Tag Archives: wind tunnel

Facelift Techniques That Younger Plastic Surgeons Utilize

Can you teach an old doc new tricks? Well, maybe – but you’d have to offer a pretty big bone. After so many years of practice with a particular technique, sometimes even doctors get in a rut routine. It’s human nature to resist change, and it’s not necessarily a bad thing in most circumstances. I mean, you probably dry off after a shower in the same way every day. you probably have used the same cereal to milk ratio for years.

But when it comes to plastic surgery and facelift procedures, patients would do well to search out a doctor who has experience, yes, but not too much experience, if you catch my drift. Facelift techniques are continuously changing and improving every year. Here’s a quick look at some old School and New School differences:

Old School – High and Tight

In previous years, plastic surgeons made incisions around the ear and simply pulled the skin upwards and as tight as possible before redraping it and reattaching it. This was effective at smoothing wrinkles, but the results didn’t last and patients often had the dreaded wind tunnel look.

New School – SMAS Adjustments

Today’s surgeons almost always combine skin tightening with SMAS adjustment during a cosmetic surgery facelift. the SMAS (superficial musculo-aponeurotic system) is a strong, thin layer found between the skin and the muscle. I often refer to it as the Saran Wrap of the face. During a facelift, the SMAS needs to be freed up and adjusted separately from the skin.

Skilled plastic surgeons employ several SMAS strategies to give the most natural and longest lasting results, and the best technique is determined based on the patient’s individual anatomy. the SMAS can be cut and then lifted and sewn to a stronger area such as the bone behind the ear or over the cheek. other times the SMAS is not cut but simply tightened with sutures. However it is achieved, successfully adjusting the SMAS creates much more natural facelifts that last.

Old School – Wrinkle Rejuvenation

Older facelift techniques were mainly concerned with vertical movement. Mainly, eliminate wrinkles and sagging by pulling everything North. there was little attention paid to skin firmness or volume loss, two of the biggest indicators of advancing age.

New School – Total Rejuvenation

Many older surgeons are not up to date on the newer practice of combining a facelift surgery with facial liposuction and/or fat grafting. By removing unwanted fat around the jowls and neck area with liposuction (often in combination with a neck lift), a skilled surgeon can actually sculpt the face into a more youthful profile.

In addition, using fat harvested from another part of the patient’s body to replace lost volume in the cheeks, nasolabial folds, marionette lines and temples is a relatively new practice that yields outstanding results. Synthetic fillers made of hyaluronic acid, such as Juvederm, are great for patients who want a temporary, non-surgical option to replace volume. but facelift patients will achieve permanent results with a fat transfer.

Old School – Single Approach

The facelift patients of yesteryear were not given many options for facial rejuvenation either before or after surgery. This is due in large part because not many other options existed. there weren’t a wide variety of products and treatments that could be used to delay a traditional facelift, and there weren’t many options for maintaining a facelift. you basically used Oil of Olay and Ponds until your face fell to a certain point, then you got a facelift, then you went back to your simple routine of Oil of Olay and Ponds.

New School – Multifaceted Approach

Today, there are new products and treatments being brought to the market every day. If a doctor doesn’t keep up, he’ll quickly find himself way behind the multi-billion dollar behemoth industry that is cosmetic procedures. Younger plastic surgeons are familiar with and make use of everything from Botox and dermal fillers to lasers and ultrasound. By utilizing these treatments well before the need for a facelift arises, patients can ease into their 40s and 50s with youthful and vigorous faces.

If and when a patient decides to undergo plastic surgery, the full arsenal of laser resurfacing, Botox and skin care should continue to be a part of the a patient’s regimen. Choosing a plastic surgeon who can also guide you through the maze of aesthetic options to keep your new face looking its best for the longest period of time is so.modern.

Facelift Techniques That Younger Plastic Surgeons Utilize

Kate Beckinsale: Hollywood hates women’s bodies

Speaking out … Kate Beckinsale resents cosmetic surgery pressure.

Kate Beckinsale has revealed she plans to age gracefully and avoid looking like the “wind-tunnel faces” she sees in Hollywood.

The Total Recall actress, who is based in Los Angeles, said she hoped to avoid plastic surgery and grow old like her 65-year-old actress mum Judy Loe instead.

The 38-year-old told Glamour magazine: “My mother was always very, very beautiful – she still is, in her sixties. I’m sure she feels, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if my neck did this?’ but not to the degree of cutting parts of herself off and dragging them behind her ears. I feel very similar.

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“I much prefer how my mother looks to the people I see here (in LA) with wind-tunnel face.”

“I feel like beauty is a gift that you have for a while, and you enjoy the hell out of it while you have it. and if you’re lucky enough to have a daughter and you give it to her, you enjoy the fact that she has it,” she elaborated.

Beckinsale, who gave birth to daughter Lily with then-partner Michael Sheen in 1999, also attacked the pressure on new mothers to snap back into shape after pregnancy.

“There’s an obsessional hatred of normal human processes. Pregnancy changes a woman’s body and should. it isn’t normal to not look like you’ve had a baby immediately after you’ve had a baby,” she said.

“I was gigantic after I had Lily – I put on a good three and a half stone, and it didn’t go until I stopped breast feeding… I was lucky that Britain wasn’t so paparazzi-orientated [then].

“I was allowed to get on with it and enjoy my baby – and figure out what being a mother was all about instead of worrying about [fitting into] my f***ing jeans.”

PA and smh.com.au

Kate Beckinsale: Hollywood hates women’s bodies

Wearing the Mask You Can Never Remove

Celebrities have it so easy, don’t they? They walk into a restaurant and go to the head of the line. They are showered with gifts and perks wherever they go – limos, drivers who hold the car door open for them, baskets of fruit, flowers and candy when they check into a first-class hotel, free clothes from designers, goody bags that are worth thousands of dollars and the list goes on and on.

The one aspect of celebrity that may not be as appealing is the fact that celebs are usually very willing to undergo plastic surgery or endure a battery of injections that plump and paralyze their faces hoping to stave off the inevitable signs of an aging face. sometimes these facial procedures are anything but pleasing enhancements as we have witnessed over blown lips, cheeks that make the face appear fat and distorted, beady looking eyes that are a result of too much filler around the cheeks, breasts way too dramatic and of course, who can forget the wind tunnel look?

Celebrities are constantly under the proverbial microscope. their weight, their clothes, shoes, accessories and especially their faces are watched frequently by those bloggers who report on their every move. Perezhilton, Dlisted and Cocoperez are constantly eyeing celebs and their comments – some are complimentary, even nice, some not so nice.

Celebrity or not choosing to allow your face to be injected or cut takes a lot of nerve. there are no guarantees that you will love or even like the results you are given and if you don’t like your new nose, breast enhancement, face, buttocks or whatever you’ve chosen to be enhanced, no one is likely to refund your money or schedule another procedure free of charge.

We’ve read that Heidi Montag now believes her breasts are too large and that they interfere with certain everyday responsibilities, tasks and even her workouts. We’ve read that Kathy Griffith and Jamie Lee Curtis are done experimenting with their faces – no more Botox or even liposuction. Joan Rivers and Jocelyn Wildestein have probably had the most face time – no pun intended – with the media dissecting the transformation their faces have endured through the years. The list of celebs, most who have many, many more dollars than the average gal, will not always love the results they’re given.

Where does that leave you?

Doctors who practice plastic surgery are not magicians or even artists; they learn their craft via cadaver practice. Some docs have the knack of producing really good work; some specialize in noses or breasts so how do you choose? Even if you have seen face work that looks natural, it doesn’t mean that it will be successfully repeated if you decide to opt for procedures that alter your appearance. Remember, some mistakes are permanent and there is no going back if you opt for sutures. Even injections may leave residual tell-tale signs of bunny lines and lopsidedness.

Surgery and injections are extremely expensive avenues; there are reports that tell us that many users of these modalities do not like the results they bought. Statistically, one in four former plastic surgery patients really like their results; in fact, Cosmetic Surgery Bible releases these statistics: Just 37% of respondents said they were happy with their results, with 37% saying they were dissatisfied and 26% stating they had mixed emotions.

Well, if surgery and injections are so iffy, what can be reliable?

The safest and sanest alternative to facial plastic surgery, fillers and other injections is facial exercise. yes, facial exercise can quickly and easily rehabilitate tired, sagging facial muscles that make you look older than your years.

Grab your mirror and take a look at what’s going on with your face. Do you see hooded eyes, sagging cheeks, a droopy mouth, jowls, pouches and a double chin?

If your face is beginning to resemble your Mom’s, beginning a facial exercise routine now will greatly improve your appearance. In just minutes a day you can take charge of the aging process when you learn this exercise routine. Reliably and deliberately, your face will begin to lift, tighten and take on a younger appearance.

Isometric contractions with anchoring techniques (resistance) are ideal for shaping and contouring those sagging facial muscles. Just like your legs, arms, tummy, hips and thighs enjoy a good workout with slimming results, your face will appreciate the good feeling it gets when you don your white exercise gloves, stand in front of your mirror and perform the movements that tone and lift your facial muscles.

You will be so pleased with yourself, your confidence level will soar and you will smile knowing that you can proudly wear your beautiful face that looks like it did five, ten even fifteen years ago.

Wearing the Mask You Can Never Remove

Rise of the has she or hasn’t she facelift:

PUBLISHED: 17:00 EST, 10 March 2012 UPDATED: 17:01 EST, 10 March 2012

Has she, or hasn’t she? Whatever one thinks of Louise Mensch, bestselling chick-lit author and glamorous Conservative MP, you have to admit her jawline is enviably taut for a woman of 40. perhaps improbably so. or is it?

Last September, when asked by a journalist whether she had undergone a facelift, her answer was tantalisingly oblique: ‘my God. Um . . . OK . . . I’ve always wondered what I would say the first time somebody asked me this question. And without denying it, I’m going to refuse to answer your question.’

Louise Mensch before (left) and how she looked last September (right) when she was asked by a journalist whether she had undergone a facelift

And so a new cosmetic surgery idol was born, sporting a look so natural you couldn’t tell whether anything had been done at all.

Just five years ago, it seemed as if the facelift was finished. Scared off by celebrities with wind-tunnel faces, women were flocking to have the new ‘liquid lifts’.

These injections of facial fillers – usually hyaluronic acid, a gel-like substance that occurs naturally in the skin  and helps it retain moisture – plump cheeks and hoick up sagging jowls.

This treatment was combined with Botox, which interferes with nerve transmission, paralysing the muscles to lift drooping brows.

Likewise, innovations in skin-tightening treatments were claimed to be able to achieve facelift-like effects even on turkey necks. These procedures were meant to offer a more natural look.

Except many didn’t; leaving women with expressionless foreheads and ‘pillow’ faces.

No surprise then, that the facelift  is back – and the women choosing  to go under the knife are getting younger.

News presenter Kay Burley, 51, revealed that she had treated herself to a