“Today I wanted to answer a few question. One which came in was very important and we’re doing a segment, NBC news came out to do an interview today about the so-called “Facebook Facelift,” and the Facebook Facelift is apparently a social media driven initiative where folks are coming in and asking for different procedures or interventions to look better to improve their profile picture or page and to improve the fact that we’re all now in the world of images.
Media, social media, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest you name the list even Twitter and we’re all exposed to photography and getting our faces posted all over every kind of social network that we can imagine. And the question was “Is that right? Is it wrong? And how does it impact our practice?” In general I have not had a patient come in and specifically tell me that they want to get a surgery or an intervention for a social media type of initiative, but with that said, we are all aware now of our faces being out in the public.
So what can we do about it? The first thing and I’ve outline this before in steps for simple success, do good skin care that something you can do, three or four special things that are not too complicated. One is to protect your skin, a good sunscreen should have a physical blocking agent.
Number 2 is skin care products that we can use, there is only a handful that we know actually work the retinoid in particular retin-A are things that you should use daily. Some people have to use lower concentration, some people can’t even use a retinoid every day and I use a, I’m saying the name retin-A, its tretinoin is the molecule.
The third one is vitamin C, vitamin c clearly shown in antioxidant and beneficial effects for inflammation, making the skin look smoother.
Lastly of course is gentle exfoliation which I think most of us do to some extent or another, and gentle exfoliation doesn’t mean you have to go to a high-end spa or salon or even to our practice, you can do this simply at home with the light alpha and beta hydroxyacid wash, even a buff puff and a good non-detergent cleanser will give you a gentle exfoliation on the skin.
So gentle exfoliation protecting your skin, a retinoid and vitamin c and your 90% home on your skin care. I think that’s an important concept and we’ll talk a lot more about skin care products as we get into the details talking about the Mass Clinic skin care line, the one that I’ve developed and worked with two compounding pharmacies to put together.
So the important thing about skin care course is that you use it. The other small things that you can do is make sure that you’re hydrating and make sure that you’re getting some exercise, these are all things that don’t require patients to come to my office to get, and are very important concepts. So in terms of the social media world and how we look, yes it’s an image driven world and there’s a lot of small things we can do to always stay looking good. Those were a couple of small suggestions for Looking your Best. So thanks again for listening, I’m Dr. Maas on Looking Your Best.”
