Healthy Skin Expert Dermatology Advice

Battle Royale

Feel like you’re at war with your skin? One minute you’re dealing with crow’s feet and the next you’re fighting a volcano-size pimple on your chin. Arm yourself with our guide to banishing blemishes and fine lines for your most flawless face ever.

CURB PRODUCT OVERLOAD
You graduated high school years ago, so why is there a trail of pimples along your chin, jaw line and neck? “Adult acne is usually caused by a combination of factors, including stress and hormone fluctuations,” says Dr. Lisa Kellett, a dermatologist at DLK on Avenue in Toronto. But the most common reason that her patients come in with nagging breakouts? A change in skincare products – the culprit often being wrinkle cream. “While anti-aging products are effective at reducing fine lines and firming up sagging skin, the rich consistency of these creams can clog pores and cause blemishes for some people,” she says. If you notice a breakout after introducing a new product to your regime, put it on hold until you’re sure that it’s not to blame. Kellett also advises booking a visit with your dermatologist a breakout persists beyond a month – a full skin analysis will get root of the problem.

PREP YOUR SKIN
Keeping your skin on track starts with an anti-acne targeting morning routine. Start by cleansing your face with a hydrating - not drying - oil-free acne wash. While harsh cleansers might seem like the best solution for acne prone skin, Kellett says that these products can strip your skin of its natural oils. “This can cause glands to overproduce oil, making the original problem even worse,” she cautions. Follow up your cleanser with a thin gel-like moisturizer that contains salicylic acid, which helps keeps pores clear of dead skin cells. And don’t skip the sunscreen: “Most women with this skin type avoid SPF because they think it will add more oil to their face,” she says. Finding the right formula that won’t aggravate your skin is essential: Look for a clear spray or lightweight facial lotion with SPF and apply before leaving the house to prevent skin damage and premature aging.

GET EVEN
The key to keeping your complexion looking young and fresh is to go easy on the makeup, even if you have problem skin that needs covering up. “The most modern look is flawless skin without a heavy dose of foundation,” says Sheri Stroh, a makeup artist in Toronto whose celebrity clients have included Cate Blanchette and Penelope Cruz. Her secret for the perfect canvas? Primer. A thin layer will help even out skin tone and texture, while prepping for smooth makeup application (extra points if the portion contains a serum to combat lines throughout the day). To cover blemishes without drawing attention to aging skin, your best bet is a lightweight moisturizing foundation. Stroh uses both a foundation brush and sponge to slowly build coverage and seamlessly blend along the edges. “We see the blemishes on our own faces more than others do,” she says, “but people will notice a face caked with foundation.” This step will do the job for most imperfections, but for less prominent blemishes, Stroh likes using a sheer, light-diffusing concealer for a natural look. If your T-zone produces a ton of oil throughout the day, swap wrinkle enhancing face blotting powder for a mattifying gel – applied in the morning and throughout the day – to control shine without messing up your makeup.

THE NIGHT SHIFT
Round out your routine with night time treatments to take advantage of your skins natural restoration period. A glycolic acid toner and resurfacing lotion both specifically designed for oily skin are go-to products before bed. The glycolic acid will zero in on fine lines and blemishes by promoting cell renewal, making your complexion look smoother. For skin that’s starting to loose firmness, look for a moisturizing treatment with Hyaluronic acid or retinol- both of which help plump up fine lines. Use a patting motion to apply, and pay special attention to eye area, mouth and forehead, where fine lines tend to congregate. But don’t limit your treatment to problem area, says Kellett. Instead she recommends applying a thin layer of treatment over your entire face and neck to target existing issues while helping to prevent new ones.

From Glow Magazine, February/March 2012 - Written by Jillian Vieira

BULLISH ON BOTOX - It’s high time I investigated the controversial subject of Botox and fillers and I knew exactly where to go: DLK on Avenue Road in Yorkville

The trip to DLK was nostalgic because its location was formerly the Mira Linder Spa in the City where I worked back in the ’80s. It seemed fitting that Canada’s original day spa was reincarnated into a well-respected dermatologist office and swanky skin care centre. DLK offers state-of-the art, non-surgical skin therapies with Botox, fillers and laser light skin treatments that refresh complexions and address dark under-eye circles, hollowing, sags and bags, brown spots, wrinkles and acne.

I felt very comfortable walking through a door that buzzed me in and filling out papers as important as those at a hospital. This is serious skin care business built by a respected, innovative, intelligent and insightful woman named Dr. Lisa Kellett.

When I met Kellett years ago I immediately liked her matter-of-fact skin care approach, psychology and sophisticated concoctions she’d whip up to treat this or that. She is a trusted source and I knew she would have the answers to pass on to you.

“Men want to look fresh and less tired,” says Kellett. “They don’t want to look like they did anything, just a fresher version of themselves. As men get older, they don’t like being told that they look tired when going into a meeting and they’re not tired.

“Competing against the young and eager can also put the pressure on to look better.”

Finding real information about Botox and fillers isn’t easy or accurate because Health Canada won’t allow the distributors or doctors to say what these substances do on-line. This is a disservice to patients who are trying to get qualified valid information that examines the benefits and risks.

Yet there are no regulations for on-line bloggers or patients who aren’t qualified. Their information isn’t enough and is often exaggerated and biased.

Here’s what I learned:

• Botox is a pediatric drug. It’s used for lazy eye and cerebral palsy. It’s not an adult drug. This isn’t well known.

• Early testing of volume building filler was on men with HIV to fill out facial hollowing and deep folds.

• Any injectable therapy should only be performed in a professional medical clinic by a physician or supervised registered nurse. Non-medical persons should not be administering injectables. “There are colleges for nurses and physicians that can regulate this,” says Kellett. “But there’s no one to regulate non-medical people and that is wrong. Health Canada should be on that and they’re not.”

• The popular “Botox party” is frowned upon by dermatologists. The alcohol at these parties compromises the mind. People should not be signing consent forms when under the influence.

• When done well these treatments can look very natural and enhancing. Go too far and you run the risk of looking like Jocelyn Weinstein or Kenny Rogers.

From IN Toronto - February 2012 | Written by Dino Dilio

Experts Beauty Primer - Skin Secrets

What makeup looks best for your wedding? How to wear your hair? Tips for perfect skin? We’ve got answers from an all-star beauty panel.

Dr. Lisa Kellett of DLK on Avenue says acne is the number one complaint from brides-to-be about their skin. Here are Dr. Kellett’s tips for great skin.

• Practice good home care. “Use an exfoliating cleanser, a benzoyl peroxide gel and a gel moisturizer. Add serums and topical vitamins like A and C as required. Also wear sunscreen every day—an SPF of 30 is ideal for the face.”

• Step up your regime. “Meet with a dermatologist 12 months pre-wedding to map out a treatment program, which may include diamond peels, epidermal or SilkPeels.”

From Weddingbells Magazine, Spring/Summer 2012

Unabashed lashes: We test a few eye-popping augmentation options on for size

To flutter is to flirt. Yet I have never heard a man check out a lady’s facial hair (“Man, did you see how she blinked those lashes?”). Nonetheless, the pursuit for thicker, longer, darker and fuller eyelashes is an obsession for me, and for many. Lashes frame and enhance the eyes (the anatomical area many women would remind men serves as a window to the soul). The cosmetics industry has responded with a myriad of products — you can wave a wand, you can glue on fakes, you can grow your own — and I tried several of them out.

LATISSE
Price  $150 for a month’s supply
What it is  Just as Viagra was initially developed as heart medication and Botox as a muscle paralyzer for eyelid spasms, Latisse was formulated as an eye drop for glaucoma. As a side effect, it tends to make your eyelashes longer, darker and fuller. “The results are pretty stunning. It provides a 106% increase in fullness which is remarkable for any drug,” Dr. Lisa Kellett of DLK on Avenue, told me. Lashes have a life cycle of about 60 days so it takes eight weeks of daily application to yield the most noticeable results. I don’t take my vitamins daily so remembering to sweep a line of liquid across my lash line (like eyeliner) was challenging.
What it does What does 106% more look like? On me, at least, not much. My lashes were maybe a couple of millimetres longer and indeed a bit darker and thicker. But, no one, other than me with a magnifying glass, would notice. I showed the above before and after shots to my editor and she had to pause before guessing.
Verdict  The fact that I’ve grown my own superior lashes is pretty cool but I’d rather save the $1,800 a year, so instead I’ll buy some great mascara and a maybe a vacation package.

EYELASH EXTENSIONS
Price  $90-$122 for 35 lashes per eye, depending on the type of lashes
What it is  Individual extensions are glued to your real lashes using a waterproof, medical adhesive. A trained professional took about an hour and a half to affix 55 mink lashes to my eyes at Winks Eyelash Boutique in Toronto ($190). To preserve them, I had to refrain from regular habits such as sleeping on my face and rubbing my eyes. The boutique also recommended I come in for a touch-up two weeks later.
What it does  I wore a set of these to a destination wedding and I loved having perfectly curled, long lashes first thing in the morning, in the pool, etc. and in every picture. Following that, they lasted about a month. On the debit side, when they started to fall out, I was left with a few long wisps amidst baby lashes. It looked like someone squashed a daddy longlegs against my eye.
Verdict  If you need instant dramatic eyes for something like a prolonged special event or vacation, they’re great. But I would never continue refilling them. I also found that they tended to irritate my eyes and I hated sleeping so carefully — like Dracula in his coffin.

MASCARA
Maybelline’s Illegal Length
Price   $9.99
What it is  Maybelline New York recently launched a formula that promises to stretch eyelashes a further four millimetres. The bristly brush offers six different contact points to deposit the formula.
What it does  What should be illegal is my current $30 waterproof mascara, which offers a fraction of the length with a side of clumps. Maybelline’s product applies an even coat without chunks. The four millimetre guarantee is a bit dubious and the mascara lengthens without holding a curl. But its regular “Very Black” formula did not leave me with raccoon eyes and came off with normal soap.
Verdict  For the price, this is one of my favourite mascaras.
Honorable mention  Noir G de Guerlain, $50, refills $28
Upside  If you’re looking for that heavy fake lashes look in a mascara, Noir G delivers and then some (it has vitrified black carbon pigments).
Downside Speaking of heavy, it comes in a refillable jewel case with a mirror that weighs more than my cellphone.

FALSE EYELASHES
Slant Black by Shu Uemura
Price  $21
What it is  Shu Uemura offers a broad range of false lashes, from natural daywear to fantasy drag queen duds. For a different look, I tried their Slant Black style, which flare outward like fine wings.
What it does  The full set was easy to apply and molded well to my eyes. They were also comfortable and soft to the touch. The look? Bambi’s girlfriend, Faline.
Verdict Just doe it.

From the National Post - Written by Melissa Leong  Feb 11, 2012 – 8:00 AM ET

Half of Canadians with tattoos regret the decision: Ipsos-Reid poll Read it on Global News: Global Toronto | Half of Canadians with tattoos regret the decision: Ipsos-Reid poll

TORONTO - It’s not that Marc Smith doesn’t like his tattoos anymore, but the young actor feels the letters inked on his knuckles limit what he can do with his career.

Together, his knuckles read “Give to take,” a motto Smith says he still lives by. But first impressions are everything and that’s why he said he’s decided to get rid of his tattoos.

“If I want to pursue my career and move on with my future, I know [tattoo removal is] the best option for me because I don't want to be [typecast] or pigeonholed into a certain look,” he said.

According to a poll conducted by Ipsos Reid, two in ten Canadians have at least one tattoo, and what’s more is half of them regret it.

Before the advent of lasers, tattoo removal meant either cutting out the skin or rubbing salt on it until it started bleeding.

Nowadays, the gold standard is a technology called Q-switched ruby laser, according to Dr. Lisa Kellett, a dermatologist at DLK on Avenue.

“It's very effective and it removes the tattoo with a minimum [of] discomfort,” she said. “It’s a great treatment because the skin at the end is normal colour and texture.”

Laser technician Anuish Fariad of Precision Laser Removal Clinic used Q-switched Medlite C6 for Smith’s first tattoo removal procedure. She said the machine also works well on birth marks and sunspots.

With the Q-switched ruby laser, dermatologists apply local anaesthetic before zapping the tattoo with 694 nanometres of light laser, which hits the pigment and blasts it into little pieces. The body then gets rid of the pigment through the bloodstreams within a few weeks.

Depending on the size and the type of pigment, a patient may need three to eight procedures spread out over a period of six weeks. The procedure, which lasts anywhere between 20 to 40 minutes, isn’t painful if the patient is properly anesthetized, Dr. Kellett said.

“You get some whitening initially of the tattoo then it turns to red and you have some scabbing for about a week, so it looks a lot like when you go the tattoo.”

Some tattoo colours are easier to remove than others. The Q-switched ruby laser picks up black a lot faster and more effectively than red, orange, blue or mixed pigments.

The physical location of a tattoo could also determine the ease of removing it, said Dr. Howard Bargman, who is Director of Laser at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and a dermatologist at Thornhill Dermatology.

“If the tattoo is in the lower legs, it's going to be more difficult to eradicate,” he said. “The larger it is, the more difficult.”

Even after several treatments, some tattoos don’t completely disappear.

“We're not always successful in removing a tattoo,” Dr. Bargman said. “We can almost certainly improve it in most cases and almost in all cases to a degree it becomes hardly visible, but there may always be a little bit of ink left.”

In other cases, especially with patients with a darker skin tone, a ghost of the tattoo may linger after the pigment is completely removed.

Dermatologists advise their patients to put antibiotic creams on the tattoo after each session to reduce the risk of getting an infection.

Patients pay about $400 per session to remove a tattoo about a size of a hand. Even if they only need the minimum of three sessions, it adds up to a total of $1,200, which could mean a higher price tag to remove a tattoo than to get one.

For many people, it may well be a fair price to pay in order to move on with their lives.

“There are a lot of psychological aspects sometimes that are caught in the tattoo,” Dr. Kellett said. “So it's almost like physically removing some of the scars people have had.”

From Global Toronto News - Written by Yamri Taddese, February 10, 2012