Lunch-Hour Face-Lift

Michelle Biederman has dropped by for a pop before work. "We may as well do the acne scars too," says Dr. Robert Weiss, as he positions the firing end of his Cool Touch laser in a bed of fine lines just below her right eye. Pop! goes the laser, emitting a pulse of invisible light and a white puff of subzero cooling spray. Biederman feels something like the snap of a rubber band. After Weiss blasts the wrinkles under the right eye, he does the left. By the time he gets to the acne scars on her chin, her right eye is getting red and puffy.

That's what Dr. Weiss is after. The idea is to heat up the underlying dermis, stimulating fibroblast cells to produce collagen, which pushes out fine wrinkles and scars. "This temperature sensor is monitoring things," says Weiss, 49, as he points to a fail-safe device on the laser. "If the temperature rises too high in the skin, it won't let you do another pulse."

Doctors have been going after wrinkles for years with face-lifts and now laser and chemical peels, which burn away the epidermis and 50 to 100 microns of dermis, resulting in fresh skin growth. What's new is the emergence of "nonablative" lasers and light sources, including Cool Touch, manufactured by ICN Pharmaceuticals of Costa Mesa, Calif., and IPL (Intense Pulsed Light), made by Lumenis of Santa Clara, Calif. Both technologies, when used by a skilled physician, avoid even temporary damage to the epidermis and leave few if any telltale signs. For that reason--and because quick sessions can be scheduled before work or during lunchtime--these new treatments are popular among busy professionals. Cool Touch estimates that 250,000 of its procedures will be performed this year, up from 150,000 in 2001.

These new lunch-hour face-lifts will not get rid of deep wrinkles. But they typically eliminate about half the fine wrinkles that make many boomer men and women look older than they feel. Both Cool Touch and IPL require three to five monthly treatments, at $250 to $550 apiece. For Biederman, who was originally treated by Weiss three years ago, this is a maintenance visit that she makes once or twice a year to keep her fibroblasts producing collagen. She has also had IPL treatments to get rid of spider veins and age spots, but she has never considered a full surgical face-lift. "That's overkill," she says. "I would also rather spend money doing this than $150 on eye cream that doesn't work." After her treatment, Biederman, 47, will drive 20 minutes to Owings Mills, Md., where she works as a human-resources supervisor. By the time she arrives, the redness and puffiness will be gone.

Weiss is booked three months in advance--and a quarter of his patients are men. Baltimore financial manager Adam Fein, 44, was not looking for cosmetic surgery when he wandered in with a wart on his foot. But six treatments later, his acne scars and spider veins are 90% gone. "Hey, if it's there and it works," says Fein, "why not take advantage of it?"

In Washington, Dr. Eliot Battle, a Harvard researcher, has opened a new clinic called Cultura: Skin Care for All Skin Colors. He is using Cool Touch on patients with darker complexions, whose skin often gets discolored by harsher treatments. In New York City, many financial professionals make a lunch-hour pilgrimage to the uptown dermatology clinics of Neil Sadick, Lori Polis and Roy Geronemus.

Global executives need not miss a treatment while traveling. Cool Touch and IPL are used by dermatologists in Britain, France, Germany and Italy. "Europe is just starting up," says Lumenis vice president Tom Liolios. "But we're really big in Japan."