Winter in Paris? Yes, please!!
It's been quite a few years since I had the pleasure of a voyage to Paris (that's what happens when you're 'grounded' with a young child!) so it was a real thrill to be back in the City of Love (with my number one Love Child in tow!) for this year's IMCAS conference..the 15th year. And gosh, how it has grown in size since my last visit!
I also attended a full day masterclass on facial anatomy, courtesy of Ipsen Pharmaceuticals who make the French brand of anti-wrinkle injectable.
Followed by a live demonstration of a cadaver facial dissection by one of Paris' best plastic surgeons, it was a great reminder of basic facial anatomy, and the importance of landmarks to avoid rare but nasty complications from cosmetic injecting.
The venue was an absolute knock-out too.. in classic Parisian chi-chi style!
It was also lovely to see some other Australian injectors over there, as well as some Galderma reps.
As usual, the views of Paris were breathtakingly gorgeous for anyone who values aesthetic beauty..whether in architecture, fashion, homewares or faces!
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| View from my apartment! |
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| The original Mona Lisa! |
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| The walk home! |
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| Our last night in Paris..the view from the very top of the Eiffel Tower! |
IMCAS this year addressed a number of topics of growing concern, which will be the focus of some of the Skin Temple blog posts for the next few months.
These include:
- the issue of trust in cosmetic practice..thanks to the PIP breast implant fiasco in France (and the death of one woman in Hong Kong from an unproven 'cosmetic' procedure gone horribly wrong) in 2012
- hand rejuvenation
- neck rejuvenation
- periorbital laser resurfacing
- laser hair removal updates
- facial volumetry ( a topic of MASSIVE interest with the American dermatologists attending the conference)
- mens skincare
- mens rejuvenation techniques
- advanced muscle relaxant injecting
- ultrasound tightening
- lipolysis- new treatment options
- treating skin of colour
- laser tattoo removal advances
It was wonderful to see how much American aesthetics is evolving..from the brash and over filled look of the nineties, to something that is starting to resemble our approach to beauty in Australia.
Unlike Australia, many of the fillers currently used extensively in Europe and Australia for many years still remain unavailable in the USA..which really explains why they seem to be so obsessed with the relatively new (to them) area of facial volumetry!
I love the humour of this Mona Lisa image though, and there is an Australian version out there in cyberspace but I've not managed to track it down yet! Needless to say that she's a brunette with much smaller breasts, lips and well defined eyebrows though! I'm sure that if we could see her full smile, we'd also find teeth that are much more natural looking in colour and shape than those seen so often in the USA too! When individual features are too perfect looking, it screams "fake" a mile away!
Especially when someone over 50years of age has perfectly pure white, porcelain veneers..
Cultural differences are very real, and also extend to the Asian
communities, where almost 100% of muscle relaxant patients will have
their masseters treated for jawline reshaping.
With my enroute stopover in Hong Kong I managed to sneak in a visit to Madame Tussaud's ..and spotted the dummies of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt...both of whom have jawlines that would be taboo in Chinese culture...though he would probably be accepted more readily than his wife! Wax dummies really are quite freakishly life like..the skin luminosity that most celebs have these days is replicated beautifully on the manniquins. I think that explains my aversion to Nicole Kidman's too frozen forehead..it really looks very waxy at times, and I think her wax dummy would probably look freakishly real..like Angelina's and Madonna's also.
So, with all that in mind, it is my pleasure to keep anti-wrinkle injections looking natural wherever possible..after all, we use our eyebrows to communicate non-verbally, and this is a critical factor in interpersonal relationships, not just from an aesthetic point of view.
Sometimes, the best way to evaluate an aesthetic outcome is to view the patient 's static AND residual dynamic expression, rather than try to completely obliterate it! My opinion only!
