Looking your age is less about trying to be someone you’re not, and more about being comfortable and confident in your own skin. No matter how young or old you are, we can agree that we all want to look and feel our best.
Do we want to look younger than our age, or not look older? Thanks to advances in science and medicine, people are living longer and looking younger in the process. Many women feel their best when they look their best; they also want to look their best without anyone noticing that they’re trying to!
While some women want to fight aging, and others hope to look younger, I think many women want to look and feel their best for their own age. I personally don’t feel I need to look like I’m in my 20s again, but I would like to look and feel the best that I can for my 40s.
Research shows Canadian women work to enhance their look not for social acceptance, but because it makes them feel more confident. In fact, 71 per cent say they make the effort to look good first and foremost for themselves – validation from others matters less. With this unique approach to facial aesthetic treatments, women can now unapologetically ask for exactly what they want and have it all on their own terms.
Dr. Mauricio de Maio, an internationally renowned facial aesthetics expert, who has travelled the world educating fellow physicians on how to make woman feel and look great, has pioneered an innovative way to treat lines and wrinkles that focuses on feelings first. De Maio coined the term, MD Codes, which considers the full face and recognizes that individual areas of the face are inherently linked to specific emotional attributes.
I sat down with Dr. de Maio to talk about his approach to helping women feel and look great.
What makes your approach unique?
Dr. de Maio: The difference is that I try to bring a system. The MD Codes are what everyone was injecting but not what I would call intuitively; they’d see lines and empty spaces. I started creating a system where they would know clearly why they were injecting, where, how much.
Why have fillers become mainstream?
Dr. de Maio: Because we need them. I compare them with teeth. Over the years dentistry has improved; not only did we learn to fix the decay early, we also learned how to improve quality and make them whiter. Go back and look at your grandmother and the mothers of your grandmothers. And now look at the women in their 60s now – they are different humans. There is a big difference, because the world has changed. We have more access to new technologies, techniques and products. We have more resources to reach better, even more and more use.
What do you say to someone who says you should age naturally?
Dr. de Maio:
If you interfere with your aging process, if you exercise and protect your skin, if you take care of your health, you reach the age of 80 differently. I personally don’t see teeth, health and aesthetics as separate entities.
What do people look for when they come to see you?
Dr. de Maio:
The people that visit are a select group of people that feel that appearance is important. When I travel around the world, I see many people undertreated. If you go to big cities, people are treated but the vast majority are untreated. When people say, “Mauricio what are people looking for?” I say people want to look better, whatever that might be; some people want to look less tired, more attractive – that’s why I created the emotional attributes, the main objective for your appearance.
If I came to see you for a consultation, what would you say to me?
Dr. de Maio:
Maria, look at the mirror and point three areas you’d like to treat, one is most important to you:
My answers:
1. Lip lines
2. Crow’s feet
What I notice is your personality – I look at your age and your face and I scan it. Then I put those on a scale from 0 to 10; with 10 as your best. And I never disclose it. Then when you visit me, I will try to improve the number. Then I listen to what you tell me; then I look to see if I can increase that number. In your case, the lip lines and crow’s feet are not strong enough.
Now at your age, what would you like to achieve with these treatments? You have to choose three things:
1. Less tired
2. Less sad
3. Less saggy
4. Less angry
5. More attractive
6. Younger
7. Slimmer
8. More feminine
My answers:
1. Slimmer
2. Younger
3. Less Sad
Dr. de Maio:
You didn’t hesitate here as much as you hesitated with the first question; what is interesting is that what you asked of me and the attributes you chose didn’t match.
You have great genetics; you look younger for your age, so you have the positives. And when I look at your negative messages, you don’t have downgrading factors. Let’s suppose I had another 42-year-old woman beside you. The secret of good appearance is good genetics and absence of negative messages; you don’t look tired, you have a positive image. You were born with it. Unfortunately not everyone has it and this is where this other woman who wasn’t born with it needs help.
And you need to preserve what you have; for you in consultation I would say let’s talk about what to do to preserve your attractiveness and youthfulness in the years to come. And I would try to preserve your budget. That’s what you’d expect from good professional – to tell you, don’t spend your money where you don’t need it.
The signs of aging are inevitable for all of us. Luckily for many people who want to prevent these signs from becoming too prominent, wrinkles and loss of fullness in the face can be treated with fillers like Juvéderm®.
Juvéderm is a family of facial fillers used by your cosmetic doctor to refresh your appearance by smoothing away unwanted lines and bringing back the natural contours of your face. Others use it for lifting the cheeks, plumping the lips, filling loose or sagging skin, and ultimately hoping for a subtle younger look.
There is a misconception about this treatment because some people have overdone the use of fillers, and end up looking different; but when expertly injected, filler should look natural. The goal is to plump and lift in other parts of the face for a more natural-looking result – to look like yourself, but a slightly refreshed version.
Dr. de Maio’s approach of helping women determine how they want to look and feel is innovative and unique. The ultimate goal when considering a treatment is not only to look your best but feel your best – at any age.
For more information on fillers, or to find a local registered aesthetic medicine professional, visit Juvederm.ca.
This post is proudly sponsored by Allergan Canada. As always, the opinions expressed herein are my own.
