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Top 10 Beauty Treatments done by Celebrities Before the Oscars.
Electric Facials:
Electricity treatments are commonly used to tighten and smooth facial skin.
Three popular types of facial electricity treatments are Galvanic, Faradic and
Micro current. These treatments are typically used in salons and spas; however,
Galvanic treatment equipment is also sold for home use. All three treatments are
considered non-invasive, meaning no recuperation or recovery time is necessary.
Most electrical facial treatments aim to improve the condition and appearance of
the skin and combat various signs of ageing. There are many different types of
electical facials which include: Microdermabrasion, vacuum suction, muscle
stimulation (faradic) or Galvanic, Microcurrent, Facial Rejuvenation and IPL
(Intense Pulse Light) machines.
Microcurrent Facial
These treatment are often referred to as a Non Surgical Facelift or the well
known Caci treatment. It is a treatment that is designed to soften fine lines
and wrinkles balancing and lifting your contours. It is applied in a course of
treatments normally 2-3 a week for 10-12 treatments. The low current used has
the ability to exercise your muscles with very little sensation to you,
circulation is increased in the cell and all the natural processes are speeded
up. This gives healthier cells in the skin and muscles producing a tighter
contour and improved complexion. Once the course of treatments is complete a
maintenance programme would be followed to hold the effect achieved approx once
a month.
Galvanic Facial
A facial treatment often applied using roller over the skin with the application
of specialised gels/serums or ampoules. It is very successful and extremely
popular as it has proven to show excellent results. It is recommended for
different skin types and conditions as it has the scope to treat in two totally
different ways.
The first treatment is designed to deep cleanse the pores of the skin and
degrease oily areas. It can be used to deep cleanse most skins depending on
their needs. It is particularly effective on oily congested skins. This is
called Desincrustation.
The second treatment involves the re-balancing of the skin whatever the type.
from oily to dry including sensitive. This treatment will help to re-balance,
normalise and hydrate the skin. This is referred to as Galvanic Iontophoresis.
These two facials are available separately as well as one facial treatment. The
name of the facial will generally not refer to Galvanic Iontophoresis or
Desincrustation.
Hydrodermie is a type of Galvanic Facial. Hydrodermie has been developed by
Guinot and is available exclusively from Guinot appointed salons and trained
therapists. It contains a number of steps to this treatment which include
Galvanic and oxygenating high frequency.
Lymphatic Drainage Facial
Lymphatic Drainage Facials will assist in the movement of a fluid called lymph.
This fluid is part of the Lymphatic system of our body which aids the removal of
waste products increasing circulation of Lymph. This type of facial will involve
small glass applicators which very gently lift your skin. These applicators vary
is shape enabling all parts of the face and neck to be treated. They will glide
over you face working with the direction of the lymph vessels. Lymphatic
Drainage can also be carried out with manual massage techniques to the face and
body.
For other types of facials see our A-Z Info Guide entries for Facial,
Aromatherapy Facials, Anti-Aging Facials, Electrical Facials, Microcurrent
Facial / Non Surgical Face Lift, Galvanic Facial, Lymphatic Drainage Facial
Botox and her sister neurotoxins immobilize muscles, although not directly. The
toxins bind to neurotransmitters, preventing them from signaling muscles to
contract. This means unused muscle use less energy and might atrophy the way
your arms do when you stop going to the gym.
Some doctors believe that in the wrong hands and over time, neurotoxins could
cause the face to atrophy or lose desired fullness, especially in those who have
been using Botox for more than three years and have thin skin and a slim face.
This is where electric facials come in. An electric facial delivers low levels
of microcurrent to stimulate the muscles of the face and the neck. The theory is
that this provides plumpness to an inactive muscle � the same goal you would
hope to achieve with hyaluronic acid cream or filler injections. Now, there are
plastic surgeons and dermatologists who are prescribing microcurrent to diminish
loss in muscle tone as a noninvasive companion to neurotoxin injections.
Notably, anyone who has ever visited a physical therapist (PT) and has been
hooked up to an �electrostim� machine knows just how noninvasive this treatment
is. Lay back and relax; if the slight tingle you feel gets uncomfortable, which
is rare, just ask the PT to lower the current.
According to Elle magazine, November 2011, �Celebrities have become insatiable
consumers of electric facials, especially during awards season.� The �pop� or
effects last for about five hours. J.Lo is rumored to have spent $22,900 on her
own professional grade machine and Madonna and Kate Winslett are outspoken fans.
Makeup artist Kristin Hilton carries an FDA-approved handheld microcurrent
device in her makeup kit and says she can use it to create an arch in the
eyebrows. �Everything�s tighter. You look more awake.�
There is no written protocol for combining Botox and microcurrent, but most
doctors advise you to wait a few weeks post-injection. According to a plastic
surgeon, �In the first 24 hours after an injection, you could potentially move
the Botox from a muscle where you injected it into a muscle you did not intend.�
Proving, as always, how important it is to find an experienced, licensed
professional for all your injections.
Fifteen times a week on average, Robert Schwarcz, MD, a New York City�based
cosmetic surgeon, injects patients with Botox. For certain individuals he also
writes down a phone number on a piece of paper and tells them to make an
appointment. It's not for a dermatologist or a colorist with a flair for
youthful-looking highlights. The number is for Angela Kulangi, a facialist at
Total Skin, a day spa that specializes in electric facials that deliver, via
small wet sponges, low levels of microcurrent�1/1,000,000 of an amp (a light
bulb runs on less than one ampere)�to stimulate the muscles of the face and
neck. "If the patient has been using neurotoxins for more than three years, and
if she has genetically thin skin and slim facial musculature, I'll make a gentle
suggestion for her to see Angela," says Schwarcz. "I like the idea of providing
a plumpness to a nonactive muscle and generating controlled muscular activity."
 This same youthful fullness is what everyone who opens a jar of hyaluronic acid
cream or books a filler session is attempting to retain or replicate. And it's
not that the botulinum toxins�Botox, Dysport, and the recently FDA-approved
Xeomin�are in direct opposition to that end. In fact, the toxins do not act
directly on muscles�they bind to neurotransmitters, preventing them from
signaling muscles to contract. Initial medical use for the toxins wasn't even
related to wrinkles or anti-aging. In 1980, doctors began using it to quiet
uncontrollable blinking and relax muscles that cause eyes to cross. The cosmetic
neurotoxin revolution began in 1987, when two Vancouver-based doctors discovered
the neurotoxin's smoothing effect on "the elevens," the frown lines between the
eyebrows. Derms and nonderms alike promptly took it one better, using injections
to create lift. When a neurotoxin is shot into a muscle that pulls downward,
say, in the brow area, the antagonist muscle that pulls upward is left unopposed
to dominate. Add to that carefully placed injections to relax the frontalis
muscle, which creates the "worry lines," those horizontal ones across the
forehead, and doctors could mimic the effect of a brow lift without picking up a
scalpel.
If a muscle is immobilized, even temporarily, "it will use less energy and have
a tendency to atrophy," says skin physiologist Peter Pugliese, MD, author of the
textbook Physiology of the Skin, who notes that researchers soon figured out how
to make this atrophy yield short-term aesthetic benefits. Dermatologist Fredric
Brandt, MD, whose New York and Florida�based practice is the largest user of
Botox in the world, explains that one can, like a sculptor, dramatically slim
the jawline by injecting a large amount of a neurotoxin into the masseter, the
primary "chewing muscle" that runs along the side of the face. "It is
reversible," Brandt says. "But one treatment will last for a year."
However, atrophy can have a downside�which is where, for some doctors, electric
facials come in. These doctors believe that, in the wrong hands over time,
neurotoxins could cause the face to lose desired fullness, and so they are
prescribing microcurrent as a noninvasive companion to neurotoxin injections to
diminish any loss in muscle tone. In fact, dermatologist Nicholas Perricone, MD,
steers his patients away from using neurotoxins at all, believing microcurrent,
plus the right diet and topicals, to be the best anti�wrinkle strategy. Electric
facials, whether done at home or in a spa, he argues, help build "convexities"
in the face. "Convexities are what make you youthful," he says. "That is
critical. If you look at the cheekbones, the forehead, the temples, the jawline
of someone young, they come out in an arc away from the face. They bulge out.
Around the age of 40 to the midfifties, the convexities go flat. From 60 up,
they can go concave. Electrostim keeps the muscles plump and active, preventing
or correcting loss of the convexities."
The idea of using electric current to stimulate muscles sounds both high-tech
and barbaric, but in truth it has been in practice for hundreds of years. For
that we can thank Jean Jallabert, a professor in Geneva, Switzerland, for
credibly reporting in 1748 that he alleviated paralysis in a locksmith's right
arm by using a 90-minute series of electric shock sessions over the course of
several months. In 1982, researcher Ngok Cheng, MD, at the Catholic University
of Leuven, Belgium, led a study that provided hard evidence of microcurrent's
role in cellular vitality by proving that microcurrent increased levels of
ATP�the fuel a cell needs to function�in lab-rat skin cells by 500 percent.
Orthopedic surgeon Robert Becker, MD, compiled multiple studies in his 1985 tome
The Body Electric, citing the role of electricity in cell regeneration. For
decades, microcurrent has been used in different frequencies and waveforms to
treat everything from wounds to migraines to chronic pain. Professional athletes
and anyone who has had physical therapy have often experienced an electrostim
machine, as orthopedists routinely prescribe microcurrent to aid in the repair
of ligaments and muscles.
On a muscular level, the microcurrent acts like a personal trainer to tone and
shorten muscle fibers. On a dermal level, as Pugliese, the skin physiologist,
notes, there is serious anti-aging action going on. Pugliese has spent more than
five years analyzing microcurrent's effect on fibroblasts by biopsying skin
before and in between microcurrent treatments, and has found a statistically
significant increase not only in the production of collagen and elastin, the
skin's main structural proteins, which degrade with age, but in that of
glycosaminoglycans, or "GAGs," the viscous material in which the proteins are
embedded. "When you see a nice plump cheek like a baby's and you pinch it and it
feels very good and snappy," he says, "that's GAGs." And, according to Perricone,
the long-term benefits are more than skin-deep: If you have a microstimulation
machine, "you don't have to have perfect genes," Perricone says. "When I first
started working with celebrities, I assumed they were genetically gifted and had
perfect symmetry." But now he knows that symmetry can be made: "Not only can we
use electrostim to increase our muscle mass, we can accentuate one side of the
face by working it harder than the other to give a more symmetrical appearance."
Electric facials are on the menu everywhere from Perricone's New York flagship
spa to Four Seasons hotels to Elizabeth Arden's Red Door salons.
Professional-grade microcurrent machines emit a positive and a negative current
via two wands, probes, or sponges. When the probes are placed a few inches apart
on the face, a circuit of current travels from one point to the other and
"stimulates" the tissue in between, Perricone says. The current is subsensory,
which means all one feels is the gliding of the rods and perhaps a slight
tingle. Customers often fall asleep midfacial. The other option is to DIY with
an at-home device. Suzanne Somers teamed up with engineer Rodger Mohme, who
previously led the team at Apple to shrink a desktop computer down to laptop
size, to create the FaceMaster, a vanity-table version of a large in-spa
machine. The only handheld microcurrent device with FDA approval is the NuFACE,
created by Carol Cole, a SoCal facialist who got tired of lugging her gigantic
machine up into the Hollywood Hills. It emits the same level of current as a pro
machine (you can get a 30-minute poolside NuFACE treatment at the Four Seasons
Maui for $125), but the micro-amps deliver via two fixed metal probes.
ELLE editors tested both the FaceMaster and NuFACE in our offices and found they
instantly increased circulation for that glowy, plump-but-not-puffy look that
lasted for a few hours. But, in our untrained hands, the DIY could not provide
microcurrents' more sophisticated, bespoke effects. With the right expertise,
microcurrent can be used to dramatically, if temporarily, shape the face. It's
no wonder celebrities have become insatiable consumers of electric facials,
especially during awards season. "The pop lasts for about five hours," says
facialist Melanie Simon, whose skin-care company, Circ-Cell, is partially backed
by Lynn Harless, aka Justin Timberlake's mom. Madonna and Kate Winslet are
outspoken fans of Tracie Martyn's trademarked Red Carpet Facial, a proprietary
treatment that incorporates mild electrical current. Regular microcurrent
sessions were rumored to be Princess Di's beauty secret. And according to an
industry source, J.Lo just spent $22,900 on her own professional-grade CACI
Ultra (no word on whether she's administering them herself).
Depending on where the probes are placed, either above the origin or insertion
point of a muscle, and how many seconds they're held there, users can smooth a
furrowed area by stretching the muscle or add lift by shortening the muscle. "If
you lift from the cheekbones toward the hairline, it will make your eyes more
almond shaped," says makeup artist Kristin Hilton, who travels between New York
and L.A. to work on clients including Uma Thurman and Milla Jovovich. "You can
even create an arch in the eyebrows." Hilton keeps NuFACE in her makeup kit so
she can "sculpt and lift" before she applies a client's makeup. "I'm a skeptical
person," Hilton says. "For me to like something like this is unusual. But I use
it for five minutes on each side, pulling upward. Everything's tighter. You look
more awake. People know something's different, but they don't know what. Usually
they say, `Did you get your hair cut?'"
The exact protocol for combining Botox and microcurrent has yet to be written,
but most proponents agree to wait a few weeks post-injection before getting a
facial. According to Charles Boyd, MD, a plastic surgeon with practices in
Michigan and New York, "In the first 24 hours after an injection, you could
potentially move the Botox from a muscle where you injected it into a muscle you
did not intend," he says. "That doesn't mean it's going to move from your
forehead to your neck, but maybe from your eyebrow to your upper eyelid."
Simon's clients wait two weeks post-Botox for an electric facial, then return
for monthly follow-ups (per skin's renewal cycle, which is 28 days). "Botox and
electric facials are great companions. I could spend hours smoothing lines out
and then my clients will walk out the door and make the expression that caused
the wrinkle 1,000 times that night," Simon says. "Botox is very efficient at
knocking out expression wrinkles. Electric current fixes everything else��it's
the cherry on top."
Credits: http://www.elle.com/
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Dated 27 February 2013
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