source:crunchybetty.com
Showing posts with label Beauty. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Beauty. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Bizarre beauty secrets: Is there ANYTHING we women won't do in the pursuit of good looks?
Haemorrhoid cream for eye bags, hairspray to fix our make up and whitening toothpaste smeared on our bodies to remove fake tan... These are just a handful of the wacky tips women confess to using in the pursuit of beauty.
Other tricks of the trade that emerged in a study of 2,000 women's top beauty habits included placing cold teaspoons on puffy eyes to soothe swelling and sleeping on the back to prevent wrinkles forming.
Researchers who carried out the detailed study into women's rituals found four out of ten women utilise goods found in kitchen cupboards to look good.
Homegrown beauty: Women will go to extreme lengths to improve their looks, a study revealed today
Topping the list came cooling cucumber, said to be effective at calming the complexion, and lemon for whitening nails and lightening hair. Strawberries are also said to brighten teeth, while cooled tea bags placed on the skin can have a soothing effect.
The research, carried out by Modern Milk, revealed that despite the glut of expensive beauty treatments on offer at salons, the majority of women stick to tried and tested beauty rituals passed down through the family or gleaned from female friends and colleagues.
Yesterday a spokeswoman said: 'Some of the beauty treatments in this list are more extreme than others and it's clear the lengths some women will go to to look beautiful.
Unusual: Women experimenting with haemorroid cream under the eyes and found it helped to reduce dark circles, the study revealed
'Having some little hints and tricks up your sleeve is one thing, but trying to constantly sleep on your back to avoid wrinkles or spraying your face with hairspray are quite severe.
'We wanted to poll women to find out what alternative beauty treatments they use and whether people make use of ingredients from kitchen cupboards.
'The age old trick of putting cold teabags or cucumber on the eyes to reduce puffiness is clearly still used today.'
BIZARRE BEAUTY SECRETS
- Haemorrhoid cream on under-eye bags
- Apply whisked eggs to hair to make it shiny
- Whitening toothpaste to get rid of fake tan on palms
- Hairspray sprayed into face to fix make-up
- Toothpaste on spots to reduce redness
- Sleep on back to avoid wrinkles
- Lemon juice to whiten tips of nails
- Cucumber on eyes to reduce puffiness
- Legs shaved with hair conditioner to soften hairs
- Bed socks filled with moisturiser for soft feet
- Talcum powder brushed through hair to remove oil
- Pinching cheeks to give a natural blush
- Nail polish in fridge to keep fresh
- Lipstick on cheeks when you run out of blusher
- Toothpaste on insect bites
- Lemon juice to lighten hair
- Spray hairbrush with perfume
- Heat up eye lash curlers before using them
- Cold teaspoons applied to eyes to make puffiness go down
- Mix a drop of serum with foundation to make skin look glowing
- Drink milk every day
- Drink two litres of bottled water everyday
Many of the tips have been handed down through generations.
Brushing hair with talcum powder to freshen up greasy roots and using lipstick on the cheeks when blusher runs out were common tricks used by our grandmothers.
But alongside these traditional tips came a plethora of more modern unconventional habits undertaken by women in the privacy of their bathroom.
The study found many shave their legs with hair conditioner to soften the stubble.
Others admitted to splashing lemon juice on their hair in the hope it will develop a lighter tint when exposed to the sunlight.
Smearing toothpaste on spots and blemishes and sleeping in socks full of moisturiser are also common.
Vaseline is regularly used to smooth out frizzy hair and many women also use toothpaste to soothe insect bites.
Using tea tree oil on ingrowing hairs and steaming the face in herb water also made the list.
But most strange of all has to be the use of haemorrhoid cream to decrease under-eye bags.
Women who have experimented with the theory say the cream shrinks enlarged capillaries on the face, thus reducing the appearance of dark circles.
We'll have to take their word on that one.
source: Dailymail
Saturday, February 12, 2011
11 Indian beauty secrets
These ancient tried-and-tested rituals use Ayurvedic expertise, oils and herbs for gorgeous hair, skin, and body: Monisha Bharadwaj
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Beauty Tips From The Late Audrey Hepburn
Recently while cleaning out my desk I came across an article with Audrey Hepburn’s list of beauty tips. Ms. Hepburn, an internationally acclaimed beauty, was allegedly a carrier for the Belgian Underground Anti-Nazi Movement in WW II as a teen. She learned the importance of a good heart as well as good character early.
Here is her list:
1. For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.
2 For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.
3. For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.
4. For beautiful hair, let a child run his or her fingers through it once a day.
5. For poise, walk with the knowledge you’ll never walk alone.
6. People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anybody. Remember, if you ever need a helping hand, you’ll find one at the end of your arm. As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands–one for helping yourself, the other for helping others (by the way, Kirk Douglas in a recent article said that helping others keeps the elderly from becoming depressed).
7. The beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries, or the way she combs her hair. The beauty of a woman is seen in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides. True beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul. It is the caring that she lovingly gives, the passion that she shows. And the beauty of a woman only grows with passing years.
Thank you for your wisdom Audrey, you were physically beautiful, but your soul will remain eternally beautiful.
source: www.drpersky.com
Thursday, February 3, 2011
10 Ways to Wake Up Beautiful
1. Get an Early Start
Make a habit of washing your face a few hours before bed. If you wait until you're tired, you're more likely to blow it off -- allowing "toxins and dirt to stay on there all night," says dermatologist Laurie Polis of N.Y.C. Another consequence? You miss the best time to treat your skin. "At night there's more blood flow to the skin's surface, and there's nothing else on your face to interfere with absorption," Polis says.
2. Sleep on Your Back
Note to Audrey Hepburn fans: Lying on your stomach is bad for "beauty sleep." The average head weighs 7 to 8 pounds -- a lot of pressure to be putting on your face every night. In fact, many dermatologists say they can tell what side of the face people sleep on by the number of wrinkles there.
3. Get a Lift
Sleep with your head elevated on two pillows, or put the headrest area of your bed on 2- to 4-inch pieces of wood. Gravity helps lymph and blood flow so fluid won't accumulate, Polis says.
4. Save Money, Not Wrinkles
At night you don't need to worry about eye treatments smearing your makeup, so slather on the richest formula you can. Polis swears by Aquaphor: "It conditions lashes and hydrates the delicate eye skin really well."
5. Sneak a Glow
Mix a drop of self-tanner into your night cream or use a cream that contains a bit of tan-producing DHA.
6. Avoid Carb Face
To wake with defined cheekbones, eat a high-protein, low-sugar dinner (try salmon and asparagus, a natural diuretic). Skip the rice, pasta and potatoes. "When our diet's high in glycemic carbohydrates, our features take on a soft, doughy appearance," says Connecticut dermatologist Nicholas Perricone.
7. Wrap It Up
To minimize A.M. frizz, sleep on a satin pillowcase or put your hair in a silk scarf. "Those fabrics are much softer than cotton, so there's less friction," says Harry Josh, a John Frieda stylist.
8. Find Your Inner Ballerina
Pile hair into a twist on the top of your head (use a scrunchie to avoid crimping). "In the morning you'll have major volume and beautiful waves," Josh says.
9. Turn on the Hair Conditioning
Sleep with a moisturizing treatment in damp hair overnight. We like Philip B. Katira Hair Masque, but any rich conditioner will do. Rinse in the morning.
10. Pop a Rooster Pill
Trust us, we were skeptical. But after swallowing two Wake Up on Time pills at 11 P.M., we found it much easier to get out of bed seven hours later. Created by a sleep-deprived single mother, the pills contain an energizing blend of thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, vitamins B6 and B12 and guarana-seed extract. It's formulated with a coating that releases ingredients into your bloodstream toward the end of your last sleep cycle, so you wake up feeling clear-headed, not fuzzy.
source:shine.yahoo.com
Sunday, March 29, 2009
The New Science of Hair Growth
Best Life
Brandishing a syringe the size of a caulking gun, hair-transplant surgeon James Harris, M.D., injects local anesthetic into the scalp of a male patient, a married financial analyst in his early forties who has asked not to be identified. We'll call him Scott. For five hours, I've been watching Dr. Harris perform a hair transplant called surgically advanced follicular extraction, or SAFE. A follicular unit is a miniature, self-contained hair factory embedded in the skin. Each square centimeter of human scalp contains 80 to 120 follicular units, and each of those has one to four hairs.
Though Scott is sitting upright, his scalp is a gruesome battlefield. Rivulets of blood seep from thousands of BB-size puncture wounds. A trash can is brimming with blood-soaked gauze. But Scott feels nothing. He's watching CNBC's financial roundup on a wall-mounted TV while thumbing through e-mails on his BlackBerry, oblivious to the mayhem topside.
Dr. Harris is using a motorized tool he designed himself, in a procedure that, for all its bloodshed, represents the current state-of-the-art in baldness treatment. The instrument has a blunt hollow tube that lets Dr. Harris make incisions less than a millimeter wide, in rapid-fire succession, around clusters of hairs without damaging the underlying follicles. It's painstaking work. I watched earlier as Dr. Harris donned mantislike headgear (dual loupes with six-fold magnification) and extracted follicular units from a band of hair between Scott's ears, a region of scalp hair docs call the "horseshoe fringe." In virtually all men, this fringe is impervious to balding, a vestigial result of genes that dictate how skin forms during fetal development.
By the time he's through, Dr. Harris will have made 1,045 incisions along the front and top of Scott's head, enough to accommodate the same number of follicular units removed from his fringe. An assistant counts the extracted follicular units under a microscope, tabulating the number of individual units and the number of hairs protruding from each one. Single-hair units are reserved for the front to create a feathered widow's peak. "I want to avoid a wall of hair jutting from the forehead," explains Dr. Harris, citing a common blunder of botched transplants. "SAFE is a lot less traumatic than other transplant procedures, such as a surgery in which a strip of scalp is extracted, because it's minimally invasive." Even so, the procedure looks medieval, and it's hard to believe this gory mélange will have a happy ending.
Hair transplants have improved dramatically in the past 10 years, although in the hands of unskilled surgeons, mishaps can occur that leave patients with gruesome doll heads. But transplants remain hamstrung for a more fundamental reason: You can shuffle only so many hairs from fringe to forelock. This is Scott's fourth surgery, and at this point he's simply running out of hair. It's a dwindling game of musical chairs that confounds surgeons and frustrates patients. The average age for undergoing a hair transplant is 40, but hair is doomed long before that. To be precise, its fate is decided in utero, during the tenth week of pregnancy, when the human fetus is the size of a peanut shell. That's when the fingers and toes take shape and the brain starts to evolve. It's also when the hair follicles form—roughly 5 million over the entire body. This number is fixed: After exiting the womb, the human body can't produce a single additional follicle.
That's why a revolutionary technique known as hair cloning, or hair multiplication, holds so much promise. It changes the game because it gives transplant surgeons an endless supply of follicular units to restore the vanishing manes of their patients. Researchers in a handful of labs around the world have been testing the technique on mice with impressive results. Several start-ups have formed, and these companies are racing to complete successful human clinical trials. It could have a profound effect on the landscape: Male pattern baldness, or androgenetic alopecia, affects 40 million men in America. Although it doesn't have any known physical downsides, the specter of premature aging and the perception of waning virility and diminished sexual attractiveness can be mentally debilitating and lead to personal, social, and work-related problems, according to Nigel Hunt, Ph.D., an associate professor of applied psychology at the University of Nottingham, in England. In 66 percent of men, hair follicles start to shrink around age 35 (in some men, it starts at age 21), causing hair to thin. By age 50, hair follicles are dying and 85 percent of men have significantly thinning hair. For these men, the cure for balding can't come soon enough.
The dawn of hair cloning
The eureka moment for Colin Jahoda, M.D., Ph.D., and Amanda Reynolds, Ph.D.—a husband-and-wife team of biologists at the University of Durham, in England—involved an experiment that also served as a nerdy version of a "Colin Forever" tattoo. Dr. Jahoda removed a hair follicle from his head, put it under a microscope, and snipped off a cluster of dermal papilla cells, which are located in a bulb at the root of the shaft. He then nicked his wife's forearm with a scalpel and transplanted the cells. A few days later, a thick tuft of dark hair (complete with Dr. Jahoda's male DNA) emerged. The experiment demonstrated, for the first time, the possibility of growing hair from transplanted dermal papilla cells. It seemed the two had found a new treatment for hair loss. Yet they soon discovered that, once removed from the body, dermal papilla cells quickly lose their ability to make hair if they are not transplanted immediately.
Angela Christiano, Ph.D., a professor of dermatology and genetics and development at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, collaborates closely with Dr. Jahoda on hair-related research. "Not long after you remove them, the cells don't even know they're dermal papillae anymore," says Christiano, who is sitting in her office behind a desk piled two feet high with books and papers. "It's like taking an Etch-a-Sketch and shaking it," she says. "You erase their identity."
The Jahoda-Reynolds experiment worked because a clump of hair follicle cells were promptly relocated, which preserved their inductivity, a measure of their capacity to remain uniquely hair cells before devolving into something more generic. While I'm in her office, Christiano calls England and puts Dr. Jahoda on speakerphone. "These cells seem to have an in-built regulatory system," he explains. "We don't know how it works. Getting the cells to remain inductive is still the basic challenge."
Christiano became interested in hair follicle research in 1996, when a common hair disorder called alopecia areata caused patches of her own hair to fall out abruptly (steroid injections have revived it to a formidable whorl of ebony locks). Two years later, she made headlines after announcing she'd pinpointed several specific genes that are responsible for other genetic forms of hair loss—a scientific first. She is now focused almost exclusively on finding new genes for hair loss, as well as using dermal papilla cells to develop new ways of treating it. Scientists are still unclear about precisely what occurs, but they do know that whenever you pluck or shave a hair, molecular compounds in the follicle begin a complex dialogue with surrounding cells. These include dermal papillae, epithelial cells (those lining the wall of the hair shaft), and stem cells in a little-understood region referred to as "the bulge."
The dermal papillae are encoded with genetic instructions that respond to cues sent from surrounding cells and tissues in the follicle. Once signaled, the dermal papillae begin hatching hair fibers. What Christiano and Dr. Jahoda are trying to figure out is how to trick the cells into growing hair by themselves, without guidance from the rest of the follicle. Doing this would allow scientists to culture, or clone, thousands of dermal papilla cells in the lab that would retain their knack for producing hair. "With current transplant surgery, if you take a thousand follicles from the back of the head and move them to the front, you still only have a thousand," says Christiano. "With the cloning approach, you could start with a small biopsy of cells and then grow enough of them to repopulate your entire scalp with hair."
A researcher named Claire Higgins informs us she has just received a fresh dime-size chunk of live scalp donated by a male hair-transplant patient. We join her in a lab, where she is hunched over a steel table, staring into a microscope. With forceps and a long needle, she scrapes dermal papillae from each follicle. I look through the eyepiece. She tells me I'm viewing roughly 3,000 dermal papillae packed into a ball of cells just a fraction of a millimeter wide. They resemble golden tobiko, the flying-fish roe dolloped onto sushi rolls. These cells will end up in an incubator, where they'll be cultured for at least four weeks and then transplanted into mice to see if they'll produce hair.
Several factors determine whether this happens. One is the growth medium, the soupy broth fed to the cells to help them thrive. Another is how quickly the cells multiply: As Dr. Jahoda and Reynolds showed, the less time cells spend outside the body, the better they retain their inductivity. A third factor is how the cells are transplanted. Do you inject them? Or position them surgically under the skin? "We're trying to get into the heads of the dermal papillae and understand why they lose their inductivity," says Christiano. "Then we'll do the reverse: Take old cells that have been in culture for many months and bring them back into the fold, coaxing them to grow hair."
I ask Christiano how she and Dr. Jahoda intend to accomplish this. She smiles, clearly not wanting to tip her hand, and replies, "We have a few ideas. I will say that if we figure it out, a lot of hair-loss sufferers will be very, very happy." Their research could also inform next-generation baldness cures, genetic fixes that reprogram the cells, much like a software patch, and override the genes responsible for androgenetic alopecia.
Training hair cells to grow
Nude mice are the foot soldiers for the war on balding. These dainty pink-hued rodents have been bred or genetically altered to remain hairless throughout their lives. They can be ordered by the mischief-load from medical suppliers and endure poking and prodding and other unspeakable horrors for the sake of balding men everywhere. In Philadelphia, Ken Washenik, M.D., Ph.D., executive vice president of scientific and medical development for Aderans Research Institute and a clinical assistant professor of dermatology at New York University's Langone Medical Center, shows me slides of nude mice on his laptop. They have undergone a new type of hair-cloning procedure that Dr. Washenik has been developing for Aderans. The company, which has its headquarters in Tokyo, is the world's largest manufacturer of wigs. It also owns Bosley, which operates 88 hair-transplant clinics in North America.
When I arrive at Aderans, Dr. Washenik hastily ushers me past several labs, perhaps wary I might glimpse some sort of trade secret, and into an empty conference room. What he does reveal is that his approach to hair cloning (he calls it follicular neogenesis) doesn't rely solely on dermal papillae. "We are using a two-cell construct, growing not just dermal papillae but also another type of cell from the follicle," he explains. As the thinking goes, disparate cell types already communicate with one another in the follicle to regenerate hair. Dr. Washenik believes that if he can recreate that environment in the lab, cultured cells won't get dementia and forget how to make hair. "The different cells in the follicle are smarter than we are," says Dr. Washenik. "They already know they are supposed to be hairy. In eight days, we grew a ball of hair that never existed before on the back of a mouse."
Dr. Washenik clicks an image file on his computer: The photo shows what looks like Piglet—but with a sable Mohawk. But there is a caveat: "These were hair cells from a mouse that were injected into a mouse. When researchers injected human cells into a mouse, they didn't get the same results." This disappointed Dr. Washenik and other researchers, because unlike other organs, follicles are supposed to be immune privileged: When transplanted across or between species, they're expected to grow normally, without being rejected or provoking infection. He hopes to have better luck in clinical trials, when he will transplant human cells into humans. Aderans is in the second phase of a human trial, which is expected to be completed by the end of the year.
The company is pouring serious cash (Dr. Washenik won't say how much) into its hair-cloning effort. Dr. Washenik is also intrigued by other researchers who are pursuing another pathway. They're cultivating in-vitro microscopic hairs, or "proto-hairs," as Dr. Washenik dubs them. "These are early follicular structures that you can place in the scalp with the same technology that's used for a hair transplant," he says. "The big hurdle so far is getting the cells to multiply to make enough hair. Once we culture them, they sometimes die or de-differentiate."
But Dr. Washenik remains confident. "The sooner we figure this out, the better," he says. "So many people are waiting for this technology. I know that with every medical advance, the first one to market becomes the leader, and everyone else plays catch-up." Like many of the scientists I meet, his passion for a cure is personal. "I started going bald at 25," he says, tussling his hair to flaunt his 2,200-graft transplant. "While I was working on my Ph.D., I was mixing up homemade minoxidil [the active ingredient in Rogaine] in my lab."
A few blocks away is a start-up called Follica. One of its cofounders, George Cotsarelis, M.D., is a cutaneous biologist and associate professor of dermatology at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1990, Dr. Cotsarelis was investigating the biological mechanisms of skin regeneration. "I was studying stem cells and found a population of them in the hair follicle, in a strange area called 'the bulge,'" he tells me when I stop by his office at U. Penn's School of Medicine. "We didn't know the function of the area, and we almost blew it off." From then on, Dr. Cotsarelis started paying more attention to hair follicles. After a series of more recent experiments on mice, he made two important discoveries. First, he found that bulge cells aid in the formation of new hair follicles, suggesting that these cells influence hair growth during embryonic development, when we were bobbing around in the womb. He also learned that, throughout our lives, these same stem cells awaken to mend minor cuts and burns, as well as deeper wounds in the skin. What baffled Dr. Cotsarelis is why, if a healing wound is populated with bulge stem cells, new follicles don't form. The answer would at least explain why hair doesn't grow from scars.
Dr. Cotsarelis conducted further studies designed to reveal what kinds of molecular compounds (e.g., hormones and proteins) are present during hair-follicle development in mice embryos and are also present in adult mice. A major one, which he wrote about in a 2007 Nature article, was something called Wnt (pronounced wint), a network of proteins first identified in fruit flies. Curious, Dr. Cotsarelis applied Wnt to small lesions purposely cut into nude mice (such gracious, noble critters). To his shock, follicles formed and sprouted hair. So if a person is bald, the obvious strategy would seem to be to douse his scalp with Wnt and wait for hair to grow. "The problem is that Wnt is involved in a lot of other things, one of which is skin cancer," says Dr. Cotsarelis. "It's very tricky business."
The idea behind Follica is to develop a procedure in which a surgeon would lightly wound the scalp—something akin to microdermabrasion, an antiaging treatment—to disrupt the skin and then apply a compound that would influence hair development in the area. This would trick the cells into reverting to an embryonic state, one in which they are genetically pre-programmed to make hair rather than simply repair skin, as they're predisposed to do after we're born. "Just when cells are deciding, 'Do I make a hair follicle? Or do I make an epidermis?' we can influence them with a protein to go down a hair-follicle pathway."
Testing the science on humans
My hair started thinning when I was 32. I'm now 40, and my shedding has eased up. Dr. Harris informs me I have plenty left for a follicular unit transplant. But after watching Scott's procedure, I'm a little freaked out. Yet, all the specialists I speak with urge anyone dealing with hair loss to act fast, because once the hairs are gone, they're gone for good.
"Absolutely no one concerned about hair loss should wait," says Dr. Washenik. He started taking Propecia when he was in his thirties (he's now 50), and he uses Rogaine religiously. He is a big advocate of drug therapies, and readily champions surgical options such as follicular unit grafting. Dr. Washenik examines my scalp and announces, "Rogaine is made for you. You're not bald; your hairs are just miniaturized." I'm a chemical-phobe, so I'd rather save my dough and wait for a viable hair-cloning procedure, which many of the experts I talked to claim is less than five years away.
Intercytex, a public company based in London, may be closest to a marketable product, says Jerry Cooley, M.D., a transplant surgeon who has been consulting for the firm since 2001. Nobody directly employed by Intercytex would speak to me for this story. "We do not feel that exposure of our research is helpful," wrote Jeff Teumer, Intercytex's director of research, in a curt e-mail. But Dr. Cooley, who works closely with Teumer, tells me that Intercytex scientists have successfully grown large batches of cloned proto-hairs similar to those that other researchers have been struggling to keep alive. What's more, in animal experiments, the Intercytex team has observed cloned hair follicles growing hair again after the original hairs were plucked. This suggests that their cloned follicles cycle through the entire life span of hair—three phases known as anagen (growth), catagen (transitional), and telogen (resting)—something no other researchers have been able to do.
A key to the team's success has been growing proto-hairs in a special medium, licensed from a Japanese inventor, which contains cultured skin cells known as keratinocytes. "I'm very excited about this technology," says Dr. Cooley. "It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when."
Bessam Farjo, M.D., a hair-restoration surgeon contracted by Intercytex to run its ongoing clinical trials, says, "All I can tell you is that we've grown a significant number of hairs on animals through this technique." It sounds encouraging, and Dr. Farjo expects to complete clinical trials this year.
Hair cloning will be pricey initially, so early adopters may be men who are not only wealthy but also desperate because they don't have enough hair left to do a follicular unit transplant. Cloning could also be ideal for younger men who aren't good candidates for follicular grafting. "Younger guys aren't suitable for current surgical techniques because we don't know how much hair they are going to lose," says Dr. Farjo. Imagine if the receded hairline of a 25-year-old male were replaced with a follicular unit transplant. If the rest of his hair were to fall out—and going bald at an early age generally means it will—he wouldn't have enough hair to complete a second or third follicular unit transplant, so he'd end up with a solitary plume sprouting from his forehead. "It would look like unfinished business, which is why we typically avoid working on young guys," says Dr. Farjo. "But if I know I'll never run out of hair, thanks to the new cell therapy, I can treat anyone."
Nobody is sure how the actual cloning process will be implemented. Most surgeons speculate that they'll use boring tools similar to the existing ones used for harvesting follicular units. The follicular units will be sent to centralized labs, where industrial incubators will mass-produce millions of follicle cells for a relatively low cost. Another question is how will the cloned cells be transplanted? Instead of transplanting follicular units, your surgeon may inject cloned cells into micro-incisions, or he may implant lab-grown hair follicles. It could be fast, clean, and painless. Or it might entail something closer to Dr. Cotsarelis's method at Follica. At Intercytex, technicians are tinkering with sundry techniques. "We're experimenting with varying the number of cells in each injection, and whether we have to inject the cells into the skin as it is, or if we have to pre-stimulate the skin," says Dr. Farjo.
Whatever the outcome, choices will abound. In the future, hair cloning will coexist alongside follicular unit transplants, drug therapies, and emerging technologies still incubating in the labs. For his part, Dr. Harris is also part of a team designing the world's first follicular extraction robot: It will fully automate the procedure, making it magnitudes faster and less expensive. While Scott, our balding financial analyst, was being prepped for surgery, Dr. Harris took me into his office to show me a photo of the $25 million speed surgeon (the actual machine was locked in a storage closet a few floors above us). At about six feet tall with a fixed base and a mechanical arm with multiple joints, it resembles one of those space-age automatons you might see on a vehicle assembly line at a Toyota plant. Dr. Harris has already tested it on a couple of willing volunteers (with no alarming mishaps) and is preparing to apply for FDA approval under the name Restoration Robotics.
"We think the robot might be able to extract a thousand grafts an hour," says Dr. Harris. "That's more than triple what can be done by hand. This will broaden the market so that more people can afford the procedure. There may be a time soon when hair-transplant surgery will be available to everyone."
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Danger at Your Local Salon
Health.com
Just 36 hours after getting a pedicure at an upscale nail salon near her home in Lafayette Hill, Pennsylvania, Jamie Joffe, 38, had a fever of 101 degrees and a very scary-looking toe—“It was about five times its usual size, and there was greenish goo oozing out from under the nail,” she recalls. Joffe went to the emergency room, where they diagnosed her with a staph infection, probably from scissors or a cuticle pusher contaminated with the bacteria. “The doctor made an incision and drained all this stuff out of it,” she says. “If I hadn’t gotten the infection treated quickly, it could have spread to the rest of my body.”
After taking antibiotics for 10 days, Joffe was fine, but the experience left her with more than a scarred toe. “I still get pedicures, but I now bring my own tools and watch what they’re doing very carefully,” she says. “I had no idea you could get so sick from a pedicure.”
Most of us aren’t aware of the potentially ugly side of manicures, pedicures, Botox injections, haircuts, or waxing. “We assume that if a salon is operating it must be safe, but that’s not true,” says Shelley Sekula-Gibbs, M.D., a clinical assistant professor of dermatology at Baylor College of Medicine, who has studied salon infections and salon safety. “There’s lots to worry about, including poorly trained technicians and dirty or illegal instruments.”
Each state has its own rules for salon safety, but even those with the strictest standards, like California and Texas, can’t scrutinize the businesses as carefully as they’d like. “Each of our 18 inspectors is responsible for 3,500 to 4,000 shops, which means most salons get inspected only about once every six years—unless we get a complaint,” says James Jacobs, a supervising inspector with the California Bureau of Barbering and Cosmetology. “About 75 percent of the salons we inspect have violations. Sometimes they’re minor, like a nail file being re-used when it should have been tossed. But lots of times they’re real health hazards, like filthy foot spas.”
That’s bad news because, like hospitals, salons can harbor dangerous infection-causing bacteria and viruses, including methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and hepatitis B. That means it really is buyer beware, and the onus is on you to protect yourself. Here’s how to make sure all your beauty treatments are totally safe.
At the nail salon
Trouble spot: Foot spa
There’s nothing more relaxing than soaking your feet in a tub of warm, bubbling water—or is there? In 2000, 110 women who had pedicures at the same northern California salon were infected with a nasty bacteria, Mycobacterium fortuitum; some of the women had dozens of boils and were on antibiotics for months. Afterward, scientists from the California Department of Health Services took swabs from 30 whirlpool foot spas in 18 nail salons around the state and found potentially dangerous bacteria in all but one.
Since then, California has required nail salons to follow specific cleaning and disinfection procedures for their foot spas, but not all states have the same requirements—and not all salons follow the rules. In fact, 27 California salons were put on probation for foot-spa violations in the first six months of 2008 alone, says Kevin Flanagan, spokesman for the California Bureau of Barbering and Cosmetology.
Other foot-spa worries: warts and fungal infections. “Both spread on wet skin,” says Carolyn Jacob, M.D., director of Chicago Cosmetic Surgery and Dermatology.
Protect yourself
Wash your hands and feet with antibacterial soap before any procedure, and ask your technician to wash her hands.
Ask to see the foot-spa-cleaning log, Flanagan says. Salons with the highest standards drain all the water, scrub the residue from the walls, and run a cycle of disinfectant for 10 minutes between every client—a procedure that’s particularly important for older machines with pipes that can harbor standing water, a haven for bacteria. Many salons are switching to pipeless foot spas, which don’t have a place for water and bacteria to build up; they still should be disinfected between clients and at the end of the day, and filtration screens should be periodically removed and cleaned.
Don’t shave your legs the day of your pedicure because even a small cut can offer an entry point for minuscule bacteria and other infection-causing bugs. “See a doctor if you have a suspicious spot that won’t go away or gets worse after a pedicure,” says Oliver Zong, a New York City podiatrist. If your aesthetician has a cut on her hands, reschedule your appointment, ask for a different technician, or ask her to wear gloves—a practice some salons employ automatically.
Trouble spot: Mani and pedi instruments
You wouldn’t poke yourself with a sharp instrument at home without making darn sure it was clean, so don’t let someone working on your nails do it, either. The most dangerous tool in the salon is the Credo blade, a razor-like device that’s used to shave off calluses. It’s illegal in most states, but pedicurists routinely violate the rules, as Stacy Nartker, 25, of Kalida, Ohio, discovered when she received an inch-long gash on her foot from a Credo blade. “I didn’t need stitches, but I hobbled around for a few days afterward,” she says.
Nartker got off easy, according to inspector Jacobs. “People have had tendons cut because a manicurist slipped while shaving a callus on the heel,” he says.
Even legal instruments, like cuticle cutters and scissors, have the potential to transmit staph infections, hepatitis B and C, and, yes, HIV if they’re contaminated with even microscopic drops of blood from an infected person, says Sonia Badreshia-Bansal, M.D., a dermatologist in private practice in Danville, California. Far more common than serious bugs are annoying ones like fungal infections that can be picked up from contaminated tools, files, brushes, and cuticle instruments. “The best way to treat fungus is with a topical antifungal cream, but some require a prescription-strength oral medication,” she says.
Protect yourself
Ask how the salon disinfects its instruments. The most foolproof device is an autoclave, which sterilizes metal tools overnight. At a minimum, implements should be disinfected between clients; they should be washed in soap and water, then soaked in disinfectant in a covered container. “The solution should say bactericidal, fungicidal, germicidal, or virucidal on it,” Flanagan says. Clean tools should then be stored separately from used ones. Items that can’t be disinfected—nail-buffer blocks, nail brushes, emery boards—should be thrown away immediately after being used. To be supersafe, bring your own.
Just say no to razor-edge cutters and cuticle cutters. “Using a Credo blade is actually considered minor surgery—not something you want performed in a nail salon,” Dr. Sekula-Gibbs says. It’s easy to slice the skin with cuticle cutters, too. “Cuticles actually serve an important purpose, providing a protective barrier to microbes that could seep under your nails with water and cause an infection,” she explains. If your cuticles are too long, have the aesthetician gently push them back—or do it yourself at home with your own tools.
Avoid pedis and manis if you’re diabetic or if your immune system is compromised because of chemotherapy or a recent bout with a serious illness like breast cancer. “You’re much more susceptible to all sorts of infections if your immune system isn’t functioning well,” says Vincent DeLeo, M.D., chairman of dermatology at St. Luke’s Hospital, Roosevelt Hospital, and Beth Israel Medical Center.
At the hair salon
Trouble spot: Chemicals and relaxers
In 2007, doctors at Chicago’s Sumner L. Koch Burn Center reported that a young woman had received chemical burns while getting highlights at her local salon. She was hospitalized and received skin grafts, and was left with two 3-centimeter bald patches at the top of her head.
Although such severe injuries are rare, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) says that hair straighteners and dyes are among the top consumer complaints and can cause everything from itchy, raw skin to trouble breathing. “I’ve had patients who have had allergic reactions—their faces and eyelids swell or they break out in hives—after salon hair treatments,” Dr. DeLeo says.
Protect yourself
If you feel a burning sensation on your scalp while you have color on your hair, alert your stylist and have her wash the chemicals off ASAP. Also, make sure your technician is paying attention when wielding hot blow-dryers, curling irons, and flat irons.
“Have your stylist test any chemicals on the inside of your elbow the day before you get your hair done to make sure you’re not allergic,” says Dr. DeLeo.
Trouble spot: Combs and brushes
Even at top hair salons, stylists toss used combs and brushes back in the drawer at their stations. It seems innocent enough, but those styling tools can carry fungal infections (ringworm and dandruff, for instance), as well as lice. “We regularly see outbreaks, especially of lice, that are spread through hair salons—and not just low-end places,” inspector Jacobs says.
Protect yourself
If you can see that the stylists are using combs and brushes on client after client, bring your own during your next visit. “That’s what I do,” says Zoe Draelos, M.D., editor of the Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology. “I don’t want to catch anything, particularly dandruff. Who wants a crusty, scaly scalp?”
Trouble spot: Shampooing sink
Having someone else shampoo your hair is a true pleasure of a salon visit. In rare instances, though, tilting your head back can cause a tiny tear in an artery in your neck, triggering a stroke.
Protect yourself
Tilting your head backward into a sink while shampooing can alter blood flow to the brain, but researchers at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey reported that using a support, such as a towel, minimizes the problem.
Be sure you know the signs of stroke—sudden numbness or weakness of the face, arm, or leg on one side of the body; confusion or trouble speaking or understanding; trouble walking; dizziness or loss of balance or coordination; difficulty seeing in one or both eyes; a sudden, severe headache—and get medical help immediately. To prevent permanent damage, the anticlotting drug t-PA must be given within three hours of a stroke’s onset.
At the waxer
Trouble spot: Hot wax
Three years ago, Kathleen Croissant, 50, of Westlake, Ohio, had her eyebrows waxed before a black-tie event. The wax felt very hot the moment it was applied, but the aesthetician assured Croissant that the temperature of the wax pot was carefully controlled. After the wax was removed, Croissant’s skin started oozing and scabs began to form. “It was obvious that I’d been burned,” she says. “I had to go to a formal event with scabs on my eyebrows—and to this day the skin is crepey and wrinkled.”
Burns are actually fairly common during body waxing, according to inspector Jacobs. Even though wax pots are supposed to be temperature controlled, he says, it’s easy for them to overheat if they’re plugged in all day.
The other serious wax-related woe: infection, particularly if the aesthetician double dips the waxing sticks. “I’ve cultured wax, and there’s often bacteria in it,” Dr. Sekula-Gibbs says. “Since people have everything from staph to herpes to viral warts on their skin, double-dipping the sticks is a no-no—especially during a bikini wax.”
Waxing can also leave little red bumps called folliculitis on the skin, says Shelly Holmstrom, M.D., assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of South Florida in Tampa, who has seen many clients with folliculitis from bikini waxes: “It happens when bacteria get in your hair follicles and cause a little localized infection.”
Protect yourself
If the wax feels too hot, say something right away,” California Bureau of Barbering and Cosmetology inspector James Jacobs says. “Even fairly minor burns on the face can leave permanent scars.”
Don’t use numbing products before waxing: Absorbing too much lidocaine-containing cream can be dangerous (particularly if you cover it with, say, plastic wrap). Plus, you can’t tell if the wax is too hot if your skin’s numb.
Make sure your technician has a license for waxing; a hairstylist, for instance, is not automatically licensed to wax.
To avoid infection, ask for a new wax stick with every application. And if you’re lying on a table for a bikini wax, be sure a clean towel or clean paper is beneath you.
To prevent folliculitis, wash the freshly waxed area gently with soap and water, apply a dab of antibiotic ointment, and keep it as clean and dry as possible, Dr. Holmstrom says.
Don’t get waxed if you’re using an antiwrinkle or acne treatment containing retinol; get tweezed instead. “The chemicals in Retin-A and similar products make your skin sensitive, so the wax can actually pull a layer off,” Dr. Vincent DeLeo says.
For a bikini wax, make sure the aesthetician wears disposable gloves.
At the medi-spa
Trouble spot: Injections
In 2006, a woman in Salinas, California, died after receiving injections of fake Botox (it was cooking oil) from a hairdresser who was not licensed to do the treatment; the stylist was later charged for causing the death.
Although serious side effects from cosmetic injectables are extremely rare, counterfeit products have caused the most serious problems. “It’s a big issue because there is only one real Botox cosmetic currently approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), but there are lots of cheaper fake and foreign products,” says Julius Few, M.D., spokesman for the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery and director of the Few Institute for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery in Chicago. “When considering a cosmetic filler, it’s extremely important to make sure you’re getting something that’s FDA-approved.”
There can even be trouble with real Botox: If diluted incorrectly before being administered, its effectiveness can be reduced. “Botox comes as a powder and is mixed with a saline solution, so it could be overdiluted by someone trying to stretch profits,” says Bruce Cunningham, M.D., director of the division of plastic and reconstructive surgery at the University of Minnesota. “I hear patients say, ‘The Botox I got at the spa lasted only three months instead of the usual six.’ That may be because it was diluted.”
Cosmetic injections are considered extremely safe, but they can cause side effects, like bruising, redness, lumps, and bumps. Most are temporary, but some, like droopy eyelids and a frozen expression, both of which can happen with Botox, can be upsetting. “An under-
standing of dynamic facial anatomy—what the muscles do when you talk and express emotions—can make the difference between a natural-looking outcome and something that’s just plain bizarre,” says Richard D’Amico, M.D., president of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. “The farther you get from a plastic surgeon’s or dermatologist’s office, the more likely you are to have less-knowledgeable or inexperienced people doing the procedure.”
Protect yourself
Make sure your initial appointment is with a physician. A nondoctor may not know the ins and outs of where a filler versus Botox would work best, says Alan Gold, M.D., president of the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery.
Check the credentials, training, and expertise of the person doing the injections. (In one state, a physician’s assistant with a day of training may be licensed.) Someone experienced in cosmetic fixes will know that the hyaluronic acid in Restylane and Juvederm, for example, can be dissolved by injecting a substance called hyaluronidase if something goes wrong—they’ll also know that some people are allergic to hyaluronidase.
Beware of prices that sound too good to be true. According to a recent analysis in the Wall Street Journal, the average price for Botox is $363; injectable fillers range from about $390 for collagen to $557 for Restylane, a hyaluronic acid. Prices can be much higher in urban areas, however.
Look at the product, Dr. Gold says: Make sure that the package is unopened and the brand name and manufacturer are the same as what you were promised. Allergan, for example, has put a hologram on its Botox packaging to foil counterfeits.
Find out the spa’s emergency procedures. “You should be told what could go wrong and how quickly a doctor can get there,” says Hannelore Leavy, executive director of the International Medical Spa Association and the Day Spa Association.
Ask about ongoing training. With new Botox-like products expected to reach the market in the next year, the situation will soon be more complicated. “All the new products disperse differently in the tissues, so you’ll need to inject each one somewhat differently,” Dr. D’Amico says. “People performing these procedures are going to need to understand the differences.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Nine Cosmetic Treatments to Rethink
'Non-surgical' doesn't always mean safe. Why these nine procedures and drugs could leave you disappointed—or worse.
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Nine Cosmetic Treatments to Rethink
By Maggie Koerth-Baker for MSN Health & Fitness
Why do it: In spring 2008, high-profile New York dermatologist Patricia Wexler, M.D., began touting a new way to use Botox. Wexler claimed in interviews that by injecting the drug into the pectoralis minor chest muscle to temporarily paralyze it, she could make back muscles called rhomboids pick up the slack, so to speak. She said this forces the patient to stand up straighter, which in turn essentially gives the breasts a surgery-free "lift."
The problems: "It's nonsense. Worse, it's dangerous nonsense," says Michael McGuire, M.D., president-elect of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. He and Patrick McMenamin, M.D., president of the American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery, agree that Wexler's procedure wouldn't work. And both doctors say injecting anything into the pectoralis minor is dangerous. Hidden beneath larger muscles and very thin, the pectoralis minor sits on top of the rib cage. On false move, and the needle could puncture a lung. McGuire and McMenamin also worry about whether paralyzing the pectoralis minor would make breathing more difficult, and whether the amount of Botox needed could reach dangerous levels.
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Nine Cosmetic Treatments to Rethink
Why do them: "Doctor fish," also known as garra rufa, love to eat dead human skin cells, which they suck off of the body, revealing fresh skin underneath. The fish have made a splash in Europe and Asia, where they're used for pedicures and to treat the symptoms of psoriasis, and are now becoming trendy stateside.
The problems: Living creatures are hard to sanitize. At least three states—Washington, New Hampshire and Texas—have issued regulations against doctor fish, saying there's no way to guarantee the fish are clean. Martin Grassberger, M.D., who's researched garra rufa at the Medical University of Vienna, says there's another concern. Some spas use a different species of fish called the chinchin, which feeds more aggressively than garra rufa. Chinchin can draw blood and spread disease, particularly in communal pools where blood-borne illnesses like hepatitis B can be passed by fish or through water to open wounds. If you try a fish spa, Grassberger says, make sure you get a private, sanitized basin of water and that the spa uses only garra rufa fish.
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Nine Cosmetic Treatments to Rethink
Why do it: Waxing yanks unwanted body hair out by the roots. It's faster than tweezing and lasts longer than shaving.
The problem: First off, burns from hot wax can be severe and are more common than you might think, according to the medical journal Burns. Waxing also leaves your body vulnerable to infection. In fact, the FDA advises people with weakened immune systems to avoid waxing entirely. Anyone using wrinkle creams or acne treatments that contain retinol should also rethink waxing. Retinol can make skin so sensitive that there's a risk of it peeling off along with the hair. But the biggest worry is topical skin-numbing cream, often used to make waxing and laser hair removal less painful. The FDA says drugs in the cream can end up in your blood. Use too much of it, or a cream that contains too high a concentration of the numbing ingredients, and the results can be life-threatening or even fatal. It's best to avoid numbing cream altogether, but if you do use it, the FDA says to choose a cream they've approved as safe, to use as little of the cream with the lowest amount of active ingredient as you can. The FDA also recommends leaving the skin uncovered (don't cover the treated area with plastic wrap or other dressing), and says to pick the correct cream with your doctor's help—not that of your hair stylist or spa technician.
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Nine Cosmetic Treatments to Rethink
Why use them: Newly approved by the FDA, the drug Latisse promises thicker eyelashes. Latisse is actually a lower-dose version of Lumigan, a drug that's been used to treat glaucoma since 2001. Longer, thicker lashes were a surprising side-effect for those patients.
The problem: Itching and redness may hamper your ability to make the most of those newly lush lashes. In addition, Latisse may darken the skin on your eyelids or turn irises brown—permanently—not good news for anyone who really values their baby-blues. And, like with many drugs, Latisse may not be a good choice for pregnant or nursing women. The National Institutes of Health reports the active ingredient in Latisse is associated with low birth weights and miscarriage in studies on mice and rats. While this doesn't necessarily mean Latisse is dangerous for human fetuses, there haven't been any good studies so far. Fact is, we just don't know right now whether Latisse is safe for pregnant women or not.
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Nine Cosmetic Treatments to Rethink
Why get it: Who doesn't want a mouth full of gleaming, pearly whites? Most whitening methods rely on hydrogen peroxide solutions, but some companies claim the hydrogen peroxide works better and faster when combined with UV lamps.
The problem: New research shows UV lamps don't boost the bleaching process, and even worse, can be dangerous. In February 2009, research published in the online version of the Journal of Prosthodontics showed no difference between teeth whitened with a combination of hydrogen peroxide and light or heat lamps, and those whitened with the solution alone. A January 2009 study in the British journal Photochemical & Photobiological Sciences went further. Not only does light-activation not work, the article reported, but it also exposes users to startlingly high levels of cancer-causing UV radiation. One lamp the team tested gave a dose four times as high as what you'd get from sunbathing for a full afternoon in midsummer.
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Nine Cosmetic Treatments to Rethink
Why get it: Eyeliner, lip and brow color tattooed onto your skin can be a permanent solution for women who want the look of makeup all the time.
The problem: Colored tattoo ink isn't necessarily designed with the human body in mind. In fact, the FDA hasn't approved any tattoo inks, and many of the colored inks used for permanent makeup are the same as those used in the automotive and printing industries. The FDA has received numerous reports of allergic reactions in women who received makeup tattoos. These tattoos are also notoriously difficult to remove, even with newer technologies. If you decide later that you'd prefer a different color or no makeup at all, you could easily face multiple painful laser treatments and no guarantee of completely removing the pigment.
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Nine Cosmetic Treatments to Rethink
Why get one: Chemical peels, usually creams or serums containing mild fruit acid, can remove dead skin cells and help clear up acne, according to the Mayo Clinic. Peels can also encourage the growth of new, younger-looking skin cells.
The problem: Most chemical peels have relatively mild side effects, including a risk of oddly colored, patchy skin in women who are taking birth control pills; redness, scaling and blisters for those with sensitive skin; and the possibility of triggering previously dormant cold sores. The real danger comes from at-home peels purchased online, which have been known to cause painful, scarring burns. The problem is in the concentration. Most effective over-the-counter alpha-hydroxy acid creams contain about 8 percent concentration of alpha-hydroxy acids, according to the University of Maryland Medical Center. But you can buy AHA cream online, without a prescription, in concentrations as high as 60 percent. That strength shouldn't ever be used outside a doctor's office and can be dangerous, particularly if you're used to the 8 percent cream and didn't realize you were buying something so strong.
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Nine Cosmetic Treatments to Rethink
Why have it: Introduced in 1999, Brava is a breast enhancement system that claims to help make breasts an entire cup size larger without surgery. The appeal pretty much speaks for itself.
The problem: According to clinical trials, Brava works, but the process is time consuming and rife with side effects. And the results will never be as dramatic as surgical implants. Brava is a set of plastic domes hooked up to a small vacuum pump. The domes are placed over the breasts, with the suction turned on, for 10 hours every day over for at least 10 weeks. If you miss a day, you have to add an extra one; some women report getting rashes and blisters from the long process. The good news is that women who use Brava do, on average, gain a cup size. But it won't work as well on women with extremely small breasts, or for those who have a low body-mass index. Some women have also been disappointed with the final results because temporary swelling can initially make it appear that Brava is working better than it really is. Ingrid Schlenz, M.D., a Medical University of Vienna researcher who has studied Brava, cautions that women who try the system need to be aware that final results don't match the initial ones.
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Nine Cosmetic Treatments to Rethink
Why use it: Approved by the FDA in 2002, Thermage uses heat generated by radio waves to give patients tighter, more taught skin; it's often promoted as a "non-surgical facelift." Oprah first championed the procedure, which is also known as ThermaCool, in 2003.
The problem: The episodes of "The Oprah Winfrey Show" that touted the treatment aren't forthcoming about its potential side effects or effectiveness, according to a New York Times article from 2006. And Thermage doesn't really function as a face-lift substitute. While it can reduce the appearance of fine wrinkles and acne scars, it's not likely to tighten jowls—patients who go in expecting a miracle probably will be disappointed. And while side effects are rare, doctors say they often get glossed over in breathless media reports. Thermage treatments can burn the skin, particularly if a doctor uses a higher setting in pursuit of grander results. The machine can also "melt" the fat under your skin, leaving you with scars, dents and grooves on your face. Neither complication is very common, but both happen often enough that doctors say potential patients need to be more aware of the risks.
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