For those looking for a less invasive, more natural face lift type experience, read on. For those who are a lot squeamish, prepare to be a teensy bit grossed out. Thread lift may be the new face lift.

More natural, less invasive, practically no recovery time…If you could have anything in a face lift, these would be it. But what is a thread lift and is it one of the new, somewhat weird anti-aging treatments?

Nope. This is not snail venom, bacteria-killing molecules, or some other bizarre beauty trend. We are talking simple needle and thread, here. Ok, maybe not that simple, but still…

The thread lift is a technique where tiny threads, sugar-based and sometimes barbed, are inserted into the skin to give a lifted look. There are a couple of ways to go about doing this procedure, but right now you still have to travel to Europe or Asia to have it done.

One dermy who performs thread lifts (did I mention it is done by dermatologists? It is!) is Maurice Dray from France. Dr. Dray performs his threading procedure using a “specially designed gun” to inject fillers and antioxidants deep into skin tissue in effort to stimulate collagen production. Sugar-based threads are inserted into the skin to give a lifted look. The procedure is said to last two years. As for price? A neck threading would run you just under $2K.

These natural threads melt around 3-4 weeks post insertion. And it’s not just the face that can get in on the action. Pretty much any spot on the body that sags can be threaded. Neck, jawline, breasts, knees…The idea is that these threads create fibrous tissue that (fingers crossed) stimulate new tissue growth.

Dr. Dray has offices in London and Paris, but if you aren’t close to either of those cities, maybe hop on over to Singapore where Dr. Woffles Wu inserts barbed threads (The Woffles Thread) under skin. The barbs give skin a lifted look and create fibrous tissue over time to support the lift. Treatment is said to last one to five years. This version runs about $6000 for a neck lift.

Increased skin hydration, glow, and improved elasticity are other purported bonuses of the thread lift. As for those real life results? Dr. Dray’s patients apparently report a practically unanimous success rate, but studies suggest otherwise.

As weird as having threads run through your skin sounds, there are no side effects to the treatment and very minimal downtime. The worst patients are usually left with is a bruise or two. Certainly not the potential paralysis of Botox or long recovery time from a traditional surgery. A thread lift is also fast (around 30 minutes) and practically painless.

For the time being the treatment is not available state side, awaiting FDA approval. When it is, and you know it will be, will you run to get one? Or leave the needle and thread for sewing on loose buttons?

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Image of woman threading needle via Shutterstock

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These days, a growing number of women are choosing to alter how their genitals look by choosing to have labiaplasty, a type of plastic surgery that alters the appearance of the labia. Typing that last sentence makes me and my labia very sad.

Throughout the past year, I’ve seen multiple pieces about vaginal tightening, clitoral hood reduction, “laser vaginal bleaching,” and labiaplasty. Apparently, this up-tick in articles about designer vaginas wasn’t just a coincidence — some of these cosmetic procedures are being done at an increased rate:

“In 2013, the most recent year for which statistics are available, more than 5,000 labiaplasties were performed in the United States. That may not seem like a huge number, but it’s an astounding 44 percent increase over just one year prior, making labiaplasty the second fastest growing plastic surgery that year.” — Slate

Now, as a feminist, I have two very different reactions to this news. First, I think, “well, to each their own.” If you have the means to undergo surgery to get a perfectly manicured vagina and the surgery makes you happy, good for you. But secondly, I want to scream: “it’s your genitalia! Why do you want your bits to look like a doll’s vagina?”

While it should be noted that some women do have labiaplasties for medical reasons (long labia can cause very real physical discomfort for some women), the majority of women who undergo labiaplasty do so for cosmetic reasons. (“According to a 2011 study conducted by the International Society of Sexual Medicine, a stunning – though hardly surprising – 87 percent of women who opted for vaginal rejuvenation did so purely for cosmetic reasons.”)

I suppose my main issue with all types of genital beautification is that there is nothing that’s attractive about uniformity. We should all embrace what we have and be proud of it. Also: This Salon piece aptly points out that the majority of clinicians who do labiaplasty and other forms of vaginal plastic surgery don’t have any real authorization to do so:

“Labiaplasty requires no special certification requirements, a consequence of the fact that ‘cosmetic gynecology’ remains unrecognized by the very accrediting bodies which would determine those requirements. In 2007, The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists released an opinion essentially stating its opposition to all forms of vaginal rejuvenation.” — Slate

Yikes.

Well, I for one love my non-perfect vagina and all of my “private” bits for what they are. I mean, my old girl has been with me since birth – we’ve been through a lot together.

What are your thoughts on cosmetic gynecology? Would you ever consider getting “The Barbie?” I’ve got to admit that I hope your answer to my last question is a firm “no.” We’d love to hear your thoughts all the same, though. Please share your feels.

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Image: Comrade foot

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Hey, ladies — stop saving your money to go on that killer vacation this summer. Instead, put that wad of cash aside to invest in a butt augmentation.

Recently, EcoSalon headquarters got an email from Dr. Gregory Wiener, a plastic surgeon, who is weighing in on the national butt augmentation trend. Luckily, Wiener isn’t universally pro-butt augmentation. In fact, he’s urging many people to not get the popular surgery. From a recent email:

“Dr. Wiener cautions that a bigger bottom might not work for you. ‘A good surgeon will take your body’s proportions into account. Not everyone has a body type that will look good with a big bottom, at least not one that is as exaggeratedly large as some of today’s celebs have.’”

This whole big butt trend is annoying for myriad reasons. First of which: It’s not trendy to have a big ass, people. Some people just have big asses. A butt isn’t an accessory – it is a body part. A second problem with this whole big butt craze is this: What are ya goin’ to do when it’s no longer cool to have a big butt? Get another surgery? Seriously… this all just sounds like a money suck. I’m no big butt expert by any means, but I do know that my ass has increased in size since I started doing squats. So, ladies – if you want a big ass (or what I call runner’s ass) just take the stairs.

Now, all kidding and fake big butt bashing aside: I realize some people love plastic surgery. I’m not down on that – buy whatever you want. But please, please, don’t buy bigger breasts or a butt to be trendy – do it because you want to.

What do you think about this whole butt augmentation thing? Do you think this is a troublesome trend that just harms a woman’s body image? Or do you think the trend is no worse than any other beauty trend?

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Celebrity Plastic Surgery: Julia Roberts Says She Took a Risk By Not Getting It

Renee Zellweger’s Face

Image: wackystuff

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Celebrity plastic surgery is the norm. Hollywood is a place where some stars have had so much plastic surgery that placed next to images of their former selves, they would be unrecognizable. That’s why Julia Robert’s choice to age naturally is an anomaly. She even said in a recent interview to promote her role as the new face of Lancome that she risked her career by saying no.

“By Hollywood standards, I guess I’ve already taken a big risk in not having had a facelift, but I’ve told Lancome that I want to be an aging model – so they have to keep me for at least five more years until I’m over 50.”

She credits her beautiful 47-year-old appearance to finding peace through yoga and de-cluttering her life. While a face like that is at least partially genetic, the way Roberts faces her day must also play a role. It’s part of the reason she’s said no to her own celebrity plastic surgery.

“It’s about non-grasping, non-hoarding, cleaning out your closet, dusting out your mind and letting go of the things that weigh you down mentally and emotionally. There’s a lightness to my life now – an airy quality of not taking things too seriously. That’s happiness,” she told You magazine, reported in The Telegraph.

It’s not easy to avoid caving to pressures like these especially when your career is at risk. But Roberts would rather age naturally. And she’s not afraid to admit that the wife and mother of three: Henry, Hazel, and Phinnaeus has it pretty good compared to other moms.

This comes as 45 year-old Renee Zellweger received endless criticism based on obviously going under the knife countless times. It’s not my place to judge her. But I will say that Julia Roberts is and has been a breath of fresh air in Hollywood.

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Renee Zellweger’s face.

Those three words are getting nearly 3 million Google search results today. Apparently, everyone in the world has lost their freaking minds – and not in the good way.

Everyone except Renee Zellweger.

Did she do something to her face? Maybe. But maybe she just, you know, AGED.

Do you look the same as you did 20 years ago?

Or maybe the better question is: Should you?

Here’s the real problem with Renee Zellweger’s face: Our culture wants women to go directly from young/cute/hot/sexy to the matronly grandmother figure. There is no in-between that’s culturally acceptable right now.

Ladies, you know that gray area between ages 40 to 60, when you’re likely at your mental prime, and probably your career peak (unless you’re a celebrity)? Well, it’s probably a good time to quit your job and stay out of sight for a while. Why not take a really, really long cruise or something? Because—especially if you’re one of our beloved celebrities—there’s nothing we hate more than watching you wrinkle and sag.

Oh, except watching you try to stave aging off with plastic surgery and Botox. That’s so vain. Why can’t you just be better at, you know, aging gracefully? Sophia Loren did it. What’s wrong with your genes?

Plastic surgery works for someone like Joan Rivers because she made fun of her face and her sexuality all along the way (“My vagina is like Newark. Men know it’s there, but they don’t want to visit.”). She had chutzpah, and as she was never really a sex symbol in the first place, her looks didn’t matter as much. At least, not to her fans and critics. Obviously she took her face rather seriously. Most of us do.

But other celebrities aren’t as blatantly vain or direct about it as Joan Rivers was. They hope a nip or a tuck will appear understated and hardly noticeable, like they’ve been drinking green juices and taking yoga every day of their lives. (Which, some celebrities also do, to impressive results.)

But we can’t have it both ways.

We can’t dismiss women for aging naturally as no longer relevant or beautiful or sexy and then criticize them for taking measures to diminish the effects of aging. That’s an oxymoron. Emphasis on moron.

Renee Zellweger has been out of the spotlight for several years. Not that she needs to work, but certainly she enjoys having a life and being a person who gets to do fun celebrity-esque things outside of her house, even if she isn’t promoting a movie. Isn’t that her birthright? So, her face has changed. C’mon, America. When will we change ours?

Find Jill on Twitter @jillettinger

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SeriesEnvironmental cleanup in the wake of Japan’s twin disasters. Part 4 in a special series.

A surreal and compelling mix of headlines (read: Royal weddings, Osama bin Laden) may be dominating this week’s news, but the unfolding events in Japan after the March earthquake and tsunami – compounded further by nuclear plant instability – continue. Among the many significant issues: all that garbage.

Nothing illustrates the growing glut of plastic in the ocean from land-based sources like a natural disaster. All of those bleach bottles, all of those candy wrappers, all ending up somewhere. Whether littered or properly disposed of, it doesn’t actually matter when natural forces manifesting in the ocean overcome the borders of sea and land. And rather than death by a thousands cuts (plastic litter and watershed trash from land), Japan’s tsunami unleashed a vast amount of debris virtually overnight into the Pacific. (To see how the theoretical path of the debris works over time, click on this link to view an animation.)

This figure exhibits the projected pathway of flotsam that entered the ocean after waves hit Japan on March 11, 2011.  The model is based on historical data from drift buoys pinging GPS locations in The North Pacific over several years. Image Credit: Nikolai Maximenko, International Pacific Research Center.

The garbage is coming.

Within about a year, garbage will start hitting Hawaii’s shores and the coast of California within three, before circulating back out again to Hawaii and adding to The North Pacific Garbage Patch where it will circulate in the gyre.

Initially, it is difficult to determine how much we’re talking about, but think of it this way: Imagine taking all the plastic for a couple of miles or more from several cities situated on a coastline, and sucking it into the ocean. Think about taking thousands of grocery stores full of plastic products, all those single-use yogurt cups and half and half containers, lifting them all at once, and throwing them into the ocean. Think about all the dumpsters. The reycling bins. The storage facilities. The freight containers. Interesting, if disheartening, California beach-combing is on the way.

University of Hawaii at Manoa‘s Nikolai Maximenko and Jan Hafner created the model. (Full disclosure: Maximenko advises the non-profit I work for on our gyre expeditions to search for plastic pollution.) Modeling, as a science, is still a very difficult enterprise as so many vectors affect how flotsam will actually travel when at sea. But judging by the vast amounts of debris pulled out to sea by Japan’s tsunami, the ultimate impact will be significant.

Finding remnants of the waste three to five years from now, after it has traveled thousands and thousands of miles at sea, will remind us as a society that although the 24/7 news cycle might forget past tragedies, plastic is forever. And it will remind us of the legacy of our culture. 24/7.

Editor’s note: This is part 4 in a special series on plastic. Read part 3, part 2 and part 1.

Images: Official U.S. Navy photographs

The post Plastic Surgery: Where Will Japan’s Tsunami Garbage Go? appeared first on EcoSalon.

They chow down the same foods we healthy middle-aged women eat: Quinoa, lean proteins, fresh organic produce, water from chic reusable Sigg bottles. They drive hybrids and raise funds for good causes, shun the direct sun, and sometimes even wear secondhand fashion (couture, of course).

But tinsel town celebrities my age, like Demi Moore, who is featured on the cover of W Magazine this month, are not like me or any of my healthy, naturally beautiful women friends. No, unlike the mere mortal soccer moms I rub shoulders with at book club gatherings and parties, Demi shows no signs of age or wear and tear. Where is the emerging turkey neck Nora Ephron wrote about? Where are the sagging eyes? Where are the cottage cheese thighs?

“Her body of work has been notable in no small part because of her notable body,” writes Moore cover story author, Kevin West, adding that, “hers is an undeniably striking version of midlife.” He assures us the striking former brat packer has changed at 47, evidenced by tiny lines when she smiles, but she has not gone under the knife.

“It’s their job to look amazing,” observes my astute 13-year-old daughter, Sydney. She tells me if it were her full time job, she would be flawless, too. Methinks my teenager looks pretty flawless now, but she would be happier with perfect hair and no blemishes, stuff that completes you when you are 13.

It comes down to the perception of perfection, and in achieving it, stars are spoonfed support from trainers and personal chefs. Most turn to plastic surgery, even prematurely, like America’s sweetheart Meg Ryan and highly respected eco goddess Daryl Hannah. In both cases, the surgery changed the lovely features we knew, while their bodies maintain the taut physiques of teens. In all cases, the goal is achieved. Defy age. Look young.

One looming exception is Meryl, but even the consummate thespian had to shape up to play a mature hippie in Mama Mia and Alec Baldwin’s ex and Steve Martin’s lover in It’s Complicated.

Still, Streep, now in her 60’s, is probably aging more naturally than any other major star. She doesn’t succumb to surgery and I haven’t noticed her photographs being altered through Photoshop, the favorite weapon in the arsenal of Hollywood anti-aging defenses. Streep doesn’t maintain a public persona outside of her appearances, stays out of the sun and avoids alcohol. Those are pretty good defenses, too. Bon Apetit, Meryl!

While I’m certain Demi stays gaunt for her industry, the W cover shot is not the body of a 47-year-old mother unaltered. My 47-year-old friends look amazing, but none of them have bodies like that. It’s the body of her daughter Rumer, perhaps.

The cover was as surprising as the Self Magazine issue featuring American Idol Kelly Clarkson, who didn’t actually slim down the way the magazine suggests on the cover, but erased those pounds thorough digital post-production. And how ’bout that ad featuring Ralph Lauren model Filippa Hamilton, who was deemed too fat at 5’10” and 120 pounds and had to be drastically Shopped to cut the mustard?

While the option of doing digital makeovers is the choice of each publication, the star still pays a price in terms of credibility.

I feel compassion when I realize society demands its idols be, well, objects to idolize. Air brushing and retouching are just a few of the finishing tools employed in the land of make believe, the land the media fully endorse because we fully buy into it. But at the end of the day, it just makes us feel sad. We can’t possibly live up to these images of perfection, and frankly, neither can the stars.

The alternative: finding a way to accept ourselves as natural beauties who do the best we can to stay healthy and fit and happy and productive – and admire how we are able to thrive in a world with so much adversity, sickness, hunger and negativity.

The Demoiselles website did a recent feature profiling celebs moving in the direction of self-acceptance, even unlikely candidates such as Kim Karshashian, who posed for the cover of Life & Style Weekly completely unretouched.

When asked by the magazine why she is so open about her body (i.e. showing herself receiving a cellulite treatment on her reality show), Kardashian said she was tired of people pretending they’re perfect and covering up things when in reality we are who we are.

“You can try to improve that, but the reality is, nobody’s perfect.” she declared.

But maybe we are perfect, Kim. Maybe we are perfectly flawed.

This is the latest installment in Luanne’s column, Life in the Green Lane.

Images: W Magazine, Plastic Sergeant, Sony pictures, ABC News, Life & Style Magazine, Luanne Bradley

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