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This podcast is just talking about sort of the new normal and what the new normal is, is not, I’m not talking about the post pandemic or during the pandemic issues that we’re dealing with, or the terrorism that has occurred since 2001 that has changed our new paradigm of how we see things, but it’s really focused on how we see beauty and youth today. It’s interesting that back in the 1980s, there was a show called the Golden Girls and the girls were in the early sixties, roughly, and they looked very, very old. And it’s funny that I have a lot of my patients now, they come to me in their fifties and sixties and they don’t look old at all. And whatever that definition of old may be it sort of shifted. And this is, you know, before the era of minor small injectable therapies that were available such as Botox and fillers, back in the eighties, there was really just, you know, facelifts and of course back then the technology, even of the surgical techniques were not that advanced.

And so people did not look great even with the surgery. Today, of course, surgery has gotten so far advanced to minimally invasive surgical procedures to fat grafting, understand that it’s not all about lifting and pulling, but augmenting and lifting and doing a combination of techniques that are all so much less invasive and faster recovery than it was about 30 years ago. But I had a patient that came to me in her late fifties, and she said, you know, I look pretty good for my age. And I said, yeah, but you know, in my head, I honestly thought, yes, you know, you did, you would have about 30 years ago, but there’s such a paradigm shift today where people just don’t look like their age anymore. And that may be good or bad. I remember seeing this, Facebook meme about how in the early nineties before Audrey Hepburn passed away at the age of, I think 60, some years of 80, 63, perhaps that she said, look, don’t retouch any of my wrinkles .

I’ve earned all of them. And there’s something classy about hearing that at the same time, you know, we judge each other, we look at someone and says, wow, she looks really good. The reason we think like, you know, Raquel Welch looks so good in her seventies is because she doesn’t look 70. She looks like she’s 40 and a good 40 without any wrinkles. And, you know, like Christie Brinkley. And unfortunately recently I think when she joined the MERS campaign, she started to be way over filled, which is sad. But, you know, she’s in her sixties and people said, you know, Christie Brinkley, it looks really good. You know, why she looks really good because she looks like she’s 35. And so our paradigm now is a lot younger. What’s interesting from a cultural standpoint is they did a study for Asian women in Asia and they found that in Asian women in their forties should have no crow’s feet.

Like not, not even a little bit. Where is in America for fair-skinned individuals, a couple of crow’s feet, short crow’s feet is actually considered normal and not a big deal. So it’s just a cultural difference there about how we see even aging, but even today, the cultural shift has moved away from someone aging to the point where there is extensive wrinkles or sagging neck. People just look like a younger version of themselves. I think about the casts are friends today. Well, you know, Courtney Cox looks a little bit overdone, but you look at Jennifer Anniston and she just looks great. Now, why does she look great? Because she doesn’t look 50 something, she looks like she’s 30 something and a good 30 something with minimal wrinkles and good jawline and things like that.

So, you know, our standard has really shifted. And I think the other interesting thing talking about racism in cultures is that, you know, unfortunately fairs can women always had the short end of the stick because of sun damage. And I think the number one reason people get older besides genetics is really sun exposure. And those that have a lot of sun exposure when they’re younger, have a lot more aging. And those that are darker skin still get sun damage still get aging, but you look at the really fair skin women. Those that haven’t really been outdoors that haven’t really been outside haven’t gotten the sun in their face for many, many years. They don’t have as much aging and some of them don’t have much aging at all. So I always say that, you know, if you look at sort of the latitudes and longitudes of the world, fair-skinned individuals were meant to be living in very Northern climes like London, that’s not that North, but it’s sun covered from sun.

And, you know, they’re not meant to be in Texas where I practice in Australia and that heavy sun that’s there is what’s causing so much aging. So one lesson I have is even if you don’t want to invest in Botox or fillers is really try to avoid the sun is the number one reason why I think anyone including darker skin individuals, age is because of sun. And if you can limit the sun exposure, you can limit the amount of aging you have. And what’s amazing with Botox and fillers is that they really do last there’s this there’s this thought process that they only last a few months and they’re gone. And I’ve seen people when they’ve been with me for a couple of years with these small treatments, is that build so much college and improvement that I don’t see them sometimes for five years.

And I’m shocked. They look younger still than the day that I met them from the very beginning, because there’s this cumulative build of all these products that they just look better and better over time. Of course, you know, genetic aging and chronologic aging and sun aging can undermine some of those elements, but all of that still lasts so, so long. So the point of this podcast is just to think about cultural differences. Think about just the differences, how we view youthfulness and aging today in our new normal today is really youthful looking individuals throughout their entire lifespan. And I think because people are living much longer today they want to look their best. And that’s a huge different, interesting thing that in the past they didn’t have, there wasn’t that availability people had to have surgery.

And again, nowadays with surgery, the recovery is so much faster that has made a big difference. And also people just look natural and some people don’t want to look on natural. So, you know, my recovery times using something called tranexamic acid or TXA has cut down my bruising profile incredibly short in the vast majority of cases using pyrograph technology for fat grafting has allowed me to really, really reduce the recovery times from even two years ago. So it’s, you know, in the past, I would say you would look really beaten up for about seven to 14 days. Now, I’m just saying you probably will look slightly swollen for a few days. It’s now sort of approach to what fillers would be in many respects, which is shocking to even say that out loud. But things have really changed. I mean, in terms of recovery times, my major surgery is oftentimes can be almost a short as my office procedures. So that’s really, what’s exciting. And today we’re just seeing a new paradigm of what we consider youthful, what we consider older.