair follicles in the treated area will regenerate over time - years in some cases - but at least there should be less of it.

If the hair on your chin is fair or white, it might be worth having it permanently removed by electrolysis. Electrolysis is painful and expensive and you have to find someone who really knows what they are doing. But for a small, finite area such as the chin, it might be worth it in the long run. I mean, really. I know lumberjack is in this year, but I'm drawing the line at whiskers. Service providers have been around for years. I would ask at a nice spa for a recommendation on who to go to.

Character Lines and Chin Hairs

A reader wants to know what to do about her character lines and chin hairs.

Oh, if you are going to refer to them as character lines, then I'm going to have to tell you to leave them alone. Something that gives a face its character should never be touched.

But if you call them wrinkles, then I can help. Fill the deep creases and folds with a filler such as Juvederm or Restylane. These are non-permanent gels that I will discuss in more detail in the next post, but will for now say that the filler is injected into the dermis beneath a crease in the skin, lifting the epidermis back up to the surface.

For attacking a more generalized case of medium to fine wrinkles and skin discoloration, the fraxel laser is the way to go (or a combination of fraxel treatments and fillers). I will be experimenting with the fraxel myself soon, - probably on my chest and neck. I have been having tremendous success with my Retin-A/Obagi Blender plaster. It is generating all sorts of new skin. But I can tell from the doctor to doctor talk that this laser is going to become a physician's office workhorse. The fraxel laser only hits a portion of the skin per treatment, leaving the untreated part there to help heal the treated part faster and keep the patient presentable to the public.

Finally, you may want to consider a phenol peel, depending on your skin tone and level of outdoor activity. I had one to cure my melasma after my second child - again, deserving of a separate post, and the results were jaw dropping.

As for the chin hairs, do whatever it takes and do it now. Facial hair on a woman is right up there with missing front teeth: a major distraction. My ears stop working when I see hair growth. Fortunately, there are constant advancements in laser hair removal, and Sally Hansen and Nair make facial  depilatories to use while you are exploring which laser is best for your hair type. Sure the chemicals stink and sting, but learn to deal. A 1/16th inch growth of facial hair looks like a lion's mane in the summer sun. Electrolysis is painful and carries the risk of several side effects, and should be reserved only for the truly desperate. This information from the Mayo Clinic can be trusted. I will get some information on laser technology from a few dermatologists, but it looks like there is a degree of permanent hair removal one can enjoy from lasers.

Vaniqua is an FDA approved topical cream that is supposed to slow down hair growth. I tried to test it, but it made my skin break out so you are on your own with that. Besides, there are so many other things we should be putting on our face at our ages. Enough already. At some point we have to get to bed or to the office.

Happy Mothers Day to Me and What Did I Do To My Face!

So I grabbed Linda Wells book, Confessions of a Beauty Editor, and decided that because I have a speaking engagement this week and because no one is allowed to give me a hard time about anything in the days surrounding Mother's day, I would try this trick from page 36: "One week before the big day, ask your dermatologist for permission to cake on a thick layer of Retin-A two or three nights in a row."   I started three days ago, but only got a bit of flaking because my skin is made of aluminum, I swear.

So last night, with only four night to go, I came up with my own recipe. I said to myself, "Self, let's try something more intense. Let's pack on your Retin-A .1% with your prescription Obagi 5 with 4% hydroquinone and see what happens."

"Happy Mother's Day, Mom What Happened To Your Face?" was my greeting this morning.

My skin is on fire. Absolute fire. It is time for the champagne and whatever left over pain killer I can find loaded with lint in the back of some drawer. OMG, I look like I have on permanent blush. I'm sure the snake-like molting will start any moment now and I will be beautious in time.

And if not, well, it's not like I am ever at a loss for an opener when I have a speaking engagement. It's like Nora Ephron's own mother always said. Everything is copy.

The Face Bra

I guess my daughter won't be inventing a face support system for the science fair next year (this post explains), as that idea's already been taken. Besides, the face wrap company promises its minerals will take 10 to 15 years off your looks.

We're taking a poll in the office. So far we have epsom salts and an ace bandage, dead sea salts and tube socks, and four people who yelled at us for not working.   

When Barbie Likes Math

Catherine McNeil, the Times tells us, is the It girl of modeling. Uberskinny is out, fatally gorgeous is back in. That's good news. I mean, heroin chic is so tough to pull off without a cache of heroin, you know?

But if we are switching to classic beauty, then that means facial restructuring. I spent some time trying to figure out those ratios to compare to my own, such as nose length in proportion to the height of the forehead, etc. I was doing ok on one site, that I might not be too far off classic, until I realized it was a breeders' page for Labrador Retrievers. 

Anyway, just to have it all in my notes somewhere, after using a broad search of "classic beauty" and nose and forehead and length, this is what I finally found on the subject - for humans, of Egyptian and Greek descent, I am assuming.

The Egyptians and then the Greeks divided up the body and the face and were most pleased when the component parts measured up to a set of mathmatical calculations. Geometry, harmony, insanity, you choose a discriptor.  (Anyway, it exists, and whether you want to adopt it or scorn it, it's always better to operate from facts.) The Greeks developed the math part, the Golden Ratio. How we get that number is thus: the length of a line is divided into two parts such that the minor part divided by the major part equals the major part divided by the total. So for Golden proportion, the smaller part must relate to the larger as the larger part relates to the  total. In reverse, the relation of the total to the major part must be the same as that of the major part to the minor.

To qualify as Golden, the major part is 1.61803 times larger than the minor part, a number represented by the Greek letter phi, the initial letter of Phidias Pythagoras’ first name.  Eventually all this math gets us to something more familiar, such as his Vitruvian man.

The width of the nasal base is supposed to be .618 of (shorter than) the mouth.
The width of the mouth is supposed to be .618 of the width of the eyes
The width of the eyes is supposed to be .618 the width of the head at the temple
The height of the forehead-to-eyes is .618 the height of the eyes to the chin
The height of the eye to the nose tip is .618 the height of the nose to the chin

Of course, once you know it is called the Golden Ratio, searches become much easier.  For the face, try this, the Golden Number net site, which is where these color images are from.

I still think McNeil looks like a renegade elf from Rings, but as I have consumed a loaf of French bread viewing site after site turned up on ridiculously large "classic beauty" search, I am feeling a bit hobbity myself.

The Hunt for the Perfect Screen

I do this every Spring. I fail every Spring. What am I talking about? Here is a clue.

Which is scarier, the image of the snow bunny with the healthy-looking goggle tan or the treacherous mountains?

Why, the snow bunny of course.  See the mountains at Jackson Hole are about 10,000 feet closer to the sun than what I find at the oceanside beaches. The atmosphere is going to be a little thinner, and there is more. When we are there, the mountains will be covered with snow, light-reflecting snow. Light reflecting snow at 10,000 feet laughs at baby oil and aluminum foil. That stuff's for amateurs, it knows.

What I know is that no matter what I try to do to avoid it, I am going to look like this man, not that snow bunny.  "You don't tan," one dermatologist told me. "You brown."  One trip to Cervinia, the Italian side of the Matterhorn, I had taken a 60 spf sun block that I had had shipped to me beforehand from France. It was several years ago, so I had to look long and hard for that high a number. It was in a nude shade, which meant that out on the slopes, my skin looked plastered for a casting call. I still got dark, but to be fair to the sunscreen, I probably didn't apply it as often as I now know to do.

Last year's big find was the Australian invisible zinc oxide. I am going to start there and then begin the hunt for what is new now in broad spectrum sunscreens. There are a few here I recognize from my past. I'm actually thinking mask.

Hylexin

I am getting so many hits for Hylexin - I am meeting with a doctor tomorrow. I promise to get the name of the natural ingrediant that has proven to some that it works. Then I will see if it is in the OTC Hylexin. I promise, I promise. 

The Collagen Routine

For about three months now I have been experimenting with a face treatment regimen designed by Obagi.
It is prescription strength, meeting my standard right on:  if it's gonna cost like narcotics (a Looking Like Your Father phrase I have stolen) then a doctor should be involved. These do, and doctors are.  They are available by prescription only, and an aesthetician working in a doctor's office and under his supervision can get you the product. 

Apparently, I have the skin of a mutant cockroach. 

I have been using their strongest line, Nu-Derm.  I wash am and pm with a facial cleanser. Then I use a toner. I love toners. I don't know what they do (I am told that sets the pH of my skin so it is more receptive to the other products) but I feel like I am getting washing windows fresh. Anyway, next is #3, called, um, 4% hydroquinone (Rx only).  I started this program, oddly enough, right before summer, and I can tell that even with more color than I should be getting, the blotched pigment tan I usually suffer is not there, or at its worst, barely visible.  I know this product, if used as directed - which is twice daily - really helps to bleach out the skin.  This is serious stuff and worth every penny.  I am not much of a pusher with friends. I like to leave people alone. Plus, who the hell is as vain as I?  So I keep much to myself.  If I pass the word on to friends, then that means I am really impressed.

It is expensive, though. I left the tube on my last holiday and had to get a replacement.  Between that and the left behind #4 step, I shelled out another $150 dollars.  Ok, but if skin discoloration is your problem, this is probably the only product to work short of a physician's peel. 

Then comes the fun stuff.  Exfoderm is # 4, an am application. I mix Exfoderm with .05% Tretinoin (Retin-A) and apply.  The Exfoderm contains an alpha hydroxy acid, which by itself exfoliates dead surface skin cells and aids in penetration of treatment ingredients.  By mixing it with the Retin-A, everything gets down even deeper.  Because the exfoderm is not by prescription, it is probably the same as the alpha hydroxies you can by at department stores and drug stores.  The Tretinoin is by prescription only.  It is the real deal.

At night I use the Nu-Derm Blender, #5, (Rx only).  I mix it with an .1% Retin-A, and wait for it to get down to the bone.

This is the toughest product line available, and my aesthatician expected to see me after two weeks looking like I was two weeks recovering from a full blown chemical peel.  Instead, my skin felt beautifully soft and the color spots were fading. I was a bit overall red, but nothing to bitch about.  And you know. I would.

"Now sit down here and tell me what you are doing," she demanded.

"Gosh, I wash, then I use the toner - I really love that toner . . .,"

"No, the other stuff, how are you using them?" she asked.

By cutting me off she made it clear that she was convinced I was not using the product correctly, if at all.  I should have been red and peeling, with bad skin stuff oozing to the surface.  She had warned me too, not to be too aggressive because the first two weeks to two months or even four months of treatment can be a fairly ugly process.

I was doing everything right.  Instead of getting dry and peely and zitty, though, my normally normal skin was producing massive quantities of oil, and, actually, it looked and felt great. 

"I may call the Obagi rep and see why you are not doing what I normally see," she said, more talking to herself than me.  "But your skin looks great, so just stick with it."

I also get an alpha hydroxy peel or a microdermabrasion treatment every six weeks, as a booster. 

Why I recommend it:

The point of a lot of the hyped products you see advertised on television and print ads is to "generate collagen production" by stimulating the new cell growth.  Really, it works best by, lets call it what it is, massive irritation.  This is the concept behind Thermage, an incredibly painful and expensive treatment that takes 4 or 5 months to see results, if you have any at all.  The non-prescription strength products are so weak that they don't penetrate deep enough to truly trigger the regrowth we need. Maybe they are good for late twenty-somethings, but by 30, we need to be more aggressive if we are going to do it at all. 

My dermatologist also carries BioMedic (LaRoach-Posay) line, which follows a similar treatment plan but is a little less, aggressive, I believe is the word they use, but still prescription strength. Probably all that some skin can tolerate. The aesthatician presents this group of products as well. 

So, before you spend money on any kind of over the counter "derma peel" product, make an appointment with a doctor's office that carries this line and talk to someone.  Beauty companies are pushing product that runs from $50 to $200 a bottle.  If you are thinking of spending that much, why not get the prescription strength that gets right down to it? 

Don't be fooled.

Oh, I why I am soft and dewy instead of dry and a mess?  I must admit, the result does have me quite curious.  I guess I will write to the company and ask myself.  Mutant healing powers?  A return to adolescence?  I have treated so much in the past that I am going straight to the way it is supposed to look after a few months of treatment.  I just love all this exploring.   

Botox Therapy

The first time I tried Botox the doc says, "It should last about 4 to 6 months. It might become more long lasting over time. Some say even permanent."  I was not a believer.  My body consumed collagen injections like a thirsty plant sucks water.  Good for a day, and then poof, gone.  I figured three months, tops.

Actually, it lasted five. For five months the creases between my brows were gone. (I tried other places, too, such as the sides of my eyes, where the crow's feet want to lay their tracks. I knew I was smiling, but it felt like only my cheek bones would rise, and that, my friends, was strange.) My last forehead injection was almost eight months ago. "Longer lasting" seems to becoming true, if slowly. I was actually beginning to think I could last for a whole year between injections.  Recently however, I noticed the return of vertical shadows across my forehead. I started looking stressed even when I was not. Then last week the dreaded scowl returned. There is a difference. I feel the latter. I feel the tenseness reappear in my forehead as if gravity herself were pulling the arch of my eyebrows together towards the middle then right down into my mouth.  I hate that sensation more than anything.  It reminds me that I am tense and have stress in my life, even when I am not so conscious of it.

I don't know why my muscles do that. It must happen to a lot of people, like a twitching eye or a throbbing temple or a clenched jaw or grinding teeth or fidgety fingers or muscle spasms: something that the body does to remind us of things not so obvious, not so focused on, mostly subconscious.  Or it can be a habit, a trait acquired in the teenage years of using ones eyebrows when thinking.  At some point in the 30's and 40's we simply never stop thinking, or thinking and worrying, so the brow becomes fixed and tight. Before Botox, I remember using my fingertips in a mini-massage.  Other times I would tilt my head back, hoping to send the tenseness melting down the sides of my face and out my ears.  It would work for about thirty seconds. 

Then a friend mentioned Botox. Then I came across magazine articles on the subject. Finally I tried it.

It is funny. I cannot say I have ever read anything about what I believe to be the most compelling argument for Botox: think spinal nerve block for a bad attitude. People rave about how it smooths a hilly countenance, but for me it is a massage with benefits.  More than just a superficial cosmetic application, it is therapeutic. I feel as if a certain amount of stress is sent packing and stays disappeared for over half a year. I don't know how else to describe how it feels to have the constant pressure in my forehead suddenly gone. I don't think I even realized how much pressure I was experiencing until my first treatment started to wear off. 

This is what the Botox wannabes, the creams that provide a little numbing sensation, cannot do.

I can only imagine that the success of the Botox wannabes is because those who want the real thing believe it to be too expensive or to involved.  Well, it is not as involved as buying and applying twice daily a dollop of cream on your forehead. As for the price, six months worth of cream is not cheap, either. Still, I have a suggestion. Botox for your birthday.  At least once a year, you get a long, long, lasting dose of a peaceful expression and serenity, in your face at least. 

So, how to get such a gift; harder yet, how do you give it?  I mean, "Honey I bought you a Botox injection for your birthday!" could be such a losing proposition.  Pick a response:

Do you think I look old?
Are you having an affair?
You don't love me anymore.
I need tires for my car. Why are you spending money on me? (No, really, there are women like this. I have heard people swear to it.)
What can I expect for Mother's Day, Lady Viagra?

I mean, I know.  It was incredibly difficult to offer my mom an all expense paid trip to a face lift.  You love her. You love her no matter how she looks.  You will love her forever no matter how she looks. Yet you sense that from the little things she says and the sighs she makes when looking in the mirror that she might enjoy a break in life so you trip over your tongue and extend the offer clumsily. 

But as a gift, there has to be an element of style to the proposition, so I have an idea.  Two actually. 

For those who want to give without offending: 

Many plastic surgeon and dermatologist offices offer several types of skin care options.  An office that provides Botox may also have an area for skin rejuvenating facial treatments such as dermabrasions and glycolic peels.  These types of treatments are being hyped by cosmetic companies in all sorts of weak sister product lines identified in page after page of every woman's magazine printed today, so none of this would be foreign to the love of your life.  To identify such a place, check out a regional magazine where doctors are likely to place ads for these types of services.  Then call and talk to a receptionist about what you are trying to do.  It would not be a bad idea to nose around if you had the nerve, or send someone to check it out.  Some places look like doctors offices.  Others have designed their offices to look more like spas, which increases the likelihood that you will not get in trouble. You set up a gift certificate that includes a consultation and the treatment of her choice, with each being done with enough time to be done before the birthday.  Let the person who sets up the appointment know that you think she might benefit from a Botox injection, but that you are trying to stay out of hot water. 

Don't forget the restaurant reservation.

For Those who Believe There is Nothing Wrong with Receiving:

Block and copy the portion of this post that addresses the physical tenseness aspect of a furoughed brow and highlight it. I mean, laugh lines are one thing, the roadmap of your life and all. But a knitted brow is something altogether different and you want the equivalent of a long lasting massage.  Find an office of the type described above, and ask that a visit there be your gift.  If a treatment is more than your love usually spends or can afford, then start early and squirrel away some matching funds of your own.  Make a reservation for dinner in a place with great, low lighting.  You are going to look fabulous and feel like a princess.  All the more reason to be seen across the table in an atmosphere that makes you look even better.

As for me, I am treating myself today. I have been sitting at my desk tyring to rub out my brow and I guess I have just had it. I called my dermatologist for an emergency appointment, but apparently his new receptionist did not perceive my dilemna as an emergency and advised me that he was booked until September. For some reason, I didn't feel like pulling out my frequent flyer gold member card to jump the queue. Also, with Botox and other quick repeat injections, once you become a patient and pass any initial testing of the product for allergies and reactions, the doctors will slip you in whenever they can because it is a fast process and it makes money. I knew this, but I decided instead to experience the treatment at a plastic surgeon's office. It is always good to experiment.

Oh, and I will be sure to ask them about my birthday gift idea. I have a feeling they will just stare at me.   This time tomorrow, that is about as animated as I hope my face will be.