Sorry, But Sometimes Age Does Matter

I went in to the Galleria area Sōna MedSpa for a quick 15-minute procedure. It was my second time to have laser hair removal on my facial areas. The desire to remove hair has lead many women to waxing, tweezers, and well, shaving with razors.

The procedure, gets rid of the hair with laser treatments that targets the hair follicle and disables it with a simple zap of laser light.

Treatments are done in timed intervals to catch the growth pattern of hair for a permanent result.

Get Ready-
1. Avoid Retine-A products for at least 2 weeks before you go in for most laser procedures so keep that in mind when you schedule.
2. Tell them if you are on medications when you schedule to determine your timing eligibility.
3. Stay out of the sun and away from tanning beds for two weeks before your treatments. Even spray and lotion tanning are off limits. The laser light looks for melanin in your skin and tanning increases the amount of melanin in your skin.
4. Shave the area before you go in or you can do it there.

The Nurse-
1. Like a photographer, they will use a small light meter instrument called a "chromotester" to read the color tone of your skin to calibrate the settings for your procedure and to make sure that the melanin in your skin meet the requirments for a safe laser treatment.
2. Applies a clear, cool gel used for ultra sounds to allow the instrument to flow smoothly across your skin during the procedure.
3. Provides goggles for both of you.
4. Apply a hose of cold air and the laser to the desired area. The cold air is worse then the laser-so how bad is that? She will also use a pop-cycle stick or tongue depressor to cover your nose so cold air doesn’t spray you.

Takes about 5 minutes and you are done. You wipe off the jell and walk out the door with the list of after care instructions.

Are you ready? Don’t shave for a couple days. NO problem! Actually, it is common sense stuff like don’t exfoliate for a few days, etc.

So what is my point, my 51-year-old point about age does matter? Well, as we mature our hair often loses some of its "depth" (we go grey...). So, the laser is looking for melanin (which gives your hair color) and if your hair has lightened in color, the laser will not be effective on that hair follicle and you’re stuck with it.

What to Do? Go do this while you are young and avoid all the waxing, shaving, and tweezing and such. Wait and you will always deal with some of those pesky light-in-color and course-in-texture hairs.

These defining signs of time are not in themselves enough to take you down, but whiskers are for men and cats. I surrender.

See a video on laser hair removal at this link: Laser Hair Removal

Botox® is My Weapon of Choice!

Photo by: J Heiliger Photography

I went in for Botox and I got to chatting with Cassie, my nurse for that appointment. They have gotten to know me head-to-toe. Their job is my treat, I figure that is how it came to be know as a "Treat-ment" for me. It feels pretty familiar now, they all know me by name and a bit about my family and what’s going on in my life etc.

So, I like the sense of belonging there, not just a curious outsider. I always look forward to these treatments because, well - I’m a girl. I would take this over shoe shopping, so why was I sitting there crying? I certainly have more fun with this they do, but when Cassie started talking to me about my brain aneurysm it turned my perspective into something almost painful. Cassie had read my history and was especially interested because her last position before coming to Sona MedSpa was with Hermann Hospital working in, you guessed it, the Neuro Trauma ICU.

It’s not that I don’t know they are nurses, I do, it’s just that I don’t think of them in such serious circumstance. It gave me a better appreciation for the level of education and training coming in with the injection. As we talked it took on a weighted tone of reality that generally ends far differently. I lived. She looked through my hair to see the line of scarring that stretches from the top of my ear to the back of my head. About an 8” incision that was stapled instead of stitched, for which I was dubbed “Zipper Head"; lovely.

I told Cassie how the aneurysm occurred, blew actually and the days of waiting for the right surgeon to be found and the hope that I would survive the days it took. After 11 days at St. Lukes I was Life-Flighted to Dallas where the day after Christmas they packed my body in ice and started in with a 4 hour window to actually lift the brain and clamp the burst blood vessel called a Basilar Tip.

The odds of anyone living through that were ridiculously small. Dr. Hunt Bacher and Duke Sampson had hands guided by prayer to work a miracle. Beyond that was a second aneurysm that was bulging but had not burst, there was no time to fix it. They wrapped cotton around it to build up scar tissue that would strengthen the vessel wall and hope for the best- The best has stretched into 16 years now.

So that is why I was crying, because I can. I should not be alive and I am. I have a wonderful life I am not always viewing life through the chance I was given to raise my kids. I never lose sight of how blessed I am but I tend to forget just how close I came to missing all of this. So Cassie quietly and knowingly looks at me kind of shaking her head and proceeds. Now, a few little pricks of the needle and I think Cassie has the hand of surgeon herself. I have stopped the muscles from moving the way they have for over 50 years resulting in deep furrows between my eyebrows and on my forehead. Even around my eyes- you know the laugh lines that lose their humor when we face them in the rear-view mirror in harsh sunlight while we are behind the wheel of an automobile....

Fight back! Botox is my most effective weapon against nature and time. For the next 3 or 4 months, I will be making the the same expressions I always have, but it will not produce as many lines- hence the truism, “Less is More!’ and sometimes tears are tied to deep feelings of gratitude.

Kathie Turner

"Kathie Doesn't Shave Anymore" - TV Commercial Now Airing

This is the second commercial now running in the Houston market, featuring Kathie Turner and her "on-screen" husband. We are curios about running an on-going story with Kathie and her "husband" in the future. We would welcome your ideas? For example, we could show Kathie as she and Ed visit the kids at college or plan a mini-getaway or on the Yacht with friends. Send your ideas to andy@MarketingDynamics.org

Signed,

Andy Valadez
Marketing Dynamics

Leg Shaving and the Archaic Nature of It

Photo: J. Heiliger Photography

Today I will share the saga of the dreaded leg hair. Not a big deal, this shaving your legs true, but all the same it leads to lots of issues we work around all our life. No I can’t wear that, I didn’t shave. Should I wax- no not enough of an advantage to warrant the time and yanking smarts of it all. So I shave- like I wrote in the commercial- 4 minutes, 4 times a week for 40 years so I can feel stubble in 4 hours (to be posted soon, see the current commercial below this article or in the TV directory).

A rat on on a treadmill.. Do you remember the first time you shaved your legs? Did you ask your mom for permission or just go do it? I took this step at age 11 and I decided I would ease my way into it. Back in the day, we had the double blade that dropped into the razor and twisted the handle down to lock it in position. We used it until the blade dulled or rusted or whatever and we dropped in a new blade. The worst thing that could happen was for the handle loosening up and the blade to actually bounce - making little nicks up your shin or near your ankle. Toilet paper stuck to the forming scabs.

One look at a friend’s leg and you knew by the chop-chop-chop marks up her shin bone and you would cringe. So then back to my first time, I decided that I would shave just the bottoms of my legs, up to my knees. Nothing drastic. Again, I would just gradually ease into this so as not to startle anyone that knew me and actively watched for signs of change, like something really big- SHAVING.

I took out my partially shaved legs, sat there ready to be admired for my new mature appearance until the sun caught the hair on my knees like two balls of fuzz. You know how they trim plants on patios to be balls of vegetation atop a single trunk. I was like a moving topiary. The horror of it all. Somewhere between Gigit and Bridget Jones we go through these rights of passage with little dignity. Well it didn’t take long before it became a maintenance program and not the "Glam" I imagined it would be. But, “once you start, my mom said, you will never be able to stoppppp!”Ah ha! Now 40 years later, it will stop.

I signed up for the new Laser Hair Removal program at Sona MedSpa and bought back 4 minutes, 4 times a week for the next 40 years (40 years-It could happen). What can I tell you? First, “SAY YES!”, there are several important things to know and do. Don’t mess up on this and don’t put it off because the younger you are the more sense it makes. The darker the hair, the better the results. If your hair is gray the laser will not differentiate it from your skin tone and could miss it. So save yourself more years of shaving and do it NOW.

Along the same lines, get out of the sun OR the Tanning Beds so that your skin tone can be recognized as lighter then the hair you are aiming for. At least 2 weeks of NO tanning and NO spray or lotion tanners. It is the color we are trying to minimize and it doesn't matter if it comes from the sun or a bottle (again the lasers are color sensitive and are attracted to the pigment in the hair).

Now the next "2 WEEKS" issue is ANTIBIOTICS. I am not kidding about this one because we are very photosensitive when we are on antibiotics and the laser is a stream of light intensely focused on your skin. Even if you ended a round the week before it is still in your system and if you have a reaction your skin will puff up. Take me seriously because we have come to think of antibiotics as no big deal and commonly used without interaction considerations in most egards. Schedule around that and make sure you are complete in filling out your paperwork about any health issues or drugs being used. I don't know of anyone not being able to get these wonderful treatments, you just need to time it well.

The day you go in, you shave first. Don’t worry the laser picks it up and zaps it even if you don’t really see it. You pop up on the table and the nurse will mark your legs with a white soft chalk type marker to help guide her as she moves the laser back and forth like you would cutting the grass and not overlapping. She will apply the gel used when you get an ultrasound. Not sticky or greasy, just helps the laser glide right along and keep the skin cool.

So, now you put on the goggles and nurse does the same and she starts running the laser across your skin top to ankle front side then you roll over for the back side. Does it hurt? At the top of your legs you don’t feel much but as you get closer to the ankle it starts to smart. I was told it may be because there is less body fat in those areas. It feels like someone rapidly snapping a rubber band on your skin and then it is over. It is fast and then you simply wipe off the gel and you get up and go.

Now if you are doing this, you may also want to do the UNDER ARM and FACE. I did it around my upper lip and chin. Good bye wax- I will keep my tweezers for splinters. The BIKINI area! I can’t imagine not doing that because of the irritation bumps we get when we shave there. Nice to think about ending it all, isn’t it? They will give you a topical gel if you want it that helps numb the more sensitive area. You put it on for about 45 minutes, sit in the waiting room and it makes your skin feel cool and tingly. I did it and would recommend it because while I have nothing to compare it to, I liked it.

*If you think you want to do that you need to show up about an hour early to put it on. The schedule is tight so always be on time if not early and enjoy a cup of soothing tea while you wait. In the Bikini area, you decide how much you want to disappear from total to conservative. Your choice but I assure you they do it everyday all day and you will go from a second of akward to a life of freedom, Amen. So say "YES!".

The hair will, over the next couple of weeks, simply fall out. Nice.Then you will go back on a cycle of visits to repeat the process and catch the new hair growth that is cyclic in its growth pattern. Five specifically timed total visits in a year ends the new hair growth. You may also want to share the idea with the guys because it is a wonderful blessing to rid the neck line of the hair that rubs against the collar or as my friend Barbara claims it will stop her from shaving her husband’s back while he sleeps...

Sign your guy up NOW!

When I take a shower these days, I don’t know what to do because I am so used to the shaving ritual. How to spend this new found 4 minutes, 4 times a week, for the next 40 years? Shaving has ended, now that’s a good ending to this story.

Kathie Turner

"What's your secret?" - TV Commercial to begin airing 7/10

We just finished shooting this TV commercial to begin airing in the Houston market. Thank you to all who attened the shoot, we thought you would like to see a first peak. Kathie addresses a professional group and tells them her secret.

Postedy by Marketing Dynamics (blog partner)