You’ve got the perfect dress. The perfect pumps. The perfect date.
You want to look in the mirror and see Katy Perry, but all you see is Tyler Perry.
It’s not too late. There is still time to tuck and pluck, nip and snip so you’ll look more like Madonna and less like Madea for holiday party season.
Think of this as the “12 Ways ‘Til Christmas.” Here are 12 steps you can take to make heads turn when you walk into your holiday party.
Perk up your ears
As we get older, our ears follow suit with the rest of our skin and they begin to lose collagen and elastin. The ears cannot support the weight of earrings like they used to, which causes the jewelry to droop and sag. Dr. Susan Van Dyke of Van Dyke Laser & Skin says Juvederm can instantly and effectively restore ears so that they support ear jewelry like they did when the skin was more youthful. Juvederm is an injectable filler made from a sugar naturally found in skin. It gives firmness to the skin by holding a large amount of water.
Face the facts
If your face isn’t looking as bright and cheery as you want it to look, an antioxidant brightening facial from Red Door Spa might be just what you need. Your skin constantly sloughs off dead cells. These cells can clog pores and give the skin an aged look. A revitalizing and detoxifying facial will repair cellular damage caused by daily stress, strengthen the skin’s ability to protect itself and restore luminosity.
White Christmas
Smile Simplicity is a new, non-invasive smile enhancement, veneer technology that is pain free. Smile Simplicity, which is offered by the Scottsdale Smile Center, works on stained, misaligned and gapped teeth and dramatically improves smiles quickly and painlessly. Plus it provides permanent whitening. For those who are looking for a quick fix to brighten up their smile, there is no better or more affordable way to upgrade your pearly whites than to get them whitened. Dr. Jeffrey Clark of Scottsdale Dental Excellence offers a special type of whitening called Opalescence Boost Bleaching, which takes less than an hour and is guaranteed to leave your teeth sparkling new.
Need a lift?
Body Beautiful Day & Med Spa is the first day spa in the Valley to offer the Fractora Firm by Invasix, which is the newest generation of safe skin tightening technology. The process of Fractora is unlike most other skin tightening treatments. Rather than making incisions, laser technicians gently heat skin to an optimal temperature, which causes the skin to naturally remodel and contract. The treatment only takes 30 minutes and can repair loose skin on the face, jaw, neck, upper arms forearms, upper thighs, knees, and post baby tummy skin. There is no hospitalization or recovery period.
Bye, bye butterfly
Have you avoided the perfect party dress because of tattoo regret? Thanks to PicoSure — which is 100 times faster than any other laser on the market — there may be time to erase the ink before your company Christmas party. PicoSure, which is offered by Phoenix Skin, has a couple of advantages over other tattoo removal procedures: its offers a shorter timeframe between treatments and fewer treatments necessary for removal.
In a different vein
Have ugly veins you want to erase? “Sclerotherapy, laser and endovenous ablation are methods to treat veins depending on the location and size of the veins,” says Dr. W. Patrick Davey of Dermatique. “Laser treatment using ultrasonic guidance is effective in closing larger, deeper veins. Occasionally, lasers are used on the skin’s surface following sclerotherapy to treat tiny blood vessels that are either too small for sclerotherapy or that have failed to respond to previous injections.”
Smooth operator
Want thing to go a little more smoothly this holiday season? Laser hair removal is now “the standard of care to permanently decrease if not eradicate hair in any given area,” says Dr. Bill Halmi of Arizona Advanced Dermatology. “The results are usually very long lasting — several years. It is also not uncommon to have permanent removal.” Dr. Mark A. Blair of Paradise Valley Dermatology says, “best results can be achieved by a person with fair skin and dark hair. That being said, laser hair removal is possible for all skin types with the proper wavelength laser platform.”
Don’t sweat the small stuff
Nervous about holiday party season? You’re not alone. Nearly 3 percent of the population suffers from hyperhidrosis (excessive sweating). According to Van Dyke, once a year Botox injections can dramatically reduce sweating in most people. The savings in dry cleaning alone make it worthwhile. Men and women are increasingly turning to Botox to solve this problem.
Fat gets cold shoulder
“CoolSculpting is as a revolutionary new technology based on decades old knowledge that uses cold temperatures to ‘freeze’ fat cells,” says Dr. Michael Carlton of Phoenix CoolBody, which has two Valley locations. “After a single treatment you can see a remarkable 20-25 percent reduction in fat in the treated area. Results are long lasting and no surgery is required.”
Extend yourself
Stacy Ghazi of Vanity Blow Out Bar says that if you want a lion’s mane of hair to frame your face for the holidays, clip-in hair extensions may be the way to go. Clip-ins do the least damage because the hair is attached with clips. Vanity Blow Out Bar uses a special type of clip-in (the halo) that is placed around the head, which adds length and only takes minutes to apply. Ghazi calls the halo method an “up-and-coming trend.”
If you’re a do-in-yourselfer and want perfect party hair, you can achieve the perfect blowout with Drybar’s Blowout In A Box, which includes Drybar’s trio of tools — the Buttercup (official blow dryer of Drybar), full pint medium round brush (for achieving curl and volume on all hair types), and Hold Me! clips (featuring a self-locking system that allows for large sectioning).
Want pouty party lips?
“Injectables can be used not only to plump lips and fill wrinkles, but they can also add youthful volume back to cheeks, enlarge small chins or breasts, lift brows, volumize aging hands, and fill under eye hollows,” says Dr. Lee Laris of Phoenix Skin. “We also use fillers to improve acne scars.”
The eyes have it
“The most popular procedure I have done this year is to brighten the upper face by focusing on the eyes,” Van Dyke says. “I use fillers such as Restylane and Juvederm to reduce the hollows under the eyes (the tired look) and tear trough (the sad look). I employ relaxers such as Botox and Dysport to raise the brow and soften the crow’s feet. The overall effect is soft and subtle, but nevertheless, remarkable.”
