A plastic surgeon who traded his knife for night cream, Dr. Gregory Bays Brown is something of an anomaly in the era of extreme makeovers.
Brown practiced medicine for 20 years before turning his attention full time to creating products that slow down or reverse the signs of aging. Among the special and costly ingredients in his RéVive line is epidermal growth factor, a bioengineered version of a human protein involved in aging and cell division. EGF stimulates the cells to divide, and that s the same thing that needs to be done to renew the appearance of the skin, he says.
“Over about a 10-year period we learned that we could speed wound healing by adding a growth factor,” he said during a recent interview in Denver.
Brown met with customers, answered questions and shared some of what s in his book, “About Face: A Plastic Surgeon s 4-Step Nonsurgical Program for Younger Beautiful Skin,” (Ballantine Books, $24.95) at an appearance at Neiman Marcus.
Q: How is beauty defined today?
A: To me, beauty is a catholic thing. It s spiritual, physical, emotional. It s aesthetic. Looking great doesn t always mean classic beauty, and it s more than just chiseled features. Diet is important. Exercise is important. It s not sexy to talk about common sense, but that s what you need to do – have a good diet and exercise program, not smoke, do nothing in extreme.
Q: Is there an epidemic of plastic surgery today?
A: I don’t like what s happened to plastic surgery. I love the specialty, and it has helped a lot of people. But all the shows cheapen it. People need to understand that it s real surgery.
I sense that women my age (52) and younger don t want to look surgerized. Women my mom’s age didn’t mind that so much, but to me, if you look like you ve had facial aesthetic surgery, it s not a good result.
Nonsurgical options are much more sophisticated and include things like RéVive which can delay the need for plastic surgery. Once plastic surgery is the only option, if you have used the other treatments, they can reduce the magnitude of the procedure needed.
Q: Why are products like your volumizing serum $600 an ounce?
A: There are about 30 growth factors, and to make the ones we use, using good medical practices, is very expensive.
It’s like aesthetic surgery; you don t have to have it. But the demographics of who s doing it are not the real wealthy – 75 percent of the people make under $75,000 a year.
Q: More women would probably like to use your products but can’t afford them. What s a good daily routine for women in their 30s through their 50s?
A: Simple moisturization will make your skin look better, especially in a climate like Denver s.
Use a neutral cleanser on your face, such as one from Cetaphil or Neutrogena. Moisturize your face, neck and hands, using products from Oil of Olay, Nivea, Lancome or Estee Lauder. Every morning use a sunscreen with a minimum SPF of 15, or a moisturizer containing sunscreen. In the evening, wash your face with a gentle makeup remover.
Q: Do you recommend facials?
A: From time to time it’s fine; a few a year. But if you do them more than every six-eight weeks, it can give you broken capillaries.
Q: With all the fillers on the market – from Botox to Restylane and collagen – how do you know which one to use?
A: It depends on what you want the filler to do, but the best filler is your own fat, or autologous fat. Fat injections get a bad reputation, but if they re done well, in little droplets, they ll get their own blood supply and stay in place. Botox is good for what it is: filling lines around the mouth and forehead. It s nonsurgical and safe.
Q: How much of the appearance of your skin is the result of genetics and not whether or not you use a top moisturizer?
A: A lot. Look at Lena Horne, who’s 88, but looks like she did at 55. If you have Irish skin and fair skin like I have, it doesn’t age as well as somebody with olive skin.
Q: You said that up until about 12 years ago, skin care was basically just moisturizing. Have great strides been made since then?
A: We’ve just sort of scratched the surface. A lot of what’s coming is going to be in delivery systems so you can get the products to penetrate the skin. I’m talking with a company that deals in nanotechnology. When you think about aging on a molecular level, it seems much more appropriate to attack it at that level.
Q: With so many new procedures, fillers and products coming out, how do you know which ones to choose?
A: As a consumer and a surgeon, I never was one was one to jump on a bandwagon, which this year seems to be for the thread face-lift. Rather than go with the trend of the month, you should make sure you’re on a skin-care regimen and have investigated quasi-surgical things like injectables and lasers.
As for plastic surgery, it’s still no pain, no gain. Thinking to the past decade, the most impressive improvement has been the endoscopic brow lift. You used to have to have an incision from ear to ear. Now you can do it with three small incisions.
Q: What about the trend to medi-spas, places where you can get a pampering facial or something more serious, like a laser peel from a doctor?
A: It will continue. It has already happened with products. I think in the beauty industry as a whole, it will be very hard in even five years for a company that’s high end to compete if it doesn t have a doctor behind it.
Staff writer Suzanne S. Brown can be reached at 303-820-1697 or sbrown@denverpost.com.
