from NT – Beauty Marketing di settembre 2011
Also available in the pdf version
32 the beauty marketing magazine issue no. 79 September 2011
How to rejuvenate hands
Hands are one of the first ‘witnesses’ of the actual age of a person. The Aesthetic Surgeon advises beauticians to use anti-ageing treatments that are most indicated for a Beauty Salon.
Often barely considered, hands are actually a part of the body that require most cosmetic care, especially against skin ageing. We discussed the topic with Stefanos Vourtsis, Specialist in Reconstructive Plastic Surgery and Cosmetic Surgery.
“More or less starting from the age of thirty”, says the doctor, “hands start undergoing a process that is technically defined as skeletisation. From being smooth and silky, as time goes by the skin on the back of the hand is inclined to become thinner and lose part of its subcutaneous thickness, with the subsequent appearance of being marked by the individual structures, such as tendons and superficial veins”.
A TIMELY INTERVENTION
After observing that skin ageing of the hand also manifests with other typical signs, such as wrinkles and skin spots, Stefanos Vourtsis continues to describe the interventions of aesthetic medicine that are most indicated to attempt to solve or even limit the problem in question, “We can say that medical clinics roughly administer the same treatments that are used against facial ageing. Those which act on the surface, such as fractionated CO2 laser, pulsed light and radiofrequency, are particularly indicated”. Always to benefit the appearance of the back of the hand, which is the ‘social’ part of the hand, infiltrations, which effectively restore a good degree of subcutaneous thickness and the balance of volumes, are very useful for extreme cases. “We can administer both small injections of highly moisturising substances, such as revitalising agents that contain free hyaluronic acid, and liposculpture/lipofilling procedures”, says Dr. Vourtsis.
CUSTOMISED COSMETIC TREATMENTS
The Surgeon’s words infer that even the beautician, after defining a plan with the Aesthetic Surgeon, can propose manual procedures studied both to prevent ageing of the hand, and to maintain the results obtained with medical interventions.
“It is important for the beautician to keep in mind that the skin on the back of the hand does not have the same intensive regenerative capacity as facial skin,” says Dr. Vourtsis, “and, therefore, it must be treated with greater caution especially after surface treatments, such as CO2 laser therapy and chemical peeling. Light and gentle massages that redistribute subcutaneous volumes homogeneously, and which stimulate lymphatic drainage, are excellent during the period that closely follows surgical procedures, such as infiltrations and liposculpture, to avoid causing inflammation or aggravating any bruises present in the subcutaneous tissue. Massage cycles with cosmetic substances that first have a lenitive action and then a highly moisturising and elasticising action can, generally, be a very good conservative choice. Finally, for younger clients, the beautician can propose light peeling and depigmenting treatments that can achieve good effects when skin spots are still forming”.