September 25, 2025 • 57 mins
What if the secret to great plastic surgery… is knowing when not to do it? In this episode, Danielle chats with world-renowned holistic plastic surgeon Dr. Julius Few, whose philosophy LESS IS MORE has quietly shaped some of the most famous (and untraceably beautiful) faces in Hollywood. With over 30 years of experience, groundbreaking surgical innovations, and a skincare line backed by clinical trials, Dr. Few isn't just changing faces, he's changing the conversation. From his pioneering "85% Rule" to his thoughts on "GLP-1 face," Botox addiction, and the illusion of perfection, Dr. Few shares the questions he asks before ever picking up a scalpel and why the most powerful tool in his office might be the word NO. This episode goes way beyond aesthetics; into identity, restraint, aging, and what it really means to enhance your natural beauty.
Dr. Few shares:
- Why the best plastic surgery is invisible
- The difference between looking "done" and looking refreshed
- What not to do if you want to age gracefully
- Why filler might be aging you faster and what to do instead
- His unexpected take on facelifts (and how they've changed) and when is the best time to get one.
- Why he turns away patients weekly + how they often come back to thank him
- The truth about "distortion vortex" and the addictive cycle of overdoing it
- The most underrated skincare step and the one product he swears by
- The procedure he invented that changed eye surgery forever
- What GLP-1s are doing to your skin and the skincare he created to help
- And why he believes imperfection is the point
Follow Dr. Few on Instagram @Dr.Few
Book recommendation: Essentialism by Greg McKeown.
Explore his skincare line + learn more about his work: www.fewinstitute.com
Andrea is a Career Transition Coach dedicated to helping high-achieving women cultivate healthy, fulfilling relationships with their careers. Check out her free guide Reclaim Your Next Chapter + get in touch with her on her Website!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
No one has all the answers, but when we ask
the right questions, we get a little closer, closer to truths,
closer to each other, even closer to ourselves. I'm journalist
Danielle Robe, and each week, my guests and I come
together to challenge the status quo and our own ways
of thinking by daring to ask what if, why not?
(00:28):
And who says? So? Come curious, dig deep, and join
the conversation. It's time to question everything.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Hello.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Oh my god, I ghosted you guys for a few weeks.
I'm so sorry. I promise it was for a good reason,
and I also promise it won't ever happen again. I
really just went MIA. Usually I'll say something, or I'll
post older episodes as reruns, but I just I needed
a minute, And thank you for sticking with me through
the hiatus. I've been sitting on some news that I
(01:01):
can finally start to share a little bit, so thank
you for rocking with me through it all. I needed
a little breather because two exciting things happen. First, I
am filming a pilot for a major streamer, and who
knows where it goes. But I felt like I should
at least tell you about it, because I owe you
the truth and why I've been a MIA that's been
taking up a lot of my time. And secondly, there's
(01:24):
a big podcast Question Everything announcement coming your way in
just a few weeks. We are joining a major network,
but I don't want to share until it's all signed
on the dotted lines, So just know that I've been
MIA for a good reason. In the meantime, I've been
in New York City living out of suitcases, which is
not my forte because I'm so bad at working out
(01:44):
when I'm on the go. I haven't worked out now
in three weeks. But on the bright side, I had
some amazing moments in New York. I got to interview Malala, which, honestly,
this may sound corny, and I know I say that sometimes,
but it was a bucketless moment. I have wanted to
talk to her for years and feel her energy, and
(02:05):
she was so wonderful. I also got to grab coffees
and have a few meetings with people that why didn't
my aperture a little bit? Do you ever have those
moments where something that's been foggy for years suddenly feels
clear and you wonder like how you didn't see it sooner.
That's where I'm at, and I'm starting to put the
building blocks in place for what's ahead. I know that's
(02:25):
all pretty broad, but this community has some big things
popping off in the next six months. And yeah, I'm
really excited that you're here with me. So let's get
into today's episode. I have said no to every plastic
surgeon who has ever pitched this podcast, and not because
I'm against cosmetic work.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
I'm not.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
I just think most of us already spend plenty of
time thinking about how we look, and I never wanted
this show to add to any of that noise. We
get that from so many other places, and for people
who have been listening since the podcast was called pretty Smart,
which I named after reading a book called Beauty Sick,
which changed my life, then you know that I've believed
(03:06):
that beauty should be one of the things we think
about and not the only thing or the thing that
consumes us. And too often I think conversations about appearance
get stuck at the surface like that. But my hope
is that this episode is different. I wanted to have
a conversation about plastic surgery that doesn't feed the obsession,
but instead it is something that is in the zeitgeist.
(03:27):
It is all over my feet. I don't know if
it's all over yours, but I'm hoping that this conversation
invites thoughtfulness and perspective and a little bit of relief.
That said, if talking about appearance is at all triggering
for you, please listen with care or skip this episode
if that's something that you feel is triggering. But I
will say that I chose to interview a particular surgeon
(03:50):
for this reason. Doctor Julius View is the holistic plastic surgeon,
and he has earned that title. His philosophy is that
beauty should honor who you are, not erase it. So
over the past twenty years, he's quietly reshaped the aesthetics
industry by asking better questions, slowing the process down, and
(04:12):
treating restraint as a form of artistry. He even pioneered
what he calls the eighty five percent rule, intentionally stopping
short of perfect to preserve what's real and human and
actually beautiful. He's trusted by celebrities and VIPs across the country,
with practices in Chicago, New York, and Santa Monica. He's
also a clinical professor of plastic surgery at the University
(04:35):
of Chicago and a health science clinician at Northwestern University.
An impressive pedigree, right He's the surgeon people go to
when they want to look refreshed without looking done. And
I asked him all the questions. I was personally curious about,
what makes a face beautiful? Can you reverse bad filler?
Why are so many procedures aging people faster, what's the
(04:56):
real difference between looking refreshed and looking done? And when's
the right time to consider something like a facelift? What's
the most requested procedure in his office right now? We
also get into something he's especially passionate about how GLP
ones are affecting the skin and the product he's developing
that might actually be a game changer. So, yes, many questions,
(05:18):
but the one we're circling this episode is how can
we look our best selves, not like someone else and
definitely not like a shell of one. It's time to
question everything with doctor Julius. Feel as a holistic plastic surgeon,
you really emphasize keeping or enhancing people's unique traits, and
(05:42):
I'm really curious how you think about changing somebody's face
while enhancing it.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
We've gotten much better in the last twenty five years
at doing our work compared to the days of my training,
which it's hard to believe over thirty years ago. And
so really, I think what we're seeing is oftentimes an
attempt to go for perfection, and technically you can get
(06:09):
much closer. You can make somebody look so close to
perfect in a photograph that in real life they're scary.
And I think that this is the reality we're in.
And I really had the epiphany moment when I was
on the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, their board
of directors. I'm a big art fan, and basically what
(06:31):
I realized in meeting all these amazing artists and different
media was the idea that the best art had individual
expression and really plastic surgery by definition, is a form
of scientific art. And I felt like, Okay, if we
have all these tools to make somebody look better, you
(06:52):
don't want to make it look like something that is
out of basically a computer. And so that started me
on this path of less is more and I came
up with different doctrines over my career that fortunately have
been followed by many of my colleagues like the eighty
five percent rule, which is a simplified concept that even
(07:15):
though you can go to one hundred percent, filler is
a great example, go to eighty five percent, don't shoot
not to go past ninety percent, leave room for imagination.
And some of my best work over the last decade,
especially in some very famous faces, has been that rule
in mind and most of the people in my mind.
(07:38):
And again, I have Midwest roots. I know you have
Midwest roots, or at least of Midwest history. Is the
idea that nobody should be able to tell that you've
had work done. At least that's my view. So I've
tried to live this approach, and I believe as I've
gotten better at plastic surgery, I can get away with that.
I know how to do things in a way I
(08:00):
can hide. I have a very light footprint, and it's
plausible a lot of my clients are able to say
they've never done anything and get away with it. That's
my philosophy. It really has more holistic.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
I'm particularly curious about your philosophy on beauty, and I
want to preface the question with my personal philosophy has
grown over the years when I was in high school
or college, social media popped into all of our lives
for the first time, and I did think that beauty
was so much more about perfection. And as I get older,
(08:33):
when I watch TV or film, I love looking at
the imperfections of people's faces. I'm not just saying it
that is what makes them more beautiful. I mean, I'll
give Aaron Andrews as an example, because I'm a broadcaster
and she has a very distinctive nose and she's never
touched it, and she could have because she has a
(08:54):
lot of side profiles in her work and on TV.
And when I had always considered getting a nose job,
I would think about her, and I'm so glad now
that I'm older that I didn't touch it.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
I am so glad you didn't either, because I wouldn't cry.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Well, I'll go sideways.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
It's a very it would have been. Your nose fits
your face. You have a beautiful face. It fits you perfectly.
It's no incentive on my part to talk people out
of doing plastic surgery. I mean, I make a living,
I'm able to live a lifestyle, et cetera. But at
the same time, I've reached a point in my career
where I can and ultimately, like for you, I would
(09:40):
have kicked you out of my office too. I would
have said, what are you going for? What are you after?
And so on?
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Do you kick people out? Often?
Speaker 2 (09:47):
I do, and my staff will joke about it, like
I will probably once a week, and the nicest way.
I will say, you know, I got to think about that,
and then I'll think about it. I will thoughtfully digest
what they're at, I'll look at their pictures, I'll commit
the time, and then I will give them an answer.
But usually my gut instinct is right every single time.
(10:10):
And I can't tell you how many people have come
back to me five, ten, fifteen years later and have said,
I'm so glad you're talking me out of this. I'm
so glad for X, Y and Z reasons. And unfortunately
I have other cases where they go elsewhere because they
didn't believe that was the ideal move, and then they
(10:30):
come to me because they know I can fix it,
which is harder and it's traumatic and all the things.
So I think this whole idea of you everyone else
like our innate beauty. The secret is finding a way
to say okay, I can make this subtle alteration, or
(10:52):
I can preserve where you are in a way so
that you age in your best way, that you look
in your best way, and that the secret.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
In that vein. I'm curious what the difference is between
looking refreshed and looking done? Are there certain markers?
Speaker 2 (11:08):
I think the classic marker, which is the reason why
fillers have gotten such backlash. Fillers are I think amazing.
They're amazing tools, but they're powerful, and they last a
lot longer than anybody thought, including myself, and they can migrate,
so I think, really to me, in the last five years,
maybe six years, that's where filler's got a very bad rap,
(11:31):
because people were going on one hundred and twenty percent
of what was there. And when you go that far,
I have colleagues who look unrecognizable because they have access.
It's easy, they can inject themselves, et cetera. But literally
their eyes have been lost in their sockets because there's
(11:53):
so much filler here and they can't even move normally.
And it's a cautionary tale of how and where somebody
can go too far. Think about it. If you're a
dermatologist or plastic surgeon and you can inject yourself, which,
by the way, I inject myself with botox as an example,
it's not that hard to do botox. Filler totally different.
(12:15):
I've never tried to do it to myself. It's a
totally different paradigm because you're looking at a reflection and
you lose all depth perception. So what ends up happening
is you become used to the change and you say
that's not enough, I need more. Well, there are lots
of patients who come who have a similar reality where
(12:41):
they ultimately lose all perspective on what is good and
what is too much, and then they get lost in it.
Because this is such an important point you just brought up.
The idea of how someone can do too much and
get lost in it is what I call a distortion vortex.
(13:02):
And what that means is someone sees and feels the
excitement of looking better, so they get some put in,
whether it's a filler surgery, you name it laser, and
they look and they're like, I look so much better,
and I'm so psyched and everything is perfect. I want more.
(13:23):
But the psychology of it is very similar to any addiction.
You get this rush of dopamine from looking and seeing
yourself transformed. You want another hit.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Well in LA I always say, there's this sort of
new ethnicity that's been created here, and it's the ethnicity
of plastic surgery face. And there's this look, and everybody
has the same nose and the same lips and the
same cheeks, and they're not all going to the same surgeons.
It's just this look. And I'm not against plastic surgery,
(13:56):
but I am sort of against the look.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Making a new species is not the goal of plastic
It is not, and I could not agree more. You
are so right. Fortunately, I think we're coming out on
the other side of it because I was one of
the first, and that's probably why I got the tagline
of holistic plastic surgeon. I was one of the first
to really talk about thoughtful plastic surgery and natural results.
(14:21):
This goes back almost twenty years and so I think, finally,
and especially the new generation of plastic surgeons, if you
look at social media, that concept is all over the
place now, like people are moving towards this idea that
you know, less can be more. But it's because frankly,
(14:42):
we're scaring away potential patients by making people look like
a different species.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
A few years ago, there was a real housewife named
Sonia Morgan who got a facelift, and it was the
first facelift that I had seen that anybody had talked
about publicly that I thought looked good. And I was like, Okay,
maybe technology is getting better. Is it possible to have
a facelift and still look like a version of yourself?
Speaker 2 (15:12):
One thousand percent? That is my calling card, is really
making things look natural and anatomically appropriate. I think they're
different moves for example. Now, again this goes to the
whole thing I said at the very beginning of technology.
There's technology to remove glands in the neck. There's technology
(15:34):
to remove bones and cartilage in the neck, or the
face restructuring. You can do all kinds of things, but
the art is in not getting carried away. And there's
this obsession now with necks for example, of where the
neck becomes excavated. It's like, oh, I want my neck
(15:55):
to look so perfect and there's nothing there. But what
people I don't realize is that you know, in cancer
surgery you remove those glands for cancerous reasons, and that
is a very specific look. And I have colleagues who
are doing things that are reminiscent of cancer surgery, and
(16:16):
so to me, it's kind of this thing of should
that be the goal? We have the technology, but should
that be the goal? Should the obsession with a neck
that is perfect where you don't see any cords or
columns and so on? I mean, I have eighteen and
twenty year old boys, they have little chords. I mean,
am I going to go operate on them? I don't
(16:37):
think so. I think ultimately, as I say, it makes
so much sense. But if you're somebody coming in, especially
in Los Angeles, you have these talented doctors who have capabilities,
and you know they're all within half a block of
each other, it's hard to number one, know what to
do and what not to do, and two, everybody's trying
(17:00):
to outdo the other one. So guess what, that's not
a winning battle. So I would tell anybody, and this
is where hopefully I can make a consumer friendly announcement.
Is the idea that number one, if somebody is thinking
about I want to do X, I want to do
this laser, I want to make my face look less
(17:22):
tired or whatever, it is the first thing you should do.
You tell the doctor I want to be conservative. That
is the first thing you do, because if you set
that landscape number one, most doctors will be like, oh
thank God. And then the second part of that is
they will be able to give you all the options
(17:44):
without feeling pressured to hit a home run.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
And you know if you're at the right doctor, because
I have botox and I went to a place in
LA and said, I'm really conservative, and the look on
her face, I was like, We're not a match. And
I went back to Chicago the guy that I always
go to because he's conservative about it. Is there anything
else that you wish that patients knew coming in, anything
(18:08):
that they should be asking or things that we should
be thinking about.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Yeah, I mean I think there are a couple of
things that I think are big mistakes. Number One, I
think it absolutely is imperative to at least here more
than one or two options for any given issue, because
now we're in a technological reality where they do exist.
I think number two is the idea. And this is
(18:32):
again where I got the holistic kind of moniker. If
someone is going through a major life stress like a
parent died, or there's some major upheaval, divorce, you name
it a big negative event in life, you have to
give yourself time to heal before you think about something elective.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
I'm so glad you said that it's so much easier
to change your face than it is to deal with Greeder,
to deal with like a job loss, whatever, and so
to give that time is so important.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
It's so critical because I do believe the stress hormones
and so on that go with this, plus just the
psycho emotional parts, you put your procedure at high risk.
I also think really having a clear cut priority list.
So all the time I'll get somebody who comes in
now because of my reputation, I'll say, okay, my face
(19:25):
is yours, what would you do? And I always put
it back on them to say, honestly, when you woke
up this morning, what stood out to you as not recognizable?
Or if it's somebody who's younger, it's more, well, what
was it in your personal journey that led you to say,
you know what, I'm thinking about this every day and
(19:47):
I need to do something like what is that one thing?
You'd be shocked because every time I've been surprised. And
I think that's the advantage of somebody who's more experienced,
I mean I earned these gray hairs. Is the idea
that you kind of know the questions to ask to
get at the heart of what's going on. Similar to you,
(20:07):
when you're interviewing somebody, you know how to get me going,
and probably you may want to shut me down, but
it's the secret of understanding those questions. So much of
what is kind of both surgical and non surgical cosmetic
medicine is about what you see and what you're going
(20:28):
to do about it, and there's very little time spent
to the why. And I'd say that the biggest piece
of advice I would give anybody is number one, write
down why you're doing it, and be prepared to talk
about it at the interview before you do a thing.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
I'm going to brag about you for a minute. You
already know your resume, but I was pretty in awe
when I was researching University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine.
For your residency, you did general surgery at University of
Michigan Medical Center, followed by plastic surgery training at Northwestern University,
and then you received a special facial in eye cosmetic
(21:04):
training in Honolulu, New York and Atlanta. So I was
particularly interested in your special facial and ie cosmetic training
because in LA the biggest trend right now is upper blef.
For anybody listening, it's like eyelid surgery, right, you kind
of take the skin away from the eye. Yes, So
(21:26):
my curiosity around upper blef is is this going to
age well? Because all of these trends that happen. The
buckle fat pad that was a big trend. I don't
know how well that's aging.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
You hit the nail on the head. What's old as
new as the saying buckle fat pad removal was a
big trend in the seventies and then it largely was
abandoned because it did not age well. I think for blepharoplasty,
one of the things that I would say is it
really depends. And it gets back to that story of
why if somebody doing it because they don't like the
(22:02):
wrinkled skin and that's it, but they don't have any
real hooding. It's just a textural thing. Removing the skin
is not the answer. The other thing that is often missed,
like you have beautiful brow arch if the brows are heavy,
doing an upper blaphroplasty is the wrong thing to do
as a standalone. And ultimately the biggest thing I learned
(22:25):
in fellowship which has aged really well is the concept
that you have to stabilize the brow first before you
think about doing anything to the eyelid. If the brow
is naturally sitting in a nice arch and it's not hooded,
it's not going into the islet area, then you can
evaluate for excess. Again, though, the most important thing for
(22:48):
upper blaf railplasty is not scooping out everything because then
that does not age well. That actually will look potentially
haggard as somebody ages down the line. And so that's
a huge part of this is you have to and
again this would be a question to your surgeon is
should I feel that my brows are an issue here?
(23:10):
And that needs to be part of the discussion and
experience ophthalmic plastic surgeon such as myself is it's centered
on the idea that you have to look at the composite.
There's so much interconnectivity between the upper i lit and
lower eyelet and the forehead and these all are moving
parts together. And again the idea of harmony in terms
(23:33):
of these structures is critical. But an upper blepheroplasty is
an easy operation to do. I mean on surface, meaning
you don't have to necessarily be an eye specialist to
do an upper blepheroplasty if you're a trained plastic surgeon.
The problem is if you are not nuanced. And you're right,
there's this big trend of very young women having this done,
(23:57):
and again it's part of the backlash of fillers and botox.
Potentially that plays poorly because a lot of these individuals
will find themselves saying I don't like the wrinkling after
like down the road, and the wrinkling is going to
come because in essence, they haven't either addressed the brow
(24:17):
or the real issue they were after was the wrinkling
around the eye, which could have been managed with things
like botox or managed with other techniques sort of surgery.
I think that's kind of how I frame it. And
even though I'm a specialist, I've written books about eyelet surgery,
I've invented a couple of operations for the eye area.
(24:38):
To me, I always look in the back of my head,
can I make this person get by with botox first?
That's always what I think. Can I make botox work first?
And if there's a question. I strongly encourage them to
try it to see if they like it, because there's
nothing worse in my mind. And I've seen lots of
(25:00):
patients who have had elid surgery in all different kinds
of places. I've been referred to by other plastic surgeons,
and the truth is, had they done a thoughtful assessment,
they would have realized that patient would have been more
happy with botox than they would be with surgery.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
I know that you were a proponent of non invasive procedures,
but I didn't realize that you had invented some eyelid surgeries.
That's pretty remarkable.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
So when I first started out in practice at Northwestern,
this was back in ninety nine two thousand, fresh off
of my training, and that training was in depth. It
was reconstruction around the eye, it was doing things for cancer.
I mean, it was in depth as well as cosmetic.
At that time, a huge fad surgically was a mid facelift.
(25:48):
The mid facelift was done by making an incision in
the under eye and then lifting up the cheek from
the under eye. The problem was the dynamics of the
interplay between in the lower eyelid and the cheek. The
lower eyelid was not strong enough. So what was happening
is there were all kinds of people all over the
(26:09):
country that were coming in like this.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
For everyone listening, the eye is dragged down.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
It's dragged down. The lower eyelid literally is pulled away
from the eyeball itself, and that is called an ectropian.
It is any surgeon's worst nightmare, it's any patient's worst nightmare.
And so there were hundreds of these people walking around
looking like they were accident victims. And so the problem
(26:41):
with it is that approach going from the outside, you
couldn't fix it. There was no fix Like I would
see people who had ten operations to try to fix this.
Can you imagine you spent your savings to do a
surgery that then you become a reconstructive patient. So what
happened there was only one other person on staff and
(27:02):
the entire staff at Northwestern that did oculo plastic surgery,
and he had no idea how to manage this. So
he was rejecting all of them. He said, I have
no answer, you know, there's nothing to do. And so
what happened was I developed a technique which now is
a technique used both for this but also cosmetic because
(27:23):
it's much lower risk, is actually to do the mid
face lift through the inside. So there's a way to
go through the inside of the eyelid and then to
release those ligaments, and then it's much safer. I won't
bore you with the technical detail, but it is. Again,
when my colleagues read about this, because I've published it
(27:45):
in textbooks and medical journals, everybody looked at it as,
of course, that's obvious, because it is. It's like an
obvious way to go. It is less traumatic, you have
less swelling, there's less risk, and it's incredibly versatile. The
only issue is it's a learning curve. But I saved
probably one hundred people who had this condition that otherwise
(28:06):
would have had nowhere to go. And so we published
our data and this became a workhorse technique. But now
it's been modified over the years to be a workhorse
for cosmetic reasons and it's a much safer way to go.
You're not going to change the shape of the eye,
which is the second worst thing you can do, and
so it's really again it goes back to my core
(28:28):
tenant of you want to look like yourself still.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
I want to ask you about some procedures, and then
I want to talk about your skincare line that has
very beautiful packaging. By the way, I'm a big packaging girl.
It's really well done and it's heavy, it feels good
in your hand.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
It adds some stock to it for sure.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Okay, so what is the most requested procedure in your
office right now?
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Well, I'm known for kind of a couple of things.
Eyes are certainly one of them. A specific form of
threadlifting I developed which has become at the standard approach,
certainly in North America. And then facelifting. I'm known for
the more understated facelift that still looks really damn good.
(29:11):
And those are the three things that I get the
most requests for. It's funny, though, lately what has happened,
and it just shows how long I've been doing this.
I have patients for my early career that were breast
patients who either their kids or relatives they're referring to
me because they've said, basically, You're the only person I
(29:32):
would let my child have breast surgery on, like on Monday.
I have a couple of patients who kind of fall
into that category. You know, I've done tens of thousands
of breast surgeries, so I'm not a stranger to it,
but you know, I'm very particular about the nature of
the surgery at this stage. I don't want to do
any surgery or any treatment where I don't feel like
(29:53):
I can be one hundred percent capable.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
What do you think about the technology of implants nowadays?
Had a friend in La do a fat transfer into
her breast instead, and the implants seem difficult because you
have to change them out every ten or fifteen years, right.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
So that is one of the common myths. You don't
have to necessarily change the implants out. They don't have
a set expiration as long as they're functioning the way
they're supposed to, and it's pretty easy to follow them
with an ultrasound. I think where implants get a bad rap,
it's similar. You're going to hear this theme they get
a bad rap when, in particular women try to go
(30:32):
much bigger than their body can tolerate. You're going to
get all kinds of weird risk and complications that are,
in my opinion, totally unnecessary. And fortunately, again we're seeing
this trend of going to They call it the yoga breast.
I guess or you hear all these terms, but it's
like this more petite breast. So for me, it's this
(30:56):
whole idea that you want it to match the box.
But in general, implants are incredibly safe when they're done
in a thoughtful way. Fat transfer is another incredibly good
tool if you have it, but in this world of
GLP ones, that's increasingly difficult. And by the way, if
somebody is on a GLP one and they do a
(31:16):
fat transfer, they're going to lose a lot of that benefit.
So the fat transfer is a trickier widget to count
on long term in this kind of post GLP one world.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
What's a procedure that doctors hate doing And.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
I want to get in trouble, but I'm going to
tell you it's liposection. Most plastic surgeons do not like
doing lpe A section, especially big volume. It is a
ton of manual labor. It's really hard on your body.
I have colleagues who've had to have their shoulders replaced.
It's no joke. It is the most physically disruptive thing
(31:51):
that you can do to yourself. It's just an unnatural
torque of the shoulder and so I really do very
little LiPo section now, it's not something I run.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
To Thanks for being honest, I appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
I don't want to get any hate mail from my colleagues.
We're saying, wait a minute, you're giving LiPo a bad rap.
Because liposection still statistically is the most common plastic surgery procedure.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
What is a trend or an esthetic procedure that you
think is aging people faster?
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Honestly, I think the biggest one is overfilling. Overfilling the
face is guaranteed. And there are some people I'm not
going to say who in popular culture that have been
accused of looking older than they are.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
It's like the pillow face, right.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
It's the pillow face. This is the quickest way, and
I've got a lot of research to explain why, but
it is the quickest way to make somebody look older.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
Can you reverse bad filler or are you stuck with it?
Speaker 2 (32:47):
So that's where the challenge is. You can reverse it,
but then they look even older still. I had a
series of patients I just recently did where I had
to melt their filler and then I did facelips on them.
Everything literally sagged as a result, and they were people
who I think had they done something a bit more conservative,
they would not have been in the same predicament.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
Before we come back from break. A core pillar of
this podcast is the belief that we rise together. You
all support my dreams, and I am here to support
your dreams. And that's why I hop on a zoom
with a listener or sometimes two or three, just to connect.
Every week. We swap stories, we chat, and I see
how I can support you. And a few weeks ago,
(33:31):
I met Andrea. She's a career transition coach who helps
high achieving women reimagine their careers in a way that
feels good and still pays the bills well. And the
reason I wanted to share Andrea's work with you is
so many of you DM me saying I feel stuck
or I can't figure out what I really want to do,
and I'm happy to hop on a zoom, but a
(33:54):
lot of times what I think could be more helpful
is an executive coach, a career transition coach. And I
was so impressed with Andrea. I felt like if any
of those questions that I feel stuck or I can't
figure out what I want to do? Resonates with you.
Email Andrea. I put her information in the show notes,
but here's a little bit from her.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
Do you find yourself questioning everything lately? Who am I?
What am I doing? What's next? If so, you're not alone?
Speaker 1 (34:24):
Hi?
Speaker 3 (34:24):
There, I'm Andrea and I have lived in that space
between where everything looks fine on the outside but nothing
feels quite right on the inside. And clarity didn't come
from having the perfect plan. It came when I stopped
asking myself questions rooted in fear, questions like what if
I fail? What if I have to start over, and
instead started asking questions that were beating in my heart.
(34:47):
That's when everything changed. Because the questions we ask ourselves
don't just describe our reality, they have the power to
shape it. And as a career transition coach, I help
ambitious women stuck messy middle learn to ask themselves better questions,
the kind that reconnect them to who they are and
what they actually want, allowing them to move forward with
(35:09):
alignment self trust and clear next steps and life and career.
If that's you, I invite you to download my free
twenty one day guide Reclaim Your next chapter filled with
powerful questions to help you reset, reconnect, and rise.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
At the beginning of our conversation, you made a really
great and funny comment about how you've done some work
on celebrities that pretend like they haven't had anything done,
but obviously you know that they've had something done. I'm
curious what your take is on celebrities not admitting having
work done.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
I could write a book about my experiences, whether it
is going to their homes or finding very nondescript ways
to meet, or doing things in certain ways where they
confidentiality can be assured. I think the problem is, and
it's worse now than ever. Social media is brutal, it's ruthless.
(36:10):
A lot of the folks that I've had the pleasure
of taking care of are some of the nicest, most
genuine people you could hope to meet, and they are ravaged,
their kids are ravaged. People say the cruelest things, and
so if you're that person, the last thing you want
to do is say, well, yeah, I had plastic surgery,
or admit to having plastic surgery, because still then they're
(36:31):
going to be ruthless on that. And so I just
feel like everybody deserves privacy. And just because you make
a living being a public persona, you're doing a job.
Your job is acting or musician, and that doesn't give
anybody the right to pick into your private life unless
you want to give it up. But I think that's
(36:53):
the challenge. And I'm fully on the side of the
actor or musician that is famous because they deserve their privacy.
And that's why you will never hear me theorize about
who did what or whatever, because the truth is either
I may have done it, or I want to not
even make a theory as to why they did it.
It's not my place, and I think it's the most rude,
(37:16):
glowbrow thing somebody can do in my profession. And the
thing that gets me you got me in a role
is there's some people that I've taken care of where
I flip through social media. I don't follow these people,
but I'll flip through, and often it's somebody in another
country that is theorizing about one of our well known
(37:36):
American actors and they'll proceed to list all the things
and I'm watching this and I'm thinking, I know exactly
what they did, and you are full of shit. You're
so wrong. It's like a game I play, I look
on my phone, I look at Instagram, I watch. They'll
list a thing and I say wrong, They'll list another
thing wrong. It's one of these things where people deserve
(38:01):
their dignity and privacy, and I think maybe if society
as a whole we're a little kinder to the celebrity,
maybe they'd be willing to give it up. There are
celebrities who are open about some of the things they do,
but that's an unusual constitution to be that way.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
So one of the reasons that I don't feel like
we are owed the information is because I find it's
still very sexist because we don't really ask men about
what procedures they've had done, and once a woman comes
out and says they've had something done, it's everywhere. It's
in every magazine. We all know. We think about the
surgery before we think about their project or them. And
(38:42):
so I agree with you, I don't think we're owed anything,
But I particularly don't like the gendered practice of even
asking pun intended.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
It's two faced, and I agree with you the gender
bias of how you have to keep up as a
woman compared to a man. It is unfair, and that's
part of this thing. But again, it's interesting. I am
starting to see that trend shift a little bit more
towards men now, like where you as a man, because
of the technology, if you're an actor, you can't exactly
(39:14):
cruise like you could have, and that's an interesting reality.
We're seeing some of that for sure.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
Well, I've heard this thing. I don't know if this
is just a thing you hear in Hollywood, that there's
the leading man jawline that people have had for years
that they would get an implant and redo their jaw
the A list actors, but men just wouldn't talk about it.
So maybe now people are talking about it a little more. Also,
I love that your silent smile right now.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
I have no comment. I will make no.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
Comment how much of how we age as genetics versus
how much we can actually influence.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
I think genetics are everything. One of the big deciders
that I use to help answer the question of should
somebody do something now versus late, As I say, look
at your mom or your aunt or your grandmother and
how they played out. It is especially true for the
(40:09):
eye area and the neck. If I have somebody who
comes in, they have a slightly fuller neck, but it's
not bad. But looking at their mother or grandmother, they
have like this really heavy like double or triple neck.
I've said this, I've said, literally, you know what, let's
remove the fat there because it's not going to age well.
And that's a preemptive strike, and that is doing something
(40:31):
in their best interests. It's one area where I will
do lipe as suction and feel good about it. I
actually developed and invented this technique called a chin tuck,
which involves doing a form of a limited necklift. It
involves repositioning the skin under the neck as well as
the deeper structures. It's a modification of what's called a
(40:52):
sub mental necklift. This is something much more limited, but
the results are significant. It's something I'm getting ready to
write up in our medical journal. But basically it's one
of those limited access techniques that actually delivers huge results
in a discrete, fast recovery way. Also, I think it
(41:15):
is a technique that I love to use in that
person who is genetically predisposed to a double chin.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
Are there any advancements in technology or procedures that haven't
hit mass market yet that you're excited about.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
Well, that kind of dovetails into my skincare. I think
the biggest thing that we're seeing, which is only going
to increase, is GLP one use. And GLP one use
is everywhere for all kinds of indications, from diabetes, heart disease,
to addictive personality issues to inflammatory conditions in the body.
(41:54):
I've just heard somebody talking about using low dose or
microdose for hypertension. The list goes on, and so as
of middle of last year, it was estimated one in
eight Americans are on a GLP one. That number is
exploding for all these reasons, off label use and so on.
Plus we expect to have a pill and or an
(42:16):
inhalational version of it coming out soon, probably by the
end of this year. So the reality is I started
researching this effect over the last two years because I
noted the dramatic change to the skin itself that seemed
to be independent of weight loss. And this research over
the last couple of years, and I have a lot
(42:37):
of experience and kind of scarring, wound healing, and immunology.
I use that experience to come up with a likely
mechanism for why the skin is significantly directly impacted by
GLP ones, and we just finished a study that is
in the process of being submitted for publication. But the
(43:00):
net effect is that there is a dramatic effect on
the skin itself. I've come up with this term that
I call GLP face and GLP skin, and it's not
meant to make fun of the issue, but rather to
describe what everybody's seeing. There are men and women that
are taking low dose with a ten pound weight loss
(43:24):
or less that their skin looks awful, and there's a
reason for it. The GLP one, which is an amazing
anti inflammatory agent, much like steroids are for certain conditions,
but it impairs the skin's natural protective power on a
number of levels. We've specifically mapped out specific cyto kinds,
(43:46):
which are basically the communicators between the cells and the
skin that are affected by this, and really have developed
an explanation for why the skin is much more sensitive
to the sun on a GLP one, why the skin
is much more likely to look dull and sagging on
a GLP one even with minimal weight loss. And so
(44:07):
this is the reason why I actually developed product that
is designed to reverse some of this, and we just
finished our clinicals. And when I say you're going to
be blown away by this, that is an understatement, and
I do believe based on what we saw in our study.
It's a six week it was a placebo controlled, meaning
(44:29):
one side of the face had placebo that looked and
felt like the active product. The results were staggering in
terms of the subjects their reported benefit. They all chose
the active side. Everybody was blinded to which side was which,
and everybody chose and it was obvious the dramatic benefit
(44:51):
of the active product. So I've been excited about a
lot of things professionally, I am beyond excited about this
product coming out, and I think it's going to revolutionize
the way we look at this issue. Like you would
look at some of these pictures and you would say,
this person, the only way this happened is had a laser.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
So usually skincare clinicals have like I see it before
and after, and it's better, but it is sort of
like a limited difference. This has a more dramatic before
and after.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
It is beyond dramatic.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
What do you use on your face?
Speaker 2 (45:27):
So I'll tell you my routine. I was plagued by acne.
Speaker 1 (45:31):
I mean, as a kid, you have no scars.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
It's a miracle at a very strict mom that would
not let me pick. But in any case, that was
a struggle, and it was a struggle to find skincare,
and most of my adolescent life I spent stripping my
skin and overdrying it and then dealing with hyper pigmentation,
and it was like a round and a round. So
my products are engineered to be really seen as nutrients
(46:00):
for the skin. If I oversimplify it, that's really the
way somebody should look at my products. We have engineered
them down to the cellular level to be seen as
clean food for your skin. So it allows the skin
to do what it knows how to do best. I
think it's ultimate arrogance to think that we as a
human being can figure out a way to do better
(46:22):
than what centuries of generations have done to engineer the
skin's resiliency. So that's the concept, and so really my
skin what I love using. I actually developed an I
rejuvenating serum with SPF because it's really hard to get
sunscreen around the eye. I mean, I have some pigment
(46:45):
in my underreyes, but it is much better since I've
started using this product. It also helps with puffiness, It
helps with fine lines and wrinkles, so that's one that
I use. In the morning, I use our tinted mineral sunscreen,
especially bald head number one. It makes it not so shiny,
but also doesn't cast a ghost. You can see. It's
(47:07):
not like ghost or powdery. It's good for all skin tones.
You can add the fairest skin or the darkest skin,
does not matter. The micronize kind of physical sign block
works the way that it needs to. There's no artificial chemicals,
so you don't have to worry about chemicals that are
harming the skin or causing other problems which have been
(47:27):
talked about. And then my favorite product, which is our
cheapest product and probably the most underrated or least talked about,
is our Gentle exfoliating cleanser. This has been my savior
in preventing breakouts because prior to me coming up with this,
I still would occasionally break out, and so I use
(47:49):
that as my wash. Then I use we have a
sheer moisturizer because my skin favors being oily. And it
sounds like a lot, but it's honestly, it's five minutes
in the morning. At night, I'll you is our supreme
oil serum for my bearded area, and that's it. As
I'm closer to sixty than fifty, I'm not just somebody
who talks about it. I actually follow it. I live it.
Speaker 1 (48:12):
Okay, I know I only have a few minutes left
with you, so I'm going to do a little rapid fire.
If you're okay with that, I'm ready, let's do it. Okay.
What do you wish more people did to take care
of their face before ever seeing a surgeon?
Speaker 2 (48:28):
I mean, honestly, I think it is prevention of sun exposure,
over beating the skin with sun and then expecting to
have an easy solution. The second would be just good skincare.
Speaker 1 (48:39):
Do you think skincare really matters?
Speaker 2 (48:41):
I do. I'm living proof of it. You know, you
do a little bit of skincare, it'll cure you in
the most dramatic way this morning to night. Not going overboard.
If you get to the point where you're spending more
than seven minutes on skincare, you've gone too far. I'd
say five to seven minutes. I know you're super I'm
crazy busy as well, but I can give five minutes
(49:04):
of self care.
Speaker 1 (49:05):
Okay, lasers Like if someone walks into your office and
wants sort of like a fresh face cleanup, what's the laser?
Speaker 2 (49:13):
I Love Love Syton is the name of the company.
They have the best lasers. They're all made in the US.
They're actually based up north in northern California. Two brilliant founders.
They engineer everything. They have figured things out, so broadband
lighter BBL, BBL heroes, they're new product. It's a game changer,
(49:38):
Halo laser. You can use it in my skin, use
it in your skin. An amazing tool with fast recovery.
You're talking to somebody who grew up on CO two laser.
People think, oh, that's like such a great treatment. It's
like hitting its fad moment. Now that thing is a blowtorch.
You can do so much damage. Again, what's old is new.
(50:01):
It's like the buckle fat pad. With CO two, you're
going to change the nature of the skin if you're
not careful. I mean, listen, they're very experienced derms and
plastic surgeons that know how to do CO two. But man,
that's like driving a car that doesn't have anti lock brakes.
The steering is no good and the tires are bald
(50:22):
and basically in the winter. It's a scary technology. So
I think their platform Moxie is also one that is amazing. Man.
They have come out with hit after hit and you
can dial it in or out.
Speaker 1 (50:36):
That's really nice to hear. I did a really intense
laser a few years ago. I forgot what it was called,
and I really regret it first why I was in
so much pain. I was read for days, But I
did it to get rid of some spots on my
cheek and they came back like a month later.
Speaker 2 (50:51):
This is the thing like, if you look at BBL,
there's no real downtime.
Speaker 1 (50:56):
How often do you do them?
Speaker 2 (50:58):
So BBL typically if and again this is the caveat
be good with sun protection. It doesn't mean you have
to hide from the sun, but be good with using
sun protection. Ultimately it can last for two three years.
If somebody is out in the sun and they're maybe
not so diligent or religious about sun protection, then you're
(51:18):
probably doing it every year.
Speaker 1 (51:19):
Are there any treatments that actually prevent aging or we
all just chasing collagen dreams over here?
Speaker 3 (51:25):
No?
Speaker 2 (51:25):
I think the biggest treatment And again where I don't
think it gets enough credit. Is boatox, ZM and disport
are the number one ways I do it myself. Like
I tend to favor acrease here, it would be ten
times deeper if I didn't do botox to the muscles
down here. My analogy is it's like a folding piece
(51:47):
of paper. If you're softening or weakening the way that
paper folds, the crease is not as deep, and you're
going to age better for it. I mean, you can
see lots of again actors. If you're looking at like
the forehead, for example, that will give away age. But
also you have to be thoughtful about not over botoxing.
(52:10):
So like I can raise my brow, I can still frown,
but it's doing it softer. The goal being you still
can move, but you're helping aging.
Speaker 1 (52:21):
I was just going to say, I really like that
you still have movement and signs of your age and
your face, but you look so refreshed. You don't have
botox face.
Speaker 2 (52:31):
If I have botox face when you meet me in person,
there's something that's gone really wrong. But a lot of.
Speaker 1 (52:38):
People like you said, in your industry. I went to
a dermatologist and his skin looks like glass and his
hair was so perfectly.
Speaker 2 (52:44):
Clopp That actually is a secret for and this is
probably an important cautionary tale. If you're going to a
dermatologist or plastic surgeon and they don't look the way
in terms of the way you would want to look philosophically,
probably don't want them to be the one doing your
treatment if they look way overdone and that's not in
(53:07):
line unless they're going to tell you, yeah, I'm overdone,
and man I got carried away with that filler. I
wish I didn't do it. Then you need to really
think about it.
Speaker 1 (53:16):
What's a sign of aging that you admire.
Speaker 2 (53:19):
I have seen some of the most extraordinarily beautiful women
who have salt and pepper hair. I think it's one
of the most interesting subtleties that you can see. There
are women who I think look better in that light
than they did when they have their natural dark pigment
in their hair. That is. I also think another thing
(53:39):
that actually looks really interesting with age in particular, we
can say it for women is when there is just
a little bit of loss of volume in the cheek area,
a subtle amount. I think that can be really sexy
and it shows that they may be in an older
(54:01):
age bracket, but at the same time they still look good.
The one last thing is not erasing all wrinkles. I
think that's the last thing I would say.
Speaker 1 (54:10):
Thank you for sharing those. I was thinking as you
said the cheek thing. I was thinking of Demi mour
because she has that and she's still so beautiful and sexy. Okay,
your future face, what's one procedure I'm going to go
through the generations or through the decades. I should say
one procedure you can think about in your twenties. If
you're going to do anything.
Speaker 2 (54:30):
In your twenties, it's botox.
Speaker 1 (54:32):
How about your thirties.
Speaker 2 (54:33):
Thirties, it's going to be laser consideration and strategic botox
still possible, super conservative filler. Forties forties, you're going to
be looking at the things to non surgically lift threadlifting
energy based technologies like soft wave or afal. There just
(54:56):
came out with all therap prime. You know their variety
of radio frequent and see devices that non surgically lift.
Goal being easier to treat something early than waiting for
a tall breakdown. Fifties fifties you get into the striking
zone of thinking about surgery.
Speaker 1 (55:13):
Our fifties are our sixties the facelift years.
Speaker 2 (55:16):
Fifties and sixties are ripe facelift territory because the techniques
are much easier for recovery and downtime. But also you
get this incredible ability to look really good in a
way that trying to overdo with fillers will not. People
are so afraid of surgery to the point where they're
(55:39):
willing to overdo a non surgical treatment that's worse.
Speaker 1 (55:43):
And then seventies and eighties, does that get to a
point where it's a little bit scarier to go under
or No.
Speaker 3 (55:50):
No.
Speaker 2 (55:50):
I just had a series of patients and their seventies
late seventies included that have done little strategic nip and tucks.
Again goal not being to completely erase, but just to nudge.
And that's typically an easier procedure to get through. It
has lesser downtime, and it can be a really nice adjunct. Plus,
(56:13):
if somebody's in their seventies, they scar beautifully like they
won't scar. You don't have to worry about a scar.
If somebody's seventy, you have to really be out of
bounds to cause a scar. Why is that this is
part of the way the care tenocyites and the cells
and the dermis actually behave they're not as robust in
(56:35):
their activity. So that's good news bad news. Bad news
is you're going to be more likely to see wrinkled skin.
Good news is you're going to scar much better.
Speaker 1 (56:43):
What's a book that you've read that you think everybody
should read.
Speaker 2 (56:46):
I think everybody should read Essentialism?
Speaker 1 (56:49):
And what's one thing that everybody should try one time?
Speaker 2 (56:53):
Sushi doctor?
Speaker 1 (56:54):
I few. I respect you so much. I really like
you. You're so fun to talk to. Thank you for sharing
so much of your time with me.
Speaker 2 (57:03):
It is an absolute pleasure. Danielle and I feel the same,
especially having been out in LA as long as you have.
You've kept your feet on the ground, so it's been
a lot of fun to get to know you.
Speaker 1 (57:14):
That's really kind. I'm still a Chicago girl at heart.
Speaker 2 (57:16):
I love it. That's a gift.
Speaker 1 (57:22):
Okay, you know what time it is. Today's a good day.
To have a good day. I'll see you next week.
No one has all the answers, but when we ask
the right questions, we get a little closer, closer to truths,
closer to each other, even closer to ourselves. I'm journalist
Danielle Robe, and each week, my guests and I come
together to challenge the status quo and our own ways
of thinking by daring to ask what if, why not?
(00:28):
And who says? So? Come curious, dig deep, and join
the conversation. It's time to question everything.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Hello.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Oh my god, I ghosted you guys for a few weeks.
I'm so sorry. I promise it was for a good reason,
and I also promise it won't ever happen again. I
really just went MIA. Usually I'll say something, or I'll
post older episodes as reruns, but I just I needed
a minute, And thank you for sticking with me through
the hiatus. I've been sitting on some news that I
(01:01):
can finally start to share a little bit, so thank
you for rocking with me through it all. I needed
a little breather because two exciting things happen. First, I
am filming a pilot for a major streamer, and who
knows where it goes. But I felt like I should
at least tell you about it, because I owe you
the truth and why I've been a MIA that's been
taking up a lot of my time. And secondly, there's
(01:24):
a big podcast Question Everything announcement coming your way in
just a few weeks. We are joining a major network,
but I don't want to share until it's all signed
on the dotted lines, So just know that I've been
MIA for a good reason. In the meantime, I've been
in New York City living out of suitcases, which is
not my forte because I'm so bad at working out
(01:44):
when I'm on the go. I haven't worked out now
in three weeks. But on the bright side, I had
some amazing moments in New York. I got to interview Malala, which, honestly,
this may sound corny, and I know I say that sometimes,
but it was a bucketless moment. I have wanted to
talk to her for years and feel her energy, and
(02:05):
she was so wonderful. I also got to grab coffees
and have a few meetings with people that why didn't
my aperture a little bit? Do you ever have those
moments where something that's been foggy for years suddenly feels
clear and you wonder like how you didn't see it sooner.
That's where I'm at, and I'm starting to put the
building blocks in place for what's ahead. I know that's
(02:25):
all pretty broad, but this community has some big things
popping off in the next six months. And yeah, I'm
really excited that you're here with me. So let's get
into today's episode. I have said no to every plastic
surgeon who has ever pitched this podcast, and not because
I'm against cosmetic work.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
I'm not.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
I just think most of us already spend plenty of
time thinking about how we look, and I never wanted
this show to add to any of that noise. We
get that from so many other places, and for people
who have been listening since the podcast was called pretty Smart,
which I named after reading a book called Beauty Sick,
which changed my life, then you know that I've believed
(03:06):
that beauty should be one of the things we think
about and not the only thing or the thing that
consumes us. And too often I think conversations about appearance
get stuck at the surface like that. But my hope
is that this episode is different. I wanted to have
a conversation about plastic surgery that doesn't feed the obsession,
but instead it is something that is in the zeitgeist.
(03:27):
It is all over my feet. I don't know if
it's all over yours, but I'm hoping that this conversation
invites thoughtfulness and perspective and a little bit of relief.
That said, if talking about appearance is at all triggering
for you, please listen with care or skip this episode
if that's something that you feel is triggering. But I
will say that I chose to interview a particular surgeon
(03:50):
for this reason. Doctor Julius View is the holistic plastic surgeon,
and he has earned that title. His philosophy is that
beauty should honor who you are, not erase it. So
over the past twenty years, he's quietly reshaped the aesthetics
industry by asking better questions, slowing the process down, and
(04:12):
treating restraint as a form of artistry. He even pioneered
what he calls the eighty five percent rule, intentionally stopping
short of perfect to preserve what's real and human and
actually beautiful. He's trusted by celebrities and VIPs across the country,
with practices in Chicago, New York, and Santa Monica. He's
also a clinical professor of plastic surgery at the University
(04:35):
of Chicago and a health science clinician at Northwestern University.
An impressive pedigree, right He's the surgeon people go to
when they want to look refreshed without looking done. And
I asked him all the questions. I was personally curious about,
what makes a face beautiful? Can you reverse bad filler?
Why are so many procedures aging people faster, what's the
(04:56):
real difference between looking refreshed and looking done? And when's
the right time to consider something like a facelift? What's
the most requested procedure in his office right now? We
also get into something he's especially passionate about how GLP
ones are affecting the skin and the product he's developing
that might actually be a game changer. So, yes, many questions,
(05:18):
but the one we're circling this episode is how can
we look our best selves, not like someone else and
definitely not like a shell of one. It's time to
question everything with doctor Julius. Feel as a holistic plastic surgeon,
you really emphasize keeping or enhancing people's unique traits, and
(05:42):
I'm really curious how you think about changing somebody's face
while enhancing it.
Speaker 2 (05:48):
We've gotten much better in the last twenty five years
at doing our work compared to the days of my training,
which it's hard to believe over thirty years ago. And
so really, I think what we're seeing is oftentimes an
attempt to go for perfection, and technically you can get
(06:09):
much closer. You can make somebody look so close to
perfect in a photograph that in real life they're scary.
And I think that this is the reality we're in.
And I really had the epiphany moment when I was
on the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, their board
of directors. I'm a big art fan, and basically what
(06:31):
I realized in meeting all these amazing artists and different
media was the idea that the best art had individual
expression and really plastic surgery by definition, is a form
of scientific art. And I felt like, Okay, if we
have all these tools to make somebody look better, you
(06:52):
don't want to make it look like something that is
out of basically a computer. And so that started me
on this path of less is more and I came
up with different doctrines over my career that fortunately have
been followed by many of my colleagues like the eighty
five percent rule, which is a simplified concept that even
(07:15):
though you can go to one hundred percent, filler is
a great example, go to eighty five percent, don't shoot
not to go past ninety percent, leave room for imagination.
And some of my best work over the last decade,
especially in some very famous faces, has been that rule
in mind and most of the people in my mind.
(07:38):
And again, I have Midwest roots. I know you have
Midwest roots, or at least of Midwest history. Is the
idea that nobody should be able to tell that you've
had work done. At least that's my view. So I've
tried to live this approach, and I believe as I've
gotten better at plastic surgery, I can get away with that.
I know how to do things in a way I
(08:00):
can hide. I have a very light footprint, and it's
plausible a lot of my clients are able to say
they've never done anything and get away with it. That's
my philosophy. It really has more holistic.
Speaker 1 (08:11):
I'm particularly curious about your philosophy on beauty, and I
want to preface the question with my personal philosophy has
grown over the years when I was in high school
or college, social media popped into all of our lives
for the first time, and I did think that beauty
was so much more about perfection. And as I get older,
(08:33):
when I watch TV or film, I love looking at
the imperfections of people's faces. I'm not just saying it
that is what makes them more beautiful. I mean, I'll
give Aaron Andrews as an example, because I'm a broadcaster
and she has a very distinctive nose and she's never
touched it, and she could have because she has a
(08:54):
lot of side profiles in her work and on TV.
And when I had always considered getting a nose job,
I would think about her, and I'm so glad now
that I'm older that I didn't touch it.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
I am so glad you didn't either, because I wouldn't cry.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Well, I'll go sideways.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
It's a very it would have been. Your nose fits
your face. You have a beautiful face. It fits you perfectly.
It's no incentive on my part to talk people out
of doing plastic surgery. I mean, I make a living,
I'm able to live a lifestyle, et cetera. But at
the same time, I've reached a point in my career
where I can and ultimately, like for you, I would
(09:40):
have kicked you out of my office too. I would
have said, what are you going for? What are you after?
And so on?
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Do you kick people out? Often?
Speaker 2 (09:47):
I do, and my staff will joke about it, like
I will probably once a week, and the nicest way.
I will say, you know, I got to think about that,
and then I'll think about it. I will thoughtfully digest
what they're at, I'll look at their pictures, I'll commit
the time, and then I will give them an answer.
But usually my gut instinct is right every single time.
(10:10):
And I can't tell you how many people have come
back to me five, ten, fifteen years later and have said,
I'm so glad you're talking me out of this. I'm
so glad for X, Y and Z reasons. And unfortunately
I have other cases where they go elsewhere because they
didn't believe that was the ideal move, and then they
(10:30):
come to me because they know I can fix it,
which is harder and it's traumatic and all the things.
So I think this whole idea of you everyone else
like our innate beauty. The secret is finding a way
to say okay, I can make this subtle alteration, or
(10:52):
I can preserve where you are in a way so
that you age in your best way, that you look
in your best way, and that the secret.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
In that vein. I'm curious what the difference is between
looking refreshed and looking done? Are there certain markers?
Speaker 2 (11:08):
I think the classic marker, which is the reason why
fillers have gotten such backlash. Fillers are I think amazing.
They're amazing tools, but they're powerful, and they last a
lot longer than anybody thought, including myself, and they can migrate,
so I think, really to me, in the last five years,
maybe six years, that's where filler's got a very bad rap,
(11:31):
because people were going on one hundred and twenty percent
of what was there. And when you go that far,
I have colleagues who look unrecognizable because they have access.
It's easy, they can inject themselves, et cetera. But literally
their eyes have been lost in their sockets because there's
(11:53):
so much filler here and they can't even move normally.
And it's a cautionary tale of how and where somebody
can go too far. Think about it. If you're a
dermatologist or plastic surgeon and you can inject yourself, which,
by the way, I inject myself with botox as an example,
it's not that hard to do botox. Filler totally different.
(12:15):
I've never tried to do it to myself. It's a
totally different paradigm because you're looking at a reflection and
you lose all depth perception. So what ends up happening
is you become used to the change and you say
that's not enough, I need more. Well, there are lots
of patients who come who have a similar reality where
(12:41):
they ultimately lose all perspective on what is good and
what is too much, and then they get lost in it.
Because this is such an important point you just brought up.
The idea of how someone can do too much and
get lost in it is what I call a distortion vortex.
(13:02):
And what that means is someone sees and feels the
excitement of looking better, so they get some put in,
whether it's a filler surgery, you name it laser, and
they look and they're like, I look so much better,
and I'm so psyched and everything is perfect. I want more.
(13:23):
But the psychology of it is very similar to any addiction.
You get this rush of dopamine from looking and seeing
yourself transformed. You want another hit.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
Well in LA I always say, there's this sort of
new ethnicity that's been created here, and it's the ethnicity
of plastic surgery face. And there's this look, and everybody
has the same nose and the same lips and the
same cheeks, and they're not all going to the same surgeons.
It's just this look. And I'm not against plastic surgery,
(13:56):
but I am sort of against the look.
Speaker 2 (13:59):
Making a new species is not the goal of plastic
It is not, and I could not agree more. You
are so right. Fortunately, I think we're coming out on
the other side of it because I was one of
the first, and that's probably why I got the tagline
of holistic plastic surgeon. I was one of the first
to really talk about thoughtful plastic surgery and natural results.
(14:21):
This goes back almost twenty years and so I think, finally,
and especially the new generation of plastic surgeons, if you
look at social media, that concept is all over the
place now, like people are moving towards this idea that
you know, less can be more. But it's because frankly,
(14:42):
we're scaring away potential patients by making people look like
a different species.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
A few years ago, there was a real housewife named
Sonia Morgan who got a facelift, and it was the
first facelift that I had seen that anybody had talked
about publicly that I thought looked good. And I was like, Okay,
maybe technology is getting better. Is it possible to have
a facelift and still look like a version of yourself?
Speaker 2 (15:12):
One thousand percent? That is my calling card, is really
making things look natural and anatomically appropriate. I think they're
different moves for example. Now, again this goes to the
whole thing I said at the very beginning of technology.
There's technology to remove glands in the neck. There's technology
(15:34):
to remove bones and cartilage in the neck, or the
face restructuring. You can do all kinds of things, but
the art is in not getting carried away. And there's
this obsession now with necks for example, of where the
neck becomes excavated. It's like, oh, I want my neck
(15:55):
to look so perfect and there's nothing there. But what
people I don't realize is that you know, in cancer
surgery you remove those glands for cancerous reasons, and that
is a very specific look. And I have colleagues who
are doing things that are reminiscent of cancer surgery, and
(16:16):
so to me, it's kind of this thing of should
that be the goal? We have the technology, but should
that be the goal? Should the obsession with a neck
that is perfect where you don't see any cords or
columns and so on? I mean, I have eighteen and
twenty year old boys, they have little chords. I mean,
am I going to go operate on them? I don't
(16:37):
think so. I think ultimately, as I say, it makes
so much sense. But if you're somebody coming in, especially
in Los Angeles, you have these talented doctors who have capabilities,
and you know they're all within half a block of
each other, it's hard to number one, know what to
do and what not to do, and two, everybody's trying
(17:00):
to outdo the other one. So guess what, that's not
a winning battle. So I would tell anybody, and this
is where hopefully I can make a consumer friendly announcement.
Is the idea that number one, if somebody is thinking
about I want to do X, I want to do
this laser, I want to make my face look less
(17:22):
tired or whatever, it is the first thing you should do.
You tell the doctor I want to be conservative. That
is the first thing you do, because if you set
that landscape number one, most doctors will be like, oh
thank God. And then the second part of that is
they will be able to give you all the options
(17:44):
without feeling pressured to hit a home run.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
And you know if you're at the right doctor, because
I have botox and I went to a place in
LA and said, I'm really conservative, and the look on
her face, I was like, We're not a match. And
I went back to Chicago the guy that I always
go to because he's conservative about it. Is there anything
else that you wish that patients knew coming in, anything
(18:08):
that they should be asking or things that we should
be thinking about.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Yeah, I mean I think there are a couple of
things that I think are big mistakes. Number One, I
think it absolutely is imperative to at least here more
than one or two options for any given issue, because
now we're in a technological reality where they do exist.
I think number two is the idea. And this is
(18:32):
again where I got the holistic kind of moniker. If
someone is going through a major life stress like a
parent died, or there's some major upheaval, divorce, you name
it a big negative event in life, you have to
give yourself time to heal before you think about something elective.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
I'm so glad you said that it's so much easier
to change your face than it is to deal with Greeder,
to deal with like a job loss, whatever, and so
to give that time is so important.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
It's so critical because I do believe the stress hormones
and so on that go with this, plus just the
psycho emotional parts, you put your procedure at high risk.
I also think really having a clear cut priority list.
So all the time I'll get somebody who comes in
now because of my reputation, I'll say, okay, my face
(19:25):
is yours, what would you do? And I always put
it back on them to say, honestly, when you woke
up this morning, what stood out to you as not recognizable?
Or if it's somebody who's younger, it's more, well, what
was it in your personal journey that led you to say,
you know what, I'm thinking about this every day and
(19:47):
I need to do something like what is that one thing?
You'd be shocked because every time I've been surprised. And
I think that's the advantage of somebody who's more experienced,
I mean I earned these gray hairs. Is the idea
that you kind of know the questions to ask to
get at the heart of what's going on. Similar to you,
(20:07):
when you're interviewing somebody, you know how to get me going,
and probably you may want to shut me down, but
it's the secret of understanding those questions. So much of
what is kind of both surgical and non surgical cosmetic
medicine is about what you see and what you're going
(20:28):
to do about it, and there's very little time spent
to the why. And I'd say that the biggest piece
of advice I would give anybody is number one, write
down why you're doing it, and be prepared to talk
about it at the interview before you do a thing.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
I'm going to brag about you for a minute. You
already know your resume, but I was pretty in awe
when I was researching University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine.
For your residency, you did general surgery at University of
Michigan Medical Center, followed by plastic surgery training at Northwestern University,
and then you received a special facial in eye cosmetic
(21:04):
training in Honolulu, New York and Atlanta. So I was
particularly interested in your special facial and ie cosmetic training
because in LA the biggest trend right now is upper blef.
For anybody listening, it's like eyelid surgery, right, you kind
of take the skin away from the eye. Yes, So
(21:26):
my curiosity around upper blef is is this going to
age well? Because all of these trends that happen. The
buckle fat pad that was a big trend. I don't
know how well that's aging.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
You hit the nail on the head. What's old as
new as the saying buckle fat pad removal was a
big trend in the seventies and then it largely was
abandoned because it did not age well. I think for blepharoplasty,
one of the things that I would say is it
really depends. And it gets back to that story of
why if somebody doing it because they don't like the
(22:02):
wrinkled skin and that's it, but they don't have any
real hooding. It's just a textural thing. Removing the skin
is not the answer. The other thing that is often missed,
like you have beautiful brow arch if the brows are heavy,
doing an upper blaphroplasty is the wrong thing to do
as a standalone. And ultimately the biggest thing I learned
(22:25):
in fellowship which has aged really well is the concept
that you have to stabilize the brow first before you
think about doing anything to the eyelid. If the brow
is naturally sitting in a nice arch and it's not hooded,
it's not going into the islet area, then you can
evaluate for excess. Again, though, the most important thing for
(22:48):
upper blaf railplasty is not scooping out everything because then
that does not age well. That actually will look potentially
haggard as somebody ages down the line. And so that's
a huge part of this is you have to and
again this would be a question to your surgeon is
should I feel that my brows are an issue here?
(23:10):
And that needs to be part of the discussion and
experience ophthalmic plastic surgeon such as myself is it's centered
on the idea that you have to look at the composite.
There's so much interconnectivity between the upper i lit and
lower eyelet and the forehead and these all are moving
parts together. And again the idea of harmony in terms
(23:33):
of these structures is critical. But an upper blepheroplasty is
an easy operation to do. I mean on surface, meaning
you don't have to necessarily be an eye specialist to
do an upper blepheroplasty if you're a trained plastic surgeon.
The problem is if you are not nuanced. And you're right,
there's this big trend of very young women having this done,
(23:57):
and again it's part of the backlash of fillers and botox.
Potentially that plays poorly because a lot of these individuals
will find themselves saying I don't like the wrinkling after
like down the road, and the wrinkling is going to
come because in essence, they haven't either addressed the brow
(24:17):
or the real issue they were after was the wrinkling
around the eye, which could have been managed with things
like botox or managed with other techniques sort of surgery.
I think that's kind of how I frame it. And
even though I'm a specialist, I've written books about eyelet surgery,
I've invented a couple of operations for the eye area.
(24:38):
To me, I always look in the back of my head,
can I make this person get by with botox first?
That's always what I think. Can I make botox work first?
And if there's a question. I strongly encourage them to
try it to see if they like it, because there's
nothing worse in my mind. And I've seen lots of
(25:00):
patients who have had elid surgery in all different kinds
of places. I've been referred to by other plastic surgeons,
and the truth is, had they done a thoughtful assessment,
they would have realized that patient would have been more
happy with botox than they would be with surgery.
Speaker 1 (25:15):
I know that you were a proponent of non invasive procedures,
but I didn't realize that you had invented some eyelid surgeries.
That's pretty remarkable.
Speaker 2 (25:25):
So when I first started out in practice at Northwestern,
this was back in ninety nine two thousand, fresh off
of my training, and that training was in depth. It
was reconstruction around the eye, it was doing things for cancer.
I mean, it was in depth as well as cosmetic.
At that time, a huge fad surgically was a mid facelift.
(25:48):
The mid facelift was done by making an incision in
the under eye and then lifting up the cheek from
the under eye. The problem was the dynamics of the
interplay between in the lower eyelid and the cheek. The
lower eyelid was not strong enough. So what was happening
is there were all kinds of people all over the
(26:09):
country that were coming in like this.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
For everyone listening, the eye is dragged down.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
It's dragged down. The lower eyelid literally is pulled away
from the eyeball itself, and that is called an ectropian.
It is any surgeon's worst nightmare, it's any patient's worst nightmare.
And so there were hundreds of these people walking around
looking like they were accident victims. And so the problem
(26:41):
with it is that approach going from the outside, you
couldn't fix it. There was no fix Like I would
see people who had ten operations to try to fix this.
Can you imagine you spent your savings to do a
surgery that then you become a reconstructive patient. So what
happened there was only one other person on staff and
(27:02):
the entire staff at Northwestern that did oculo plastic surgery,
and he had no idea how to manage this. So
he was rejecting all of them. He said, I have
no answer, you know, there's nothing to do. And so
what happened was I developed a technique which now is
a technique used both for this but also cosmetic because
(27:23):
it's much lower risk, is actually to do the mid
face lift through the inside. So there's a way to
go through the inside of the eyelid and then to
release those ligaments, and then it's much safer. I won't
bore you with the technical detail, but it is. Again,
when my colleagues read about this, because I've published it
(27:45):
in textbooks and medical journals, everybody looked at it as,
of course, that's obvious, because it is. It's like an
obvious way to go. It is less traumatic, you have
less swelling, there's less risk, and it's incredibly versatile. The
only issue is it's a learning curve. But I saved
probably one hundred people who had this condition that otherwise
(28:06):
would have had nowhere to go. And so we published
our data and this became a workhorse technique. But now
it's been modified over the years to be a workhorse
for cosmetic reasons and it's a much safer way to go.
You're not going to change the shape of the eye,
which is the second worst thing you can do, and
so it's really again it goes back to my core
(28:28):
tenant of you want to look like yourself still.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
I want to ask you about some procedures, and then
I want to talk about your skincare line that has
very beautiful packaging. By the way, I'm a big packaging girl.
It's really well done and it's heavy, it feels good
in your hand.
Speaker 2 (28:44):
It adds some stock to it for sure.
Speaker 1 (28:46):
Okay, so what is the most requested procedure in your
office right now?
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Well, I'm known for kind of a couple of things.
Eyes are certainly one of them. A specific form of
threadlifting I developed which has become at the standard approach,
certainly in North America. And then facelifting. I'm known for
the more understated facelift that still looks really damn good.
(29:11):
And those are the three things that I get the
most requests for. It's funny, though, lately what has happened,
and it just shows how long I've been doing this.
I have patients for my early career that were breast
patients who either their kids or relatives they're referring to
me because they've said, basically, You're the only person I
(29:32):
would let my child have breast surgery on, like on Monday.
I have a couple of patients who kind of fall
into that category. You know, I've done tens of thousands
of breast surgeries, so I'm not a stranger to it,
but you know, I'm very particular about the nature of
the surgery at this stage. I don't want to do
any surgery or any treatment where I don't feel like
(29:53):
I can be one hundred percent capable.
Speaker 1 (29:56):
What do you think about the technology of implants nowadays?
Had a friend in La do a fat transfer into
her breast instead, and the implants seem difficult because you
have to change them out every ten or fifteen years, right.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
So that is one of the common myths. You don't
have to necessarily change the implants out. They don't have
a set expiration as long as they're functioning the way
they're supposed to, and it's pretty easy to follow them
with an ultrasound. I think where implants get a bad rap,
it's similar. You're going to hear this theme they get
a bad rap when, in particular women try to go
(30:32):
much bigger than their body can tolerate. You're going to
get all kinds of weird risk and complications that are,
in my opinion, totally unnecessary. And fortunately, again we're seeing
this trend of going to They call it the yoga breast.
I guess or you hear all these terms, but it's
like this more petite breast. So for me, it's this
(30:56):
whole idea that you want it to match the box.
But in general, implants are incredibly safe when they're done
in a thoughtful way. Fat transfer is another incredibly good
tool if you have it, but in this world of
GLP ones, that's increasingly difficult. And by the way, if
somebody is on a GLP one and they do a
(31:16):
fat transfer, they're going to lose a lot of that benefit.
So the fat transfer is a trickier widget to count
on long term in this kind of post GLP one world.
Speaker 1 (31:27):
What's a procedure that doctors hate doing And.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
I want to get in trouble, but I'm going to
tell you it's liposection. Most plastic surgeons do not like
doing lpe A section, especially big volume. It is a
ton of manual labor. It's really hard on your body.
I have colleagues who've had to have their shoulders replaced.
It's no joke. It is the most physically disruptive thing
(31:51):
that you can do to yourself. It's just an unnatural
torque of the shoulder and so I really do very
little LiPo section now, it's not something I run.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
To Thanks for being honest, I appreciate that.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
I don't want to get any hate mail from my colleagues.
We're saying, wait a minute, you're giving LiPo a bad rap.
Because liposection still statistically is the most common plastic surgery procedure.
Speaker 1 (32:14):
What is a trend or an esthetic procedure that you
think is aging people faster?
Speaker 2 (32:19):
Honestly, I think the biggest one is overfilling. Overfilling the
face is guaranteed. And there are some people I'm not
going to say who in popular culture that have been
accused of looking older than they are.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
It's like the pillow face, right.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
It's the pillow face. This is the quickest way, and
I've got a lot of research to explain why, but
it is the quickest way to make somebody look older.
Speaker 1 (32:44):
Can you reverse bad filler or are you stuck with it?
Speaker 2 (32:47):
So that's where the challenge is. You can reverse it,
but then they look even older still. I had a
series of patients I just recently did where I had
to melt their filler and then I did facelips on them.
Everything literally sagged as a result, and they were people
who I think had they done something a bit more conservative,
they would not have been in the same predicament.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
Before we come back from break. A core pillar of
this podcast is the belief that we rise together. You
all support my dreams, and I am here to support
your dreams. And that's why I hop on a zoom
with a listener or sometimes two or three, just to connect.
Every week. We swap stories, we chat, and I see
how I can support you. And a few weeks ago,
(33:31):
I met Andrea. She's a career transition coach who helps
high achieving women reimagine their careers in a way that
feels good and still pays the bills well. And the
reason I wanted to share Andrea's work with you is
so many of you DM me saying I feel stuck
or I can't figure out what I really want to do,
and I'm happy to hop on a zoom, but a
(33:54):
lot of times what I think could be more helpful
is an executive coach, a career transition coach. And I
was so impressed with Andrea. I felt like if any
of those questions that I feel stuck or I can't
figure out what I want to do? Resonates with you.
Email Andrea. I put her information in the show notes,
but here's a little bit from her.
Speaker 3 (34:16):
Do you find yourself questioning everything lately? Who am I?
What am I doing? What's next? If so, you're not alone?
Speaker 1 (34:24):
Hi?
Speaker 3 (34:24):
There, I'm Andrea and I have lived in that space
between where everything looks fine on the outside but nothing
feels quite right on the inside. And clarity didn't come
from having the perfect plan. It came when I stopped
asking myself questions rooted in fear, questions like what if
I fail? What if I have to start over, and
instead started asking questions that were beating in my heart.
(34:47):
That's when everything changed. Because the questions we ask ourselves
don't just describe our reality, they have the power to
shape it. And as a career transition coach, I help
ambitious women stuck messy middle learn to ask themselves better questions,
the kind that reconnect them to who they are and
what they actually want, allowing them to move forward with
(35:09):
alignment self trust and clear next steps and life and career.
If that's you, I invite you to download my free
twenty one day guide Reclaim Your next chapter filled with
powerful questions to help you reset, reconnect, and rise.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
At the beginning of our conversation, you made a really
great and funny comment about how you've done some work
on celebrities that pretend like they haven't had anything done,
but obviously you know that they've had something done. I'm
curious what your take is on celebrities not admitting having
work done.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
I could write a book about my experiences, whether it
is going to their homes or finding very nondescript ways
to meet, or doing things in certain ways where they
confidentiality can be assured. I think the problem is, and
it's worse now than ever. Social media is brutal, it's ruthless.
(36:10):
A lot of the folks that I've had the pleasure
of taking care of are some of the nicest, most
genuine people you could hope to meet, and they are ravaged,
their kids are ravaged. People say the cruelest things, and
so if you're that person, the last thing you want
to do is say, well, yeah, I had plastic surgery,
or admit to having plastic surgery, because still then they're
(36:31):
going to be ruthless on that. And so I just
feel like everybody deserves privacy. And just because you make
a living being a public persona, you're doing a job.
Your job is acting or musician, and that doesn't give
anybody the right to pick into your private life unless
you want to give it up. But I think that's
(36:53):
the challenge. And I'm fully on the side of the
actor or musician that is famous because they deserve their privacy.
And that's why you will never hear me theorize about
who did what or whatever, because the truth is either
I may have done it, or I want to not
even make a theory as to why they did it.
It's not my place, and I think it's the most rude,
(37:16):
glowbrow thing somebody can do in my profession. And the
thing that gets me you got me in a role
is there's some people that I've taken care of where
I flip through social media. I don't follow these people,
but I'll flip through, and often it's somebody in another
country that is theorizing about one of our well known
(37:36):
American actors and they'll proceed to list all the things
and I'm watching this and I'm thinking, I know exactly
what they did, and you are full of shit. You're
so wrong. It's like a game I play, I look
on my phone, I look at Instagram, I watch. They'll
list a thing and I say wrong, They'll list another
thing wrong. It's one of these things where people deserve
(38:01):
their dignity and privacy, and I think maybe if society
as a whole we're a little kinder to the celebrity,
maybe they'd be willing to give it up. There are
celebrities who are open about some of the things they do,
but that's an unusual constitution to be that way.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
So one of the reasons that I don't feel like
we are owed the information is because I find it's
still very sexist because we don't really ask men about
what procedures they've had done, and once a woman comes
out and says they've had something done, it's everywhere. It's
in every magazine. We all know. We think about the
surgery before we think about their project or them. And
(38:42):
so I agree with you, I don't think we're owed anything,
But I particularly don't like the gendered practice of even
asking pun intended.
Speaker 2 (38:51):
It's two faced, and I agree with you the gender
bias of how you have to keep up as a
woman compared to a man. It is unfair, and that's
part of this thing. But again, it's interesting. I am
starting to see that trend shift a little bit more
towards men now, like where you as a man, because
of the technology, if you're an actor, you can't exactly
(39:14):
cruise like you could have, and that's an interesting reality.
We're seeing some of that for sure.
Speaker 1 (39:20):
Well, I've heard this thing. I don't know if this
is just a thing you hear in Hollywood, that there's
the leading man jawline that people have had for years
that they would get an implant and redo their jaw
the A list actors, but men just wouldn't talk about it.
So maybe now people are talking about it a little more. Also,
I love that your silent smile right now.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
I have no comment. I will make no.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
Comment how much of how we age as genetics versus
how much we can actually influence.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
I think genetics are everything. One of the big deciders
that I use to help answer the question of should
somebody do something now versus late, As I say, look
at your mom or your aunt or your grandmother and
how they played out. It is especially true for the
(40:09):
eye area and the neck. If I have somebody who
comes in, they have a slightly fuller neck, but it's
not bad. But looking at their mother or grandmother, they
have like this really heavy like double or triple neck.
I've said this, I've said, literally, you know what, let's
remove the fat there because it's not going to age well.
And that's a preemptive strike, and that is doing something
(40:31):
in their best interests. It's one area where I will
do lipe as suction and feel good about it. I
actually developed and invented this technique called a chin tuck,
which involves doing a form of a limited necklift. It
involves repositioning the skin under the neck as well as
the deeper structures. It's a modification of what's called a
(40:52):
sub mental necklift. This is something much more limited, but
the results are significant. It's something I'm getting ready to
write up in our medical journal. But basically it's one
of those limited access techniques that actually delivers huge results
in a discrete, fast recovery way. Also, I think it
(41:15):
is a technique that I love to use in that
person who is genetically predisposed to a double chin.
Speaker 1 (41:21):
Are there any advancements in technology or procedures that haven't
hit mass market yet that you're excited about.
Speaker 2 (41:29):
Well, that kind of dovetails into my skincare. I think
the biggest thing that we're seeing, which is only going
to increase, is GLP one use. And GLP one use
is everywhere for all kinds of indications, from diabetes, heart disease,
to addictive personality issues to inflammatory conditions in the body.
(41:54):
I've just heard somebody talking about using low dose or
microdose for hypertension. The list goes on, and so as
of middle of last year, it was estimated one in
eight Americans are on a GLP one. That number is
exploding for all these reasons, off label use and so on.
Plus we expect to have a pill and or an
(42:16):
inhalational version of it coming out soon, probably by the
end of this year. So the reality is I started
researching this effect over the last two years because I
noted the dramatic change to the skin itself that seemed
to be independent of weight loss. And this research over
the last couple of years, and I have a lot
(42:37):
of experience and kind of scarring, wound healing, and immunology.
I use that experience to come up with a likely
mechanism for why the skin is significantly directly impacted by
GLP ones, and we just finished a study that is
in the process of being submitted for publication. But the
(43:00):
net effect is that there is a dramatic effect on
the skin itself. I've come up with this term that
I call GLP face and GLP skin, and it's not
meant to make fun of the issue, but rather to
describe what everybody's seeing. There are men and women that
are taking low dose with a ten pound weight loss
(43:24):
or less that their skin looks awful, and there's a
reason for it. The GLP one, which is an amazing
anti inflammatory agent, much like steroids are for certain conditions,
but it impairs the skin's natural protective power on a
number of levels. We've specifically mapped out specific cyto kinds,
(43:46):
which are basically the communicators between the cells and the
skin that are affected by this, and really have developed
an explanation for why the skin is much more sensitive
to the sun on a GLP one, why the skin
is much more likely to look dull and sagging on
a GLP one even with minimal weight loss. And so
(44:07):
this is the reason why I actually developed product that
is designed to reverse some of this, and we just
finished our clinicals. And when I say you're going to
be blown away by this, that is an understatement, and
I do believe based on what we saw in our study.
It's a six week it was a placebo controlled, meaning
(44:29):
one side of the face had placebo that looked and
felt like the active product. The results were staggering in
terms of the subjects their reported benefit. They all chose
the active side. Everybody was blinded to which side was which,
and everybody chose and it was obvious the dramatic benefit
(44:51):
of the active product. So I've been excited about a
lot of things professionally, I am beyond excited about this
product coming out, and I think it's going to revolutionize
the way we look at this issue. Like you would
look at some of these pictures and you would say,
this person, the only way this happened is had a laser.
Speaker 1 (45:11):
So usually skincare clinicals have like I see it before
and after, and it's better, but it is sort of
like a limited difference. This has a more dramatic before
and after.
Speaker 2 (45:22):
It is beyond dramatic.
Speaker 1 (45:25):
What do you use on your face?
Speaker 2 (45:27):
So I'll tell you my routine. I was plagued by acne.
Speaker 1 (45:31):
I mean, as a kid, you have no scars.
Speaker 2 (45:33):
It's a miracle at a very strict mom that would
not let me pick. But in any case, that was
a struggle, and it was a struggle to find skincare,
and most of my adolescent life I spent stripping my
skin and overdrying it and then dealing with hyper pigmentation,
and it was like a round and a round. So
my products are engineered to be really seen as nutrients
(46:00):
for the skin. If I oversimplify it, that's really the
way somebody should look at my products. We have engineered
them down to the cellular level to be seen as
clean food for your skin. So it allows the skin
to do what it knows how to do best. I
think it's ultimate arrogance to think that we as a
human being can figure out a way to do better
(46:22):
than what centuries of generations have done to engineer the
skin's resiliency. So that's the concept, and so really my
skin what I love using. I actually developed an I
rejuvenating serum with SPF because it's really hard to get
sunscreen around the eye. I mean, I have some pigment
(46:45):
in my underreyes, but it is much better since I've
started using this product. It also helps with puffiness, It
helps with fine lines and wrinkles, so that's one that
I use. In the morning, I use our tinted mineral sunscreen,
especially bald head number one. It makes it not so shiny,
but also doesn't cast a ghost. You can see. It's
(47:07):
not like ghost or powdery. It's good for all skin tones.
You can add the fairest skin or the darkest skin,
does not matter. The micronize kind of physical sign block
works the way that it needs to. There's no artificial chemicals,
so you don't have to worry about chemicals that are
harming the skin or causing other problems which have been
(47:27):
talked about. And then my favorite product, which is our
cheapest product and probably the most underrated or least talked about,
is our Gentle exfoliating cleanser. This has been my savior
in preventing breakouts because prior to me coming up with this,
I still would occasionally break out, and so I use
(47:49):
that as my wash. Then I use we have a
sheer moisturizer because my skin favors being oily. And it
sounds like a lot, but it's honestly, it's five minutes
in the morning. At night, I'll you is our supreme
oil serum for my bearded area, and that's it. As
I'm closer to sixty than fifty, I'm not just somebody
who talks about it. I actually follow it. I live it.
Speaker 1 (48:12):
Okay, I know I only have a few minutes left
with you, so I'm going to do a little rapid fire.
If you're okay with that, I'm ready, let's do it. Okay.
What do you wish more people did to take care
of their face before ever seeing a surgeon?
Speaker 2 (48:28):
I mean, honestly, I think it is prevention of sun exposure,
over beating the skin with sun and then expecting to
have an easy solution. The second would be just good skincare.
Speaker 1 (48:39):
Do you think skincare really matters?
Speaker 2 (48:41):
I do. I'm living proof of it. You know, you
do a little bit of skincare, it'll cure you in
the most dramatic way this morning to night. Not going overboard.
If you get to the point where you're spending more
than seven minutes on skincare, you've gone too far. I'd
say five to seven minutes. I know you're super I'm
crazy busy as well, but I can give five minutes
(49:04):
of self care.
Speaker 1 (49:05):
Okay, lasers Like if someone walks into your office and
wants sort of like a fresh face cleanup, what's the laser?
Speaker 2 (49:13):
I Love Love Syton is the name of the company.
They have the best lasers. They're all made in the US.
They're actually based up north in northern California. Two brilliant founders.
They engineer everything. They have figured things out, so broadband
lighter BBL, BBL heroes, they're new product. It's a game changer,
(49:38):
Halo laser. You can use it in my skin, use
it in your skin. An amazing tool with fast recovery.
You're talking to somebody who grew up on CO two laser.
People think, oh, that's like such a great treatment. It's
like hitting its fad moment. Now that thing is a blowtorch.
You can do so much damage. Again, what's old is new.
(50:01):
It's like the buckle fat pad. With CO two, you're
going to change the nature of the skin if you're
not careful. I mean, listen, they're very experienced derms and
plastic surgeons that know how to do CO two. But man,
that's like driving a car that doesn't have anti lock brakes.
The steering is no good and the tires are bald
(50:22):
and basically in the winter. It's a scary technology. So
I think their platform Moxie is also one that is amazing. Man.
They have come out with hit after hit and you
can dial it in or out.
Speaker 1 (50:36):
That's really nice to hear. I did a really intense
laser a few years ago. I forgot what it was called,
and I really regret it first why I was in
so much pain. I was read for days, But I
did it to get rid of some spots on my
cheek and they came back like a month later.
Speaker 2 (50:51):
This is the thing like, if you look at BBL,
there's no real downtime.
Speaker 1 (50:56):
How often do you do them?
Speaker 2 (50:58):
So BBL typically if and again this is the caveat
be good with sun protection. It doesn't mean you have
to hide from the sun, but be good with using
sun protection. Ultimately it can last for two three years.
If somebody is out in the sun and they're maybe
not so diligent or religious about sun protection, then you're
(51:18):
probably doing it every year.
Speaker 1 (51:19):
Are there any treatments that actually prevent aging or we
all just chasing collagen dreams over here?
Speaker 3 (51:25):
No?
Speaker 2 (51:25):
I think the biggest treatment And again where I don't
think it gets enough credit. Is boatox, ZM and disport
are the number one ways I do it myself. Like
I tend to favor acrease here, it would be ten
times deeper if I didn't do botox to the muscles
down here. My analogy is it's like a folding piece
(51:47):
of paper. If you're softening or weakening the way that
paper folds, the crease is not as deep, and you're
going to age better for it. I mean, you can
see lots of again actors. If you're looking at like
the forehead, for example, that will give away age. But
also you have to be thoughtful about not over botoxing.
(52:10):
So like I can raise my brow, I can still frown,
but it's doing it softer. The goal being you still
can move, but you're helping aging.
Speaker 1 (52:21):
I was just going to say, I really like that
you still have movement and signs of your age and
your face, but you look so refreshed. You don't have
botox face.
Speaker 2 (52:31):
If I have botox face when you meet me in person,
there's something that's gone really wrong. But a lot of.
Speaker 1 (52:38):
People like you said, in your industry. I went to
a dermatologist and his skin looks like glass and his
hair was so perfectly.
Speaker 2 (52:44):
Clopp That actually is a secret for and this is
probably an important cautionary tale. If you're going to a
dermatologist or plastic surgeon and they don't look the way
in terms of the way you would want to look philosophically,
probably don't want them to be the one doing your
treatment if they look way overdone and that's not in
(53:07):
line unless they're going to tell you, yeah, I'm overdone,
and man I got carried away with that filler. I
wish I didn't do it. Then you need to really
think about it.
Speaker 1 (53:16):
What's a sign of aging that you admire.
Speaker 2 (53:19):
I have seen some of the most extraordinarily beautiful women
who have salt and pepper hair. I think it's one
of the most interesting subtleties that you can see. There
are women who I think look better in that light
than they did when they have their natural dark pigment
in their hair. That is. I also think another thing
(53:39):
that actually looks really interesting with age in particular, we
can say it for women is when there is just
a little bit of loss of volume in the cheek area,
a subtle amount. I think that can be really sexy
and it shows that they may be in an older
(54:01):
age bracket, but at the same time they still look good.
The one last thing is not erasing all wrinkles. I
think that's the last thing I would say.
Speaker 1 (54:10):
Thank you for sharing those. I was thinking as you
said the cheek thing. I was thinking of Demi mour
because she has that and she's still so beautiful and sexy. Okay,
your future face, what's one procedure I'm going to go
through the generations or through the decades. I should say
one procedure you can think about in your twenties. If
you're going to do anything.
Speaker 2 (54:30):
In your twenties, it's botox.
Speaker 1 (54:32):
How about your thirties.
Speaker 2 (54:33):
Thirties, it's going to be laser consideration and strategic botox
still possible, super conservative filler. Forties forties, you're going to
be looking at the things to non surgically lift threadlifting
energy based technologies like soft wave or afal. There just
(54:56):
came out with all therap prime. You know their variety
of radio frequent and see devices that non surgically lift.
Goal being easier to treat something early than waiting for
a tall breakdown. Fifties fifties you get into the striking
zone of thinking about surgery.
Speaker 1 (55:13):
Our fifties are our sixties the facelift years.
Speaker 2 (55:16):
Fifties and sixties are ripe facelift territory because the techniques
are much easier for recovery and downtime. But also you
get this incredible ability to look really good in a
way that trying to overdo with fillers will not. People
are so afraid of surgery to the point where they're
(55:39):
willing to overdo a non surgical treatment that's worse.
Speaker 1 (55:43):
And then seventies and eighties, does that get to a
point where it's a little bit scarier to go under
or No.
Speaker 3 (55:50):
No.
Speaker 2 (55:50):
I just had a series of patients and their seventies
late seventies included that have done little strategic nip and tucks.
Again goal not being to completely erase, but just to nudge.
And that's typically an easier procedure to get through. It
has lesser downtime, and it can be a really nice adjunct. Plus,
(56:13):
if somebody's in their seventies, they scar beautifully like they
won't scar. You don't have to worry about a scar.
If somebody's seventy, you have to really be out of
bounds to cause a scar. Why is that this is
part of the way the care tenocyites and the cells
and the dermis actually behave they're not as robust in
(56:35):
their activity. So that's good news bad news. Bad news
is you're going to be more likely to see wrinkled skin.
Good news is you're going to scar much better.
Speaker 1 (56:43):
What's a book that you've read that you think everybody
should read.
Speaker 2 (56:46):
I think everybody should read Essentialism?
Speaker 1 (56:49):
And what's one thing that everybody should try one time?
Speaker 2 (56:53):
Sushi doctor?
Speaker 1 (56:54):
I few. I respect you so much. I really like
you. You're so fun to talk to. Thank you for sharing
so much of your time with me.
Speaker 2 (57:03):
It is an absolute pleasure. Danielle and I feel the same,
especially having been out in LA as long as you have.
You've kept your feet on the ground, so it's been
a lot of fun to get to know you.
Speaker 1 (57:14):
That's really kind. I'm still a Chicago girl at heart.
Speaker 2 (57:16):
I love it. That's a gift.
Speaker 1 (57:22):
Okay, you know what time it is. Today's a good day.
To have a good day. I'll see you next week.
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