As technology and innovation continue to advance, the medical industry, specifically plastic surgery, is seeing some of the most beneficial results from those technologies. Some plastic surgery trends include laser facials and radio frequency body contouring, which have increased the amount of minimally invasive procedures completed and lead to less patient recovery time and expense.
According to a report from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, Americans spent more than $16.5 billion on cosmetic plastic surgery and minimally invasive procedures in 2018. The most-performed minimally invasive cosmetic procedures include wrinkle treatment injections (such as Botox), chemical peels and microdermabrasion.
We spoke with Dr. Pablo Prichard, chief of Plastic Surgery at HonorHealth John C. Lincoln Medical Center in Phoenix about the beauty trends to watch for in 2020: fillers, Botox, body contouring and outpatient procedures with less recovery time.
AZ Big Media: What are some trends for fillers- jawline, nose, cheek and dermal?
Dr. Pablo Prichard: Fillers are becoming more important, there’s many more different kinds of fillers these days and they’re used for different purposes. Some of the fillers are a little harder or softer and now it’s so great because we can contour people’s faces; gone are the days of being genetically gifted with a strong jawline, straight nose or a prominent chin, all these features have become more popular, jawlines are especially popular in males. Whereas in the past we would be putting in implants and invasive surgeries with lots of recovery time and are expensive. Now in a simple office procedure, you can get some of these harder fillers along the jawline to give it a really nice line all the way across and into the chin area, that’s been increasing in popularity in 2019 and I think it’s going to explode in 2020.
Same thing in the cheek area, you can really match the angles of the jawline with the cheek and create that v pattern,with a hollow in between, that’s pretty modelesque and gives you nice facial features. But if someone doesn’t want to have model-looking facial features, and just wants a little more youth to the face, we can give them a little bit softer fillers and more diffuse, because as we age, we lose volume in the face and we can inject a softer filler, more diffusing in the face so we have nice full features which is very youthful looking or we can inject a harder filler for stronger lines for a more sculpted look.
Fillers are used in the nose area to fix divots, a lot of people have a little bit of a crooked nose, that doesn’t necessarily mean a big surgery, so whenever I have a patient, I do a little bit of filler in the nose and then I show them in the mirror, they’re floored with how much better it can look with just a little bit of filler.
Depending on the type acne scars, you can get improvement, but it’s not necessarily perfect, sometimes we combine these treatments, so we do dermabrasion plus dermal filler to get it as smooth as possible, and sometimes if they’re lighter acne scars, you can treat them entirely with filler.
ABM: What are some trends you’re seeing for Botox?
PP: I’m seeing a bigger trend in younger patients seeking Botox. I’ve noticed this trend for the past couple years, but it’s definitely getting bigger and bigger. I’m seeing a lot of people in their early 20s coming in for botox as preventative versus when they’re older and wanting a lot of botox. A lot of ladies and some gentlemen as well come in to treat between the eyebrows and along the crow’s feet area, but it’s also very popular in the underarm area.
When you do Botox in the underarm area, you’re basically paralyzing the sweat the odor glands, and that lasts for a long time; people don’t have to wear deodorant because they don’t sweat or have odor anymore. Plus for women, they love the fact that they can wear black dresses and silk tops and not stain them with deodorant, so that’s become increasingly popular. Especially towards the hot season, more people get that.
ABM: How is technology, including laser facials and radio frequency for body contouring, impacting the industry in 2020?
PP: Laser facials have become more popular and doing a whole lot of different techniques at the same time. A lot of times when you do these minimally invasive techniques, you have to do multiple sessions to get the result that we’re looking for, but a lot of the times when you incorporate multiple different minimally invasive procedures at the same time, then you’re kind of getting that additive effect, so for instance when you’re doing a facial with microneedling with stem cell therapy and radio frequency at the same time.
One of the most popular things I’ve seen for radio frequency–which is basically a heat therapy that’s tightening, so causing tiny burns in the tissue in micro areas across the face or body and as the body heals, the skin contracts, so it causes a tightening effect. The nice thing about these is that they’re minimally invasive, so there’s almost no downtime. The patients I’ve done face tightening for on their jawline or under neck area, they love that there’s so little downtime and when they go see their friends, they say ‘your jawline looks fantastic,’ and they’ve barely done anything.
People are getting busier and busier with so many different things- their job duties and social interactions, so they want as little downtime as possible, so these types of procedures are becoming way more popular.
