2020 is all about beauty treatments that are perfectly personalised to suit your goals, your lifestyle and your budget.
In this month’s blog I have decided to share with you some of my personal approaches to treating my patients by answering some key questions I came across in my profession as a Medical Aesthetics doctor.
1. Why do you believe a perfectly personalised approach to beauty is necessary in aesthetics medicine?
Everyone is unique and many people have different ideas and opinions of beauty. For this reason, I do not believe that the “one box fits all” or “one treatment suits all” philosophy is applicable to medical aesthetics when deciding on what treatment is best for my patients.
Often a combination of treatments will give the best results. However, there are certain essential aesthetic foundations and principles that one must always take into account when deciding on an aesthetics plan that will help your patient to obtain perfectly personalised beauty.
2. Can you give an example of an aesthetics foundation?
A good understanding of the anatomy of the area which is being treated is essential to ensure quality outcomes as well as to prevent unnecessary treatment complications.
3. What do you mean by an aesthetic principle?
This is a term that I have derived from art. When painting, one must take various elements into consideration, including shape, texture, medium and colour to express the desired emotion, to mention but a few. All these factors, when combined, can create a masterpiece or a nightmare.
In the same way, when evaluating a patient, one must take various factors into account including, to mention only a few:
- the aesthetic goals of the patient (what do they want to look like or what bothers them?)
- the aesthetic needs of the patient (what treatment will give the best results for the patient?). For example, a patient may be concerned with deep nasolabial folds (lines between the nose and mouth) when the problem is actually the loss of mid-face cheek volume
- the age of the patient
- the skin quality and type
- underlying medical conditions like acne and eczema
- the shape of the face
- the part of the body being treated
- skin sensitivity
- dry or oily skin
Another important aesthetics principle is that one must master the various aesthetic techniques before integrating the various procedures.
4. Can you give a practical example of an aesthetics principle?
An example is, when considering filling tear trough depressions (a loss of fatty tissue under the lower eyelids and upper cheek area) one must usually first, fill the mid-face cheek area with dermal filler before addressing the area under the eye. If this is not done, one can sometimes land up with a visible line of filler under the eyes.
5. What aesthetic treatments do you often use in combination?
I love combining various treatments to achieve maximum results. Combinations which I especially enjoy are threads, dermal fillers, Botox topped with skin rejuvenation treatments such as chemical peels, microneedling and of course adding the essential spice of good skincare products. It is frightening to see how many patients come to me for aesthetic treatments but use poor quality skincare products. Good skin hygiene, sun-protection and quality skincare products are some of the foundations for lasting and excellent treatment outcomes.
6. Can you give an example of a perfectly personalised beauty treatment combination?
An example of one combination when I do 3D facial contouring will be the following:
- threads for the sagging face, wrinkled cheeks and hanging jowls PLUS dermal fillers for the cheeks, lips and sunken temples and a bionutriglow skin rejuvenation package which includes:
- Medical Peels
- Medical microneedling with a Hyaluronic face mask and
- intermittent facials
One of the great things about non-invasive medical aesthetic treatments is that not everything needs to be done at the same time. An aesthetics plan can be designed to meet your unique goals.
7. With lip fillers being so in vogue, are there different types of lip fillers?
There are definitely lip fillers and then there are lip fillers ……..
One lip filler product will not necessarily suit all patients. A half a milliliter (ml) of lip filler will be enough for some, while some patients need at least 2ml to reach a good result. There are also some products which are better quality than others and have more documented scientific quality control studies.
8. What is your personal view of beautiful lips?
One of my personal values is natural beauty enhancement. However, once again, “one box does not fill all”, nor does one product fit all.
There are different types and techniques for lip rejuvenation or augmentation depending on your treatment objectives. Your goals may be defining the lip border with slight restoration of lip volume, eradication of those dreaded “smoker’s lines” around the mouth, fleshy lips, plumpy lips, doll lips, accentuation of the cupid’s bow or large luscious lips.
Some patients are afraid of “duck lips” while others ask for “massive lips”. Careful selection of the right lip filler is so important to help my patient achieve their “dream lips”.
9. How do I go about deciding what will be the best treatment for me?
The best is always to book a consultation with your medical aesthetics practitioner to discuss your aesthetic goals.
A good medical aesthetician will then guide you with regards to your aesthetic needs and draft a personalised aesthetics plan to help you be the “best version of yourself” taking into account your time frame and budget.
You are welcome to call 021-0033600 or send an email to info@drblink.co.za to set up a booking with Dr Blink. Remember “your face is unique and deserves to be treated as such” and “treat your face as a whole not just one aspect of it”.
DR. BLINK
