When it comes to erasing facial lines and reducing wrinkles, the web is an obvious resource for researching your skin care product options and anti-aging treatment alternatives.
The challenge: nearly every website maintained by skin care experts and product firms promise quick, easy, and painless ways to look 10 years younger.
Obviously there's a hype factor when it comes to skin care; thus, how best to find out what really works? I decided one way to tackle this question was to ask prominent skin experts what they do for their own skin care and anti-aging treatments, as well as what they may do in the future.
When it comes to her own skincare, Dr.
Stevens is quick to point out her interest in Thermage.
Thermage is a device that has electrodes that deliver radio frequency energy pulses to the skin surface.
This energy is meant to heat layers of skin, thereby increasing collagen production.
Collagen is the component of your skin tissue that degrades with age, giving rise to wrinkles and facial lines.
According to Dr.
Stevens, "Thermage work very well for patients.
You build collagen with treatments like Thermage.
The collagen you make is yours to keep, however it begins to age the moment it's created.
So having Thermage every 18 months to two years is a very good idea for your face and neck.
" Even though we all aspire for permanent wrinkle solutions, Dr.
Stevens is a pragmatist when it comes to her own aging and when setting expectations with her clients.
"Nothing can be permanent because your face aging characteristics are not permanent.
You're always going to age.
Your skin is going to age and demonstrate that aging as collagen breakdown.
So you need to make new collagen.
" Dr.
Stevens remains undecided about whether she would undergo a cosmetic surgery procedure like a facelift or blepharoplasty.
"I can't say that I would never have a surgical procedure done.
At this point I would not.
If I got to a point where non-invasive procedures had no effect for some reason I would consider surgery.
"