Growing old gracefully seems to have given way to fillers, Botox, and facelifts. No longer are these procedures reserved for the Boomers or the elder generation. More and more Millennials and members of the Gen Z population are found to have gone “under the knife” or, in some cases, under the needle, creating a la carte extreme makeovers.
“I love fillers and Botox,” proclaims Dr. Jill Wade of Stonebriar Smile Design. “But it is a very ‘fake’ look…and I want to look like my age.” Surely, she isn’t the only one to feel this way, which is why she’s expanding the offerings of her dental practice in Frisco and Plano, Texas. In an effort to help her patients look and feel their best, she’s ushering in “a new era of dentistry” with a dental wellness spa, now offering noninvasive facelift services by way of a device called Emface. This device requires “no needles, no downtime, and yet, you can really get a pick-me-up in your face, your skin tone, your muscles, and you can just be looking and feeling great within four to six weeks,” explains Dr. Wade, DDS, MAGD.
Aurelia Byrne, a hygienist with Stonebriar Smile Design, has seen what the Emface can do and touts it as “unbelievable.” The process is relatively simple: take off your makeup, have a seat in the Emface chair for 25 to 30 minutes (depending on how many areas of the face you’re treating), put your makeup back on (or not), and go back to your regularly scheduled activities, whether that’s work, the gym, or a night out. You don’t have to worry about bruising, swelling, or anything similar, as with some of our other face treatments, like fillers and Botox.
You “may utilize some of those things after the initial treatment, and potentially, a couple of months after…to finish off the face from a symmetry standpoint, rather than just trying to fill up all of the face, which, I think, gives that kind of fake look,” says Dr. Jill Wade. However, when reasonably applied, and these treatments “do their job,” adding a little filler on one side of the face can go a long way in providing facial symmetry. As Dr. Wade points out, one cheek may be flatter than the other due to your sleeping habits, where you may favor sleeping on one side more than the other. With that in mind, one side of the face or cheek may not always perk up exactly the same way on each side due to gravitational pull.
Not only can Dr. Wade and the staff at Stonebriar Smile Design give you a great smile, they can help you smile with your entire face. She likens the lips to being the “curtains” around the teeth. “They pull back, and they reveal the teeth and the smile, and that’s how we decide what we’re going to do, how many teeth we’re actually going to suggest that you do on your smile design, or your Invisalign, or whitening,” she goes on to explain. Pairing that with Emface techniques, and your face will, in a sense, defy gravity. According to Aurelia, they can use the Emface to treat the forehead, the cheeks, this submentum, which is the space under the chin, and even the eyes. You can even treat more than one area at a time. Applicators are placed on your face, slightly stimulating the muscles, which may be accompanied by a bit of warmth. This helps the collagen in the face reactivate itself, without the trauma of surgery or other treatments.
“A lot of the other techniques out there right now,” says Dr. Wade, “are traumatizing deeper layers of the skin in order for the collagen…to tighten. [Emface] is a much gentler, different type of stimulation. It’s really stimulating the blood to go back into these areas, and then that blood flow and that little bit of heat…stimulates the collagen…and muscles.” She goes on to explain that the applicators of the Emface have a radio frequency called “high fes,” which emits energy that moves your muscles. It’s like a workout for your face. While the younger generation searches for ways to cultivate “snatched” jawlines by chewing copious amounts of gum, Dr. Wade warns that this is not a healthy move. “[This method] causes a lot of problems,” she states. Doing this puts additional stress on your joints, your temporomandibular joint (TMJ), and your muscles, “which can grow your muscles so big that your face looks fatter,” she cautions. The goal is to enhance your features with a naturally relaxed-looking face, so rebuilding your facial muscles with gentle stimulation is a better alternative than overworking them.
Until now, traditional facelifts were the way to sculpt your face, but this relaxing, noninvasive method is a great alternative. With as few as five treatments, you can achieve your desired results, but just like weight-training and exercise, to keep those results, you’ll need a schedule of maintenance. Stonebriar Smile Design’s merging of dental care and wellness spa experiences makes it easy to schedule and manage your smile design and your facial rejuvenation. They’re even creating a new consultation called the “Emsmile,” where you can get a full cosmetic consultation, including a custom-designed smile based on the unique features of your mouth and lips, and a full-face consultation. These seemingly small tweaks can make a big impact on your perceived age, which Dr. Jill Wade reveals that, since COVID, many of her patients have accelerated their aging due to stress. While she can’t fully reverse the visual effects of aging, these not-so-secret anti-aging techniques and treatments can make you look and feel younger.
Additionally, they’re adding yet another game-changing device to their noninvasive facelift offerings: the Exion. This targets the areas of your skin that are textured and crepe-like. As with the Emface, this procedure is painless and requires no downtime. However, it can be used on your hands, arms, and legs. You can treat more than one area at a time, and sessions can last anywhere from 25 to 40 minutes, taking place in the office—no surgical elements involved. This treatment affects your features on a cellular and muscular level, “so, you’re going to keep getting results about 90 days out,” attests Dr. Wade. “So we want to bring you back and really compare the ‘before’ and the ‘after’ pictures.”
Encouraging all of the elevator muscles to work better, this allows your face to keep moving and look natural, contrary to Botox, which impairs movement, freezing the face in place. However, if you’re concerned about your facial asymmetries, Botox and fillers are fine to undertake. In the meantime, visit Stonebriar Smile Design and book your full-face consultation.
Click here to watch this episode of the Beyond Face Value Show on YouTube.
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