New trends in aesthetic medicine

A few years ago a patient would sit down in the chair and say: “I want bigger lips”. Today I more often hear: “I want to look rested, but so that nobody can tell I have had anything done”.

It is one of the most interesting changes I see in the clinic. And it is not only about fashion — what people come to aesthetic medicine for has changed.

The canon of beauty has grown roomier

The direction has been set by social media for years. For a while it pulled towards excess. Now — happily — towards naturalness.

Heavily enlarged lips have stopped being the benchmark. Patients increasingly ask for nourished and hydrated lips, not for bigger ones. That is an entirely different conversation and an entirely different treatment.

That pleases me twice over. Because the canon of beauty is becoming roomier and, at the same time, more open to what a patient has naturally.

A thinner needle, fewer bruises

The technique itself has changed too.

I increasingly work with cannulas instead of a needle. A cannula has a blunt tip — it parts the tissue instead of cutting it. In practice this means a lower risk of bruising and swelling after the treatment.

For the patient the difference is very concrete: less chance of having to hide away for a week after the appointment.

“I want the result, but I do not have a week to lie around”

I hear that sentence more often than any other.

For many people looking after their appearance has become part of everyday hygiene — just like sport or sleep. And if it is part of everyday life, it cannot shut them out of it.

Who today can afford a week or two at home? Or going to work while the marks of a treatment are still visible on their face?

That is why the greatest value of modern technology is not only a better result. It is time — or rather the lack of it: effective treatments that do not require a long recovery.

This group includes, among others, non-ablative laser treatments, thermolifting and lunchtime treatments, after which you walk out of the clinic straight to a meeting.

The figure: fewer and fewer people looking for a shortcut

My patients are mostly women who genuinely look after their health. They do sport, they eat consciously and they do it with pleasure, not out of a sense of duty.

You can see it in their decisions. Fewer and fewer people look for a shortcut in the form of liposuction. Instead they exercise, move a lot and put their meals together sensibly. A shapely body is only a bonus here — the starting point is for it to be healthy, resilient and firm.

The trouble is that even the fittest patients contend with cellulite and a loss of skin firmness. This is not a matter of laziness. Studies show that as many as 90% of women over the age of 25 have cellulite.

The foundation is always diet: less processed food, salt and sugar, more vegetables and water. That change is good and healthy — but it does not give immediate results.

When orange-peel skin is still a nuisance, treatments come in. The most popular one remains endermologie — a mechanical massage with a special head that massages and suctions the tissue at the same time.

Combining electronically controlled rollers with a vacuum makes it possible to act on all layers of the skin at once. Lymph and blood circulation improve, lipolysis, the release of fat, is set in motion, and water retention decreases. The stimulated cells begin to remove excess fat from the tissue, so the tissue softens and cellulite smooths out.

Botulinum toxin in moderation — the trend that pleases me most

Naturalness and subtlety have become the key even where the maximum effect once counted — with botulinum toxin.

Botulinum toxin holds an unshaken position. But I use it in moderation — especially as the patients who come to the clinic are getting younger.

And that is an important change. A younger patient needs smaller doses. She is not turning back time, only slowing its passage, or acting preventively. The result is then incomparably more natural.

With that comes another conviction that patients increasingly arrive with: regular, small treatments give a better result than a one-off radical transformation.

None of the women who come to my clinic wants to look “done”. They expect something else — the effect of rested, radiant skin. The kind you have after a wonderful holiday or after a few very good dates.

And that is probably the best direction this field could have taken.

The biggest of the trends described here — biostimulation — you will find in our offer as tissue stimulators.

This article was prepared by Joanna Kuschill-Dziurda MD PhD — specialist in allergology and internal medicine, physician in aesthetic medicine.