- HOME
- HEALTH & BEAUTY
Face Forward: 5 Tweakments For Flawless Skin
Is tight, bright skin the ultimate status symbol?
By | 2 weeks ago
Tight, glass-like skin is the ultimate measure of class. Rosie Green lifts the lid on the stealth protocols behind maintaining a gorgeous complexion as we age, and tells us the best tweakments for flawless skin.
How Can We Maintain A Flawless Complexion As We Age?
We can all think of famous faces who, in the pursuit of beauty, are beginning to look a little, well, weird. Think ironed foreheads, waxy ‘embalmed’ skin, blowfish lips and alien cheeks. The result of their costly tweakments? Not fresher or younger, just stranger.
No surprise then that among the style cognoscenti there’s a rejection of this overdone look and instead a craving for a more subtle, stealthy approach to rejuvenation and enhancement. Not for the chic set are conspicuous procedures that are bandied about on social media – like buccal fat removal (a permanent surgical procedure that involves creating killer cheekbones by removing the fat from under them. Its long-term effects are unknown and it is only suitable for specific facial shapes).
Dr Uliana Gout
The use of syringe after syringe of fillers to inflate lips or plump up cheeks to chipmunk level feels outdated. Ditto heavy-handed Botox that eradicates every line, but simultaneously any expression. ‘It would be fair to say that injectables are being challenged as the status quo,’ says the lauded cosmetic doctor, Uliana Gout. ‘No longer is our patient demographic just looking for that “plumper lip” or “more contoured cheeks”, but rather asking for a more holistic approach to looking healthy, fresh and energised. Think clear, smooth, radiant and blemish/pigment-free skin.’
‘Skin quality has become the new obsession among my patients,’ agrees A-list aesthetic physician Dr Wassim Taktouk.
Dr Wassim Taktouk
All the experts interviewed here agreed that by improving skin health, injectables can be used more sparingly and the client can thus achieve a more natural refresh. But how do you achieve such sought-after skin? According to the best in business, it’s about taking advantage of new advances in aesthetic technology and deploying a multi-pronged approach with energy devices, muscle stimulators, lasers and massage. Without further ado, here’s the inside track on the non-surgical facelifts, complexion rejuvenating injectables and supercharged facials that will slow and even reverse your skin’s ageing process.
Dr Judy Todd (left) was the woman behind Shirley Ballas’ recent refresh
‘Most women do not want to go under the knife,’ says Dr Judy Todd. And Dr Todd, the woman behind Shirley Ballas’ recent refresh, is a firm believer they don’t have to. Why? She believes that new energy treatments like NeoGen Plasma (Shirley’s choice) can deliver surgery-rivalling results. ‘They have significantly improved outcomes and we are getting incredible and natural looking transformations with just a few treatments.’ So how does NeoGen Plasma work? It uses nitrogen plasma pulses to deliver controlled high temperatures deep inside the skin tissues to massively boost collagen and elastin production and thus plump and lift the skin. For Shirley’s treatment, Dr Todd combined five NeoGen treatments with two sessions of Morpheus8 (famed for Judy Murray’s transformation – another Dr Todd triumph) and Obagi Nu-Derm skincare over ten months. We did say stealth… And wealth. The total cost for Shirley’s treatment with Dr Todd is around £5,500 at Cadogan Clinic. Ouronyx, a high-end, non-invasive clinic specialising in skin refinement, has also recently added NeoGen Plasma to its menu.
Face Forward: 5 Tweakments For Flawless Skin
The Rise Of The Microdose
Unlike diamonds and plane seats, injectables are not an area where more is always more. For a decade at least, little and often has been the mantra of the best aesthetic doctors. Now, they are practising ‘microdosing’. ‘It can be called Skin Botox, Micro Botox or Microtox,’ says Dr Christine Hall, who is the go-to practitioner for it. In the Taktouk Clinic, where she practises, it’s called ‘the glass skin treatment as that’s the final look the treatment aims to achieve.’ How does it work? ‘Instead of the toxin going in the body of the muscle, the injections inhibit the most superficial fibres of the muscle which attach to the dermis. This means the pulling and tethering effects on the skin are reduced while the movements in the main body of the muscle are maintained. People get an airbrushed look and lustre that you do not get with standard Botox injections.’ Be warned though, higher numbers of injections are required for Microtox treatments than with typical Botox. ‘For the forehead or midface approximately 20 injections are needed to complete both sides and it needs to be done every three to four months.’
BOOK IT: Micro Botox with Dr Hall starts from £695, drwassimtaktouk.com
A Bit Of Muscle
Muscle-stimulating treatments are a new and stealthy way to lift and sculpt the face without needles or knives. Emface, dubbed the new non-invasive, needleless facelift, follows on from the hugely successful body contouring treatment Emsculpt, and works by encouraging the muscles to rapidly and repeatedly contract and thus improve strength and tone. It also uses heat energy to create new collagen within the skin, so it’s a double-action tweakment. For best results you need to commit to four sessions.
BOOK IT: Emface starts from £3,000 for a course of four treatments at Dr Rita Rakus, drritarakus.co.uk
It Takes Two
Another game changer is the new ‘hybrid’ injectable HArmonyCa. Industry leader Dr Sophie Shotter says: ‘It’s the first product available which brings together two clinically proven ingredients in a single syringe. The hyaluronic acid component gives immediate lift and volume, like filler does. The calcium hydroxyapatite then continues to stimulate collagen and elastin production naturally which will give skin back its firmness and bounce. Results last up to three years.’
BOOK IT: HArmonyCA from £850 with Dr Sophie Shotter, drsophieshotter.com
Bare Bones
Less of a commitment is the ‘bone resetting’ facial with aesthetic therapist Izabela Pawlitka at Dr David Jack’s new London clinic. Otherwise known as the Golki facial, it involves manually stimulating the bones in your face to lift and contouring to restore a more youthful v-shape through deep tissue massage. The technique increases blood circulation around the bone, increasing calcium absorption. To achieve facelift results you need a rather hefty 30 weekly sessions, but after a single session clients report looking visibly fresher with rejuvenated eyes. To achieve the flawless, poreless Korean complexion Izabela combines the Golki facial with Lumecca IPL therapy to tackle redness or pigmentation.
BOOK IT: Golki facial £170, Lumecca treatment from £450, drdavidjack.com
X Marks The Spot
Perhaps the biggest news in the anti-aging arena is the arrival of Exosome treatments, the best of which originate from South Korea. ‘Exosomes are tiny, ultra-efficient messengers that give your dormant skin cells that wake-up call they need to rejuvenate, regenerate, brighten, and turn back your skin’s biological clock,’ says Dr Shameema Damree, who has pioneered their use at Urban Retreat in London’s Knightsbridge. ‘They increase the production of collagen by 600 per cent and elastin by 300 per cent – a degree of regeneration never seen before.’ Dr Damree combines this with radio frequency to further tighten and lift.
BOOK IT: 5 Billion EXO-RF FACE from £2,625 per session (a course of three sessions is recommended), urbanretreat.co.uk
Featured image: C&TH Tweakments Guide, May/June 2023 Issue
