Vampires are hot. So hot, that if I have to hear about another vampire/book/movie/TV show, I’m going to have to find a way to make myself explode in sunlight. Luckily, this latest news about vampires doesn’t involve sparkly teen hunks. Apparently, there’s a new cosmetics procedure making its way through the needles of dermatologists and plastic surgeons. It involves injecting your own blood into you face to plump it up. And it’s charmingly known as “the vampire facial.”
How does this blood-sucking beauty bit work? You get injected with a mixture of your own blood to plump up wrinkles. (Or you could just choose to stay out of the sun like an actual vampire. Oh wait, vampires aren’t real?). It’s called Selphyl, and as ABC News reports, it’s “prepared by drawing a patient’s blood, separating the platelets from the red blood cells, blending the platelets with a fibrin mixture and injecting it to the area a patient wants to augment.”
Further, this bloody facial lasts about 15 months as the “fibrin” mixture builds up. Fibrin is a fibrous protein that helps clot blood. So in other words, blood clots are plumping up your face.
Nonetheless, it seems that this bloody treatment is catching on with wrinkle-worried women. In fact, it seems that some are seeing this vampire facelift as a sort of natural beauty product. As one devotee claims, it is better to use something from your own body to treat your body.
There are some side effects. Apparently, blood causes an itchy after-effect and possible discoloration. Dr. Malcolm Roth is a director of plastic surgery at Maimonides Medical Center. As he told ABC News, “One of the problems with your own blood is that some people pass out from having their blood taken. Also”¦you’re injecting blood into a place where blood doesn’t normally reside.”
Freaky and weird beauty option? Perhaps, but the quest for eternal youth has long made wacky and wild inroads. From rose quartz facials to full body exfoliation by fish nibbling, beauty comes at a cost. The question is – are we willing to pay for it in our own blood? For some enthusiastic seekers of youth, apparently so.
For further reading:
Vampire Facelift uses blood to get rid of wrinkles.
Image: photoshopeando