Weekly Skinspiration July 31, 2017

Dermatology Pearl: Love your Lips

I’ve always neglected my lips, in terms of SPF, nourishment, moisturizer, and even lipstick or gloss. I’m just not a huge lip gal. But last year after I did my Valentine’s Day vlog on “Perfecting Your Pout” I decided to amp up my lip game. Here are three easy ways you can take care of your luscious lips:

• MOISTURIZE: Just as we moisturize our skin, we should also hydrate our lips to prevent dryness, peeling and irritation. I like using Aquaphor lip repair or the fresh sugar advanced therapy that provides moisture and wrinkle-smoothing relief.
• PROTECT: Just as you protect your skin from the sun, you need to protect your lips too! People can get sun damage on their lips, in the form of scaly crusted bumps or discoloration; people can even get skin cancer on the lips. Lately I’ve been a big fan of the Kaplan MD lip balm, which contains hyaluronic filling spheres, marine collagen peptides, and provides SPF 20 sun protection. They also make the Kaplan MD perfect pout lipstick (full review below).
• PREVENT: The next time you find yourself pursing your lips or making the duck face, STOP. Every time you make repetitive movements with your lips, even actions like drinking from a straw, you are making wrinkles and accentuating fine lines around the mouth. Keep your pout in a neutral position to prevent wrinkle formation!

Beauty Review

The Kaplan MD perfect pout lipstick (c/o) is in my opinion the best lipstick I’ve found, because it’s a triple threat! It is an anti-aging lip treatment that uses beeswax and shea butter to provide lasting moisturizing effects on the lips, and also contains peptides and hyaluronic filling spheres to smooth out those pesky lines. Best of all, these lippies contain SPF 30 coverage, to prevent your lips from getting chapped and burned. The perfect pout lipstick comes in six shades ranging from nudes to corals to reds, adding a perfect pop of color to go with any outfit.

The company sent me one to try and I really liked mine in Melrose, a deep berry color. The color stayed on despite several meals, and gave my lips a soft satiny feel. The color is not light enough to use everyday but some of the nude or sheer colors would be great for everyday use.

Fashion Find

Nothing new this week – check out my Nordstrom sale picks here and skin/beauty picks here.

Life Update

In terms of work:

My last year of dermatology is in full swing and A MONTH has flown by in the blink of an eye. My new team is amazing, and our three new first-year residents are so hardworking and fun to be around. It’s really true that your coworkers and your work environment make a huge difference. This year as a third year I finally feel comfortable in my own skin, and more confident in my fund of knowledge and clinical skills.

In keeping with my goal of shadowing more attendings in their private practices this year, today and last week I spent some time with Dr. Ariel Ostad, cosmetic dermatologist and Mohs surgeon extraordinaire. I saw a whole bunch of interesting cases, from a follow up from undereye fat pad removal to tumescent liposuction to Mohs surgery and full thickness skin graft repair for a complicated periorbital case. It is awe inspiring to see this dermatologic surgeon at work. His passion for his work and his dedication and care for his patients is out of this world. By being around people like Dr. Ostad, I feel personally inspired to be a better physician and teacher!

The coolest case for me by far was seeing tumescent liposuction. This procedure is done with the patient AWAKE and under liters of local infiltration of the skin with lidocaine with epinephrine diluted in normal saline. Today we took out nearly 3 liters of yellow oily fat under tumescent anesthesia! I had actually never seen liposuction performed before (except on Instagram…lol) so that was really interesting for me. It is really mind boggling that the patient is awake and talking throughout the entire procedure, and can even get off the exam table and walk out to a cab after it’s all done. No anesthesia, no post-op grogginess, and minimal bleeding and recovery time. It’s astounding.

Have a good week!

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