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Skin Care News & Specials
A monthly e-zine from GreatSkin®.com
February, 2004
Mark Van Wormer, MD, ABAAM - Publisher |
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 Sexy,
Kissable Lips for Valentine's Day
By Lori Van Wormer, L.E.
Lori’s Beauty
Tip of the Month
“Next
time you apply a scrub, try extending it to your lips and gently
brush with a toothbrush or washcloth to slough away any dry skin.
Rinse thoroughly with a clean washcloth. Then, apply a lip balm
treatment for overnight protection. If you do this every night,
I promise you won't have chapped lips.”
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Valentine's
Day is fast approaching and we all want to look the most appealing we can
look for our Valentine. The sexiest part of the face is undoubtedly the
lips. So, let's get them ready for that special day!
Have you ever noticed how tired and old you look once your lip color wears
off? And, have you ever noticed how just one swipe of color can make you
look more alive and fresh again! I guess that's what my mother was referring
to when she said, "Never leave home without your lipstick" However, even
color can't help dry, chapped lips. Therefore, we need to exfoliate our
lips on a regular basis like we do our face. Next time you apply a scrub,
try extending it to your lips and gently brush with a toothbrush or washcloth
to slough away any dry skin. Rinse thoroughly with a clean washcloth. Then,
apply a lip balm treatment for overnight protection. If you do this every
night, I promise you won't have chapped lips.
Try either GreatSkin® Vitamin E Stick or GreatSkin® Vibran C Lip
Treatment. Now, you're ready to create the perfect kissable lips. Start
with lining your lips with a lip liner pencil. Try GreatSkin®'s Indelible
Lip Liner. This not only makes your lips look more luscious but can also
help keep color from migrating and feathering into fine lip lines. Next,
fill in the entire lip area with that same lip liner pencil. With your
lip brush, dab a jazzy pale pearly gloss to the middle of your bottom lip
for that pouty, kissable look! Try GreatSkin®'s Sable Lip Brush, GreatSkin®'s
Lip Six, or GreatSkin®'s Lip Palette.
» return
to top
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 Lip Enhancement Therapy, Making Some Sense out
of "Fillers"
By
Mark E Van Wormer, MD
Medical Director, GreatSkin® Clinics of the Southwest
Quote from Dr. Van Wormer
“It
is also important to remember that soft tissue augmentation is
an ART. Not only choosing the correct filler for the job at hand,
but knowing injection technique and limitation is critical. Reading
the patient’s face before any planed augmentation, getting a symmetric
result, providing the proper anesthesia prior to injection, and
using the correct amount of enhancement for the optimal cosmetic
appearance are all considerations which must be made. It takes
literally thousands of augmentations and years of experience to
get the artistic knack of facial augmentation. Make sure your physician
has this kind of experience first!”
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A
significant percentage of cosmetic dermatology/plastic surgery office practice
depends on the appearance of the mouth and lips. This most sensual area
is not only our portal to nutrition, our main communication device but
lest we not forget, a very powerful sexual organ. On this Valentine's Day,
it seems appropriate to review what can be done to enhance the mouth and
lip area.
As we age, one particular part of the face that really shows the time is
the mouth and lip area. For women, atrophy or loss of lip substance due
to the peri/post menopausal changes of life can be most distressing. The
issue of lip atrophy and perioral tissue loss in men is certainly less
problematic to them, but nonetheless still present. The result of age related
atrophic changes around the mouth are the vertical lip lines above the
lips, loss of the body of the lip substance and vermillion lip border themselves
and the dreaded down going oral commissures at the corners of the mouth,
the so called "drool lines."
Thankfully, there are many exciting tissue fillers and implantable substances
to at least augment the areas of loss and restore the presence of a youthful
lip and mouth area. The injectable substances breakdown into three areas.
Bovine derived, Human derived and Plant derived.
First, Bovine Collagen (Zyplast® and Zyderm® have been the traditionally
used injectable "plumping agents" for years. Although this agent is cost
effective (at about $250-$300 per cc) it requires a skin test spot one
month prior to use (to make sure one is not allergic to the bovine material).
Bovine Collagen works wonderfully, but requires re-augmentation every three
to four months to maintain its volume in the tissue. Second, Human collagen,
usually in the form of Cymetra® (a product marketed by Obagi® Medical)
or Cosmoderm® and Cosmoplast®, a product marketed by Inamed Aesthetics
has about the same half life in the tissue as bovine collagen , requiring
frequent re-augmentation for lasting results, but does not require testing
in advance. This product is more pricey at about $500 per cc. How much
does it take? That depends on your mouth area. Generally, I am able to
augment lips with about 1 cc of tissue filler, but if you would like fine
vertical lip lines and "drool lines" reduced, that will take 1 cc more,
and you would like so called "marionette lines," (the nasolabial folds
and the lines running from the corners of the mouth to the chin) reduced,
that would take at least another 1-2 cc’s in volume.
In December, the FDA finally approved the wonderful new products Restylane® and
Perlane® for use. This first PLANT BASED, NON ANIMAL, tissue filler
is made of hyaluronic acid, a tissue "ground substance" common to plants
and animals. This substance is so ubiquitous in life and so common to both
plants and animals that it does not require pre operative allergic tissue
testing. Studies have also reliably shown that it requires less volume
of hyaluronic acid to get the same degree of augmentation as compared to
collagen based products. And why is this? One must be aware of the physical
structure of the skin and subcutaneous tissue to answer this. In the case
of collagen based products, which are actually microscopic fibers of collagen
floating in a hypoallergenic base for injection, it is NOT recommended
that one inject directly into the upper dermis. The reason is that pressure
resulting from tissue expansion in the skin can result in inflammation
and necrosis of the skin after injection. This is not the case with Restylane® and
Perlane® which do well injected right into the dermis. This makes Restylane® and
Perlane® better for fine line augmentation, as the substance can be
injected right into the line itself, rather than deep to the line. Restylane® and
Perlane® are marvelous in the lips and vermillion border resulting
in a very beautiful augmentation which actually lasts 6-8 months. The cost
of Restylane® and Perlane® are about $500/cc, but remember, the
product goes a little further.
The last class of injectable fillers that was just released is Radiance®.
This product is absolutely wonderful. It lasts 2-5 Years! It is composed
of synthetic micron sized bone crystals (hydroxyl-apetite) suspensed in
a hypoallergic matrix. The substance also does not require tissue testing
for allergy. Radiance® has not been approved as yet for soft tissue
augmentation, but is being touted for this purpose in an "off-label" fashion
(sort of like Botox was before the FDA approved it for cosmetic use). Radiance
works absolutely beautifully for deeper lines around the mouth, the nasolabial
folds and "drool lines," as well as lip augmentation if used with care.
By "care" I mean, care not to inject the substance into the dermis, but
to keep it deep to the dermis and in the subcutaneous plane below the dermis.
It is a white, creamy matrix, which actually shows if placed too shallow
in the skin. This product is very pricey at $1000/cc. However, for the
length of time that this product remains in action, it is probably the
most cost effective augmentation one can have.
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