Gone are the days of plastic surgery being performed quietly behind closed doors. instead of, Hollywood Reporter She hosted the inaugural A-List Aesthetics event in Beverly Hills on Wednesday for a day of open discussion about plastic surgery, post-op care and knife-free alternatives to maintaining a youthful appearance.
Timing for THRThis special digital event titled “The New Face of Hollywood” is presented by Skinbetter Science and SkinCeuticals and sponsored by Alma, Body by Apyx, Galderma, Omnilux and The Practice Healthcare. The day featured five wide-ranging panel discussions at the Bel-Air Hotel, and among guests were able to pick up some goodies from the sponsors at the curated market.
Mindy Kaling, Chloe Fineman, Paula Abdul, Heather Graham, James Charles, and Garcelle Beauvais were among the stars in attendance, mingling alongside some of the best doctors and estheticians in the country.
The day started with words from THR Publisher Laurie O’Connor and the first conversation of the day is titled “Back: Reclaiming Balance, Beauty, and Confidence.” THR Senior Vice President of Sales and Brand Strategy Liz Cooley moderated the conversation between Dr. Babak Azizzadeh, Dr. Darren Smith and Dr. Sarmila Sundar, which touched on the intricacies of facelifts, upper blepharoplasty procedures and the so-called “mommy makeover.”
Sander, a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon, talked about how impactful work around the eyes in particular is, “You can make a little difference with someone’s eyelid surgery and everyone will notice. You can do a more dramatic lower face and neck lift, and people will say, ‘Oh, you look fresh.’ But when you look at your eyes, people really notice.”
Azizzadeh, director of the Center for Advanced Facial Plastic Surgery and clinical chief of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery at Cedars-Sinai Health System, explained the importance of finding the right surgeon, emphasizing: “You have to make sure that not only are they great on social media, great surgeons and so forth, and safe — but their aesthetic eye, the way they look at the face, are the same as your goals.”
A conversation on “After Party: After Action Protocols” was followed where THR Contributing Editor Alicia Rubin sat down with Dr. Kelly Killeen, Dr. Prem Tripathi, and Dr. Carl Trousdale to discuss the best ways to heal from plastic surgery, with diet, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, red light therapy, and peptides.
“What I tell my patients is that it all starts with preparation,” said Beverly Hills surgeon Trousdale. “I can perform a beautiful, flawless surgery, but unless we have a plan on how the patient will recover, everything will go to the trash.”
Next up was “Age Against the Machine: Liberating Longevity and Optimization,” with Robin joined by Dr. Ava Shamban, Dr. Tess Mauricio, and Crystal Muilenburg.
Mauricio, Dermatologist and Founder of M Beauty Clinic, shouted her longtime client Abdul from the crowd as the “Queen of Longevity” while praising how far regenerative aesthetics have come. “In the past, what we were really doing was filling in and cutting off excess skin. But what if we could really reverse the action of the skin? What if we could really make your skin and cells behave like they were younger? And we are able to do that now.”
The group also highlighted the efficiency of Sculptra injections, an aesthetic injection that stimulates the body’s natural collagen production, and Shamban highlighted the combination of laser in the doctor’s office and science-based skin care at home.
Entertainment reporter Kat Sadler led the conversation “Don’t Use Knives: Non-Surgical Solutions,” which she began by noting that she had a facelift three years ago and “now I talk about my facelift all the time, ad nauseam.” Sadler is joined by Dr. Macrine Alexiades, Natalia Guzman, FNP-C, CANS, and Dr. Kian Karimi to discuss knife-free alternatives.
Karimi, a facial plastic surgeon, told the room that “for patients trying non-surgical cosmetic procedures, Sculptra, EZ Gel [a natural dermal fillermade from a patient’s own blood] And laser – which is the cornerstone of every treatment we do, almost every day. He also quipped that the job of a plastic surgeon requires “that we be equal scientists, artists, technicians and psychologists everywhere,” and that he feels some envy toward dentists, whose celebrity clients take pride in their teeth “but you can’t talk about facelifts or fillers or probiotics.”
Alexiadis, a scientist and dermatologist to the stars, said her approach is “to try to get the skin back to its age before it starts to deteriorate. Hence my ability with celebrities, actors and people of status, to enable them to still move their faces, but not have wrinkles – just like we did when we were young.”
Feynman is one of those clients and appeared during the panel to talk about how she showed Alexiades a red carpet photo of herself with the “Spock eyebrow” and after one appointment, her face softened. “I had no idea I looked so naughty,” the comedian joked, while also noting that “a lot of girls in… SNL You look really good, the producers and a lot of the women in New York. I feel like there is a secret group of us who share who we go to – everyone is exposed. I think there’s a new trend to be more open about this.
The event concluded with a talk titled “Poetry Today, Poetry Tomorrow: A Little Science. A Lot of Poetry,” with Dr. Blair Murphy-Rose, Jennifer Hollander MSN, FNP-C, and Dr. Drew Taylor, moderated by Cooley. The conversation touched on scalp health and hair loss, with Hollander emphasizing, “Hair is very emotional. When patients come in, they’re kind of dumbfounded. They’ve tried everything under the sun, and our approach to scalp health or hair restoration in general is very holistic; in the same way that I approach skin health, I also approach scalp health.”
“The hair space is one of the fastest growing spaces right now in cosmetic medicine,” Taylor added, with some new treatments in the works that are still years away. “There are still those early stages of testing, but we also see hair as a great target in regenerative medicine, and as regenerative medicine grows, and regenerative aesthetics grows, we’re seeing a lot of that.”
This also included a discussion on stem cells, with Taylor explaining that “cells are the next currency in our healthcare” and talking about how, apart from beauty treatments, there are eight people in the US now living with 3D printed bladders made from their own cells. “The loss that can occur can be due to age, or due to damage, or disease, or any of these things, and we are actually restoring ourselves to a previous functional state and using our own biology to be able to do that,” he said. “This is the promise of regenerative medicine.”
Other notable names attending the event included Jeannie Mai, Jamie Chung, Monet Mazur and Holland Roden.
