“Smooth away your wrinkly knees, droopy bust and claw-like hands in minutes!” Advertisements like these seduce us into believing that miracles are possible and will entice anyone wanting to get back the young body they once took for granted!
A chance to delay one's fading beauty and stay the inevitable onslaught of old age has captured the imagination of the public since time immemorial. The reality can be painful. For eons women have concentrated their attention with single-minded devotion to their faces. And so we see wonderfully preserved features on a beautiful face with high cheekbones and virtually unlined foreheads or wide set eyes and full-bodied lips.
Of late the perception has been that we have mastered the techniques to restore youth to the face and now need to concentrate on other parts of the body. A more shapely and svelte body is being called for and many women feel that their bodies are not in harmony with the reworked face.
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Thus there seems to be a shift in direction and these very concerned women are turning their attention to a host of items such as wrinkly hands, sagging chests, bony feet, loose arm pit flesh, surplus belly button skin and lined necks.
Something new
In this intensely driven world of beauty fads, there is always a new kid on the block. And the latest new product along with collagen is hyaluronic acid, which is the other big product being used in the fight against wrinkles. It makes signs of ageing disappear by making the skin appear more youthful. The material is injected into areas that need to be plumped up and made to look firmer. It also lasts longer than collagen. Thus injections like hyaluronic acid are used to plump crepey skin. For those not in the know this is skin that has a lot of fine lines, thin skin and wrinkles. And the injections used on the body are known as body fillers.
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No matter how much we push our bodies with exercise and calorie control, we all realise that dieting and exercise alone cannot stem the tide of ageing. As women get older collagen production in the body slows down and results in wrinkling. Add to this the lifestyle changes of sun damage, eating habits and bodily alterations through childbirth. However, it is not all doom and gloom from here onwards! The downward spiral can be temporarily staved off with the help of a syringe that can reshape parts of our body.
Hyaluronic acid is gel-like in appearance and found in large quantities in our bodies in our youth. But, as we age, it slowly gets destroyed. We can see this by squeezing the skin between two fingers. In younger people the skin goes back to its former volume. But in older people the ability to restore the skin itself is reduced. For example, at 50 we only have 50 per cent of our hyaluronic acid left.
It is more expensive to work on the body than the face as the body requires much more filler than facial lines. So the price can workout to as much as a luxury car. Poonam, a beauty and image consultant, says “If a woman wants something, she has the tenacity to go after it and if it relates to herself nothing can stop her.”
Body image is of paramount importance to most women. Anita (name changed), a mother of three and a successful lawyer, had image issues despite being a high achiever. She opted for Botox for her face, thermage to tighten body skin and juvederm injections to pump the drooping chest she felt was “obsolete and unattractive”. After the treatment she seems satisfied. She delights in showing me her new body and believes her “skin is now firmer and smoother”.
Using a syringe means one is able to target areas previously off limits due to the intricate network of veins and tendons. What women love about this treatment is that it does not happen all at once. Over the course of three treatments at monthly intervals — each session lasts only 30 minutes — the filler begins to stimulate collagen production.
Gradual visibility
So the visible results occur gradually. Any immediate plumping is so subtle that nobody suspects you have had ‘work' done. Sonia agrees, “None of my friends knew what I was doing but they all remarked on how great I was looking.” She adds with glee, “They could not guess but thought I was on a new diet!”
Most ladies I spoke feel that the price is justified. What many spend on rejuvenating scrubs, anti-ageing creams and wonder serums, body filler devotees unstintingly lavish into procedures that get them the dramatic results they are happy with. Many concur that creams and serums do not have any recognisable visible effect only a pick-me-up psychological feeling.
Women now want the kind of results that show almost instantly. Of course all these attempts are temporary but the writing is on the wall. The end of the scalpel and knife seems to be on the horizon. It seems syringes are the future way to maintain the honed bodies we took for granted in our youth.