Beautiful Skin Highlands, NC

Skin Beautifying Treatments

Dr. Buchanan and his highly skilled team at the Center for Plastic Surgery can help you achieve beautifully healthy or rejuvenated skin through the use of proper skin care, skin rejuvenation systems and equipment, spa services, lasers, the IPL, peels, injectables, and mineral makeup.

We all would like to have the flawless skin of babies. Their skin is:

smooth
hydrated with
a thin outer protective dead cell layer,
a thick dermal support layer,
good elasticity,
good blood supply,
and an even color.

Many things effect this balance and are a factor over time. The major factors:

Sun exposure,
Gravity,
Loss of supporting volume,
Loss of skin thickness and elasticity,
Underlying muscle actions,

Sun exposure increases the normal loss of collagen that thickens and supports the skin and the elastin that gives it its contractility. As it disturbs the cells making these necessary components, it also causes abnormalities in the nuclear makeup of other cells that can lead to actinic keratoses, skin cancer or other problems. It also causes an increase of the outer dead cell layer causing dullness and dryness as well as adding weight that increases the likelihood of developing wrinkles. Additionally, it reduces blood supply that speeds the other actions and causes an increase in small abnormal vessels on the cheeks and elsewhere causing redness or a flushed appearance (telangiectasia – also lumped with Rosacea). Smoking, poor diet and some environmental factors increase these effects.

Gravity stretches the skin and underlying tissues and pulls them down. However, the result depends on subcutaneous ligaments that prevent complete descent and cause irregular banding and structures like the tear troughs, the nasolabial and marionette folds and jowls.

Loss of skin thickness and elasticity results in more skin stretch and less resistance to other forces resulting in more wrinkles.

Loss of volume at a time when the skin is not producing elastin accentuates the problems caused by gravity and allows the skin to become irregular or “crapey”.

As the skin thins, it can no longer resist the pull of the underlying muscles as it once did. Loss of elasticity also means that, instead of contracting and simply shortening as the muscle pulls on it, the skin begins to accordion or pleat. With loss of thickness and increase in strength of the muscles with time this is exaggerated.

We believe that good skin care for minimally damaged skin should prevent these and other problems. We, therefore, recommend minimally as Basic Skin Care:

Cleansing with a specially formulated gentle cleanser.
Removal of the thickened, dry dead cell layer to restore moisture and remove weight by:
- Use of Alpha and/or Beta Hydroxyls (available over-the–counter), and may be combined with the cleanser.
- Regular microdermabrasion, or
- Regular micropeels.
Restoration of normal pH and protective lipid layer and protective barrier by:
- Specialized balancing toners
- Topical Vitamin-C Serum or
- SkinMedica Antioxidant Serum
Protection using a sunblock containing clear Zinc Oxide, the only product that is practical since it lasts longer than other UVA blocks and also protects you from UVB.

This is, essentially all you need for skin care unless you have an exceptional problem like Acne or another disease process. All the things that the cosmetic industry tries to sell you are mostly either worthless or actually do harm. An example of a harmful product is a moisturizer. It actually discourages your skin from making its own moisture and weights the skin down, encouraging wrinkles. Things like collagen or hyaluronic acid in a product can do nothing for you as their molecules are so large that there is no way they could ever be absorbed where they could do anything for you.

Around 30 years of age, you should add something to the above to keep the cells working making new collagen and elastic tissue. We call this Basic Skin Care Plus. We add:

A proven retinol, like Retivance® by Obagi® or Retinol Complex® by SkinMedica, or tretinoin (Retin-A) to stimulate collagen production.
ELASTIderm® by Obagi®, the only product at this time that has been proven to convert new collagen to elastin.

»Want younger looking skin? We can help! Contact us today!

If significant problems are present, they must be addressed in addition to the above basic care. This can be a single addition or a combination of treatments. Skin health restoration IS A PROCESS, NOT a product. Healthy skin is Smooth, Firm, Elastic, Evenly Pigmented, Hydrated and as void of predisposing problems as possible. To restore damaged skin to this condition, we:

Begin with Basic Skin Care plus as above.
Correct the Pigment by removing spots & making the rest of the skin a uniform color using mainly Hydroquinone, some botanicals, and, to some extent topical Vitamin-C (the Obagi® Nu-Derm system combines Basic Skin Care Plus with Hydroquinone in such a way that they all work together 2-3 times more effectively than otherwise) or IPL (Intense Pulsed Light), occasionally supplemented with peels and micro peels.
Remove abnormal blood vessels (called telangiectasia) using an IPL.
Remove muscle function that is increasing wrinkling using BOTOX® Cosmetic, where possible. Unfortunately, many muscles causing wrinkles cannot be treated as they are necessary for normal expression and eye or lip function.
Remove wrinkles faster than possible with tretinoin alone with Fruit acid peels, Phenol peels, or Laser resurfacing or, the least invasive method, filling them using Juvéderm™ Volbella and supporting and stiffening the dermis by crisscrossing Juvéderm™ Vollure or Volbella under the area of wrinkles and Microneedling.
Treat any severely damaged or premalignant cells by Cryotherapy, Photodynamic Therapy, or chemotherapy like Imiquimod or 5FU (Efudex® or Fluroplex®).
Treat the results of gravity and volume loss with surgery (such as Blepharoplasty, Brow Lift, and/or Lip Revision) or improved or disguised by smoothing the skin and reducing wrinkles with injections of fat, Juvéderm^® Ultra, Juvéderm® Voluma, Juvéderm® Vollure™, Juvéderm® Volbella™, or a combination (Today’s Liquid Lift™).

For further information, please see: