Skin Care & Laser Dermatology Clinic | Dr. Derek Jones : Los Angeles, Beverly Hills

Skin Care and Laser Dermatology Clinic, led by Dr. Derek Jones, offers a wide array of services in general and cosmetic dermatology. Contact our dermatologists in Los Angeles and book a consultation today!

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The Surprising Benefits of BOTOX®

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If you regularly and consistently devote time to something—whether it’s playing the piano or learning to cook or swinging a golf club—you can get better and better at it over time. The same goes for muscles injected with Botulinum toxin type A-based wrinkle-smoothing treatments: With regular and consistent applications of BOTOX® and similar products, the facial muscles that cause forehead lines, crow’s feet, and more to appear can get better and better at resting. What’s more, there seems to be evidence that these treatments also lead to ongoing improvements on a cellular level.

That means your muscles and skin can get better and better at keeping you looking younger, less stressed, and more refreshed.

A special issue of the publication Dermatologic Surgery recently edited by Dr. Derek Jones of Skin Care & Laser Physicians of Beverly Hills explores this concept, especially in an article examining the preventive and cumulative effects of Botulinum toxin type A used in facial aesthetics.

Three doctors reviewed medical literature for evidence that supported the theory of repeated treatment cycles positively impacting skin quality. Their ultimate conclusion? Clinical observations of patients who have enjoyed progressive wrinkle reduction suggest that Botulinum toxin type A injections can trigger ongoing repair processes in the skin. These processes yield long-term effects that can improve even more with future treatments.

In other words, an ongoing course of Botulinum toxin type A—when properly injected by a board-certified dermatologist—can keep you looking younger longer.

Another study mentioned in the special issue revealed the difference in skin quality between two twins: one who received only four BOTOX® injections over 19 years, and one who chose consistent and regular injections throughout that same time. The twin who maintained a steady schedule of treatments ultimately enjoyed benefits beyond what would typically be expected. Her targeted wrinkles were overall less visible—if noticeable at all—and her skin texture was better than her sister’s.

Want to learn more? Contact Skin Care & Laser Physicians of Beverly Hills. BOTOX® is one of the most popular treatments available at the physician-only practice. Send a message online or call 310-246-0495.

Four Things to Avoid for Healthy Skin

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You may have a handy mental list of what to seek out to help your skin looks its beautiful best (antioxidants, lotions, the advice of trusted skincare professionals), but sometimes knowing what not to do is just as important. Here are four things to stay away from if you want to keep wrinkles and other untimely signs of aging at bay.

Sun

At this point, pretty much everybody knows that sun exposure (and time spent under the sun-mimicking bulbs in tanning beds) is a surefire way to damage your skin. From a health perspective, ultraviolet radiation is a contributor to skin cancer. From a cosmetic perspective, it contributes to the formation of wrinkles, spots, and a host of other aesthetic problems. The solution to this is simple: Wear sunscreen or just stay in the shade.

Tobacco Products

A cigarette or cigar habit does more than damage your lungs (though that’s a significant side effect of its own). Chemicals in the smoke are known to speed up the breakdown of healthy compounds in the skin, as well as hamper healthy blood flow, both of which are crucial to looking your smooth and rosy best. Like avoiding sun exposure, the solution to this is also simple: Stop smoking, and avoid others who do as much as possible.

Late Nights

Your body is busy while you sleep, kicking cells into gear so they can make more skin-smoothing components, like collagen and elastin. Want to load up on caffeine and stay awake till the wee hours? You can do so, but the price may be more than an extra slap of the snooze button the next morning. Lack of sleep can contribute to everything from wrinkles to sagging to more visible blood vessels due to dilation. The solution? Go to bed!

Water

This one is a bit tricky. You obviously shouldn’t avoid all forms of water, since staying properly hydrated is essential to having healthy, pliant skin. What you should avoid, however, is repeatedly having wet skin that dries out. This problem can be made worse when the water is accompanied by harsh chemicals, whether they take the form of chlorine in a pool or powerful soaps scrubbed into the face each morning. Various moisturizers and serums are available to help, as are cosmetic treatments that can encourage natural moisture retention in the skin.

Talk to the dermatologists at the Los Angeles area’s Skin Care and Laser Center of Beverly Hills to learn more about how healthy skin starts at home—as well as what can be done to combat the damage caused by any of these four culprits. Call 310.246.0495 to arrange a consultation or send a message online.

Forget to Protect Against the Sun? Those Spots Don’t Have to Be Permanent

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The Skin Care and Laser Physicians of Beverly Hills team has a range of options available for patients looking to address pigmentation irregularities, visible blood vessels, and other signs of prolonged sun exposure. With one such treatment, IPL, Los Angeles-area residents who maybe skimped on the sunscreen a little too often can gain a more even tone by using light to their advantage.

IPL stands for “intense pulsed light,” and it is often lumped into the same category as lasers, though the two treatments are different. While lasers use very focused beams of high-intensity light energy to penetrate the skin and address various cosmetic issues, IPL uses short pulses of a different wavelength to generate results.

The two treatments do bear some similarity, in that both take advantage of the fact that darker areas in the skin more readily absorb the light energy, which is converted to heat. The resulting high temperatures damage the pigmented cells, which triggers change.

In the case of sun spots, the pigmented cells in the lesion ultimately flake off or are absorbed and processed by the body. For visible veins, the light seals off the redundant vessels, which causes their collapse and reabsorption into the body.

As effective as IPL is, nothing beats prevention for “treating” sun spots before they start.

Dermatologists already sound like broken records when it comes to discussing sunscreen and other forms of protection against UV light, but the repetitive message kicks into an even higher gear when spring and summer days start temping more people to spend longer hours outside with less clothing on.

Do your skin a favor: Cover it with sunscreen every day. But don’t worry—if you’ve already enjoyed years of heading out under blue skies without proper protection, you can still take care of the spots that give away your sun-worshiping lifestyle.

Learn more about IPL by calling Skin Care and Laser Physicians of Beverly Hills at 310.246.0495 or send a message via the practice’s online contact form.

What is the Golden Ratio?

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Many dermal fillers are designed to make facial lines less noticeable. With Juvederm® injections, Los Angeles-area women and men can see a visible reduction in the severity of their nasolabial folds, for example. But just as paint can be mere color on a canvas or a lifelike portrait depending on who wields the brush, an injectable is only as good as its injector when it comes to creating a refreshed, more youthful look.

In other words, technical knowhow—while incredibly important to maximize safety and effectiveness—is not the only factor to consider when choosing a skincare provider. The art of making someone look naturally revitalized involves an aesthetic eye for creating the right proportions to maximize beauty.

Of course, experience helps. Physicians who are familiar with a diverse mix of faces, a range of products, and how the two interact are better able to understand the complex connection between skin, muscles, bone structures, and modern treatments. Making cosmetic improvements to a face is not the same as manufacturing widgets that must all be the exact same size and shape. Skincare requires adaptability, creativity, and artistic talent.

This is not to say that good dermatologists just go with their gut. There is a science behind the beauty, too, that can be expressed in something known as Phi, or the Golden Ratio. Found throughout nature, the mathematical proportion has long been studied by mathematicians and artists alike in their quest to understand order and beauty. Leonardo da Vinci based many of his works on Phi, which can also be seen in everything from shells and leaves to the proportions of famous sculptures and paintings.

As with everything, the Golden Ratio is not a hard and fast rule, but the Skin Care and Laser Physicians of Beverly Hills team of dermatologists works to apply it to great effect. Dr. Derek Jones created the Derek Jones Facial Harmonics™ approach to guiding the application of injectables and other treatments for natural, not “overdone” look. The approach involves assessing each unique patient for facial shape, structure, symmetry, and proportion, using the results of the assessment to plan cosmetic treatments accordingly.

Contact Skin Care and Laser Physicians of Beverly Hills by calling 310-246-0495 or visiting the pratice’s Contact Us page.

Don’t Forget Your Skin in Wedding Preparations!

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While trees are budding and flowers are bloom for spring, the Skin Care & Laser Physicians of Beverly Hills team is encouraging soon-to-be brides to do some getting ready of their own in advance of next spring’s weddings—or at least this upcoming fall. Whether they’re considering dermal fillers for more youthful facial contours or the wrinkle-smoothing abilities of BOTOX® Cosmetic injections, the Los Angeles area’s forward-looking fiancées are advised to schedule a skincare consultation six months to a year in advance of the Big Day.

Why book a dermatologist as far in advance as a baker or florist? Though some skin treatments work quickly, many require multiple sessions spaced weeks—or even months—apart in order to generate ideal results. Of course, even a single visit can yield skin-brightening and -tightening results, but developing an ongoing skincare regimen is an excellent strategy for looking radiant when you say “I do,” as well as throughout your following anniversaries.

The dermatologists at Skin Care & Laser Physicians of Beverly Hills can set up a customized plan that involves injectables, lasers, and other treatments to get you looking your best, and there’s also an esthetician on the team, offering Hydrafacials that can be customized to exfoliate, peel, extract material from pores, and then infuse one of multiple serums selected to personally benefit each unique patient.

A wedding day is designed to live for the rest of your life in photos and memories. When focusing on details, from centerpieces to favors, don’t forget to give your own skin the time and attention it deserves. (And don’t forget the groom, either! Men’s treatments are on the rise, giving him ample opportunity to get his own skin ready for a walk down the aisle.)

Learn more about preparing your skin for a wedding at Skin Care and Laser Physicians of Beverly Hills. Call 310-246-0495 or visit the Contact Us page.

Discover the Lasers and Lights That Help Skin Look Younger

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We recently wrote about the addition of Fraxel® DUAL to the Skin Care and Laser Physicians of Beverly Hills menu of services, since the versatile device expanded our ability for advanced laser skin resurfacing in the Los Angeles area.

Patients interested in exploring all of their laser-based options can also talk to our team about:

  • Excel V by Cutera® and VBeam: These laser systems are ideal for heating vascular lesions, including discolored patches on the face and neck and visible facial veins. This treatment works by sending laser energy into the targeted tissue, where pigment in the lesions absorbs it and is damaged by the energy buildup. This leads vessels to shrivel up, redness to reduce, and growths—such as cherry angiomas—to fade away.
  • UltraPulse™ Fractional CO2 Laser: Considered to be a gold standard in laser treatments, UltraPulse™ is a particularly powerful option that penetrates deep into the skin so that it ablates the surface and coagulates beneath the surface to reduce the appearance of wrinkles, scars, and more. This treatment is especially effective on older skin that bears obvious signs of sun damage and also younger patients with deeper wrinkles or acne scars.
  • Light Sheer DUET Laser: Focused energy can be used to damage hair follicles, rendering them no longer able to properly produce hairs. Light Sheer DUET and Excel V are both able to treat unwanted hair in a range of skin types, making them versatile solutions for all sorts of patients who want smooth skin long term, without having to worry about shaving, waxing, or plucking.

Though it isn’t a laser, IPL—which stands for intense pulsed light—is frequently grouped in the same family due to its application and results. With bursts of high-intensity visible spectrum light, dermatologists can treat pigmentation problems, ultraviolet radiation damage, unwanted visible veins, and more.

Discover what lasers and other beneficial lights can do to rejuvenate and refresh skin that looks aged or sun damaged. Call 310-246-0495 or reach out online via the Contact Us page.

Get to Know Dr. Naissan Wesley, the Writer

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Regular patients at Skin Care and Laser Physicians of Beverly Hills know Dr. Naissan Wesley as a physician devoted to skin health and beauty—an educated, experienced, and board-certified dermatologist with a wide-ranging reputation for her work. They may not know, however, that she’s also a frequently published writer who contributes regular columns to Dermatology News.

Since 2009, back when the publication was called Skin and Allergy News, Dr. Wesley has co-authored monthly articles with Dr. Lily Talakoub. The two alternate duties, with Dr. Wesley writing and Dr. Talakoub editing her work one month, then Dr. Talakoub writing and Dr. Wesley editing the next.

The column began life as “Skin of Color,” but has since broadened to be about general aesthetic dermatology.

Recent topics have ranged from the up-close-and-personal (skin barnacles) to the far-flung (Nomadic Mongolian skin care practices). Over the years, the duo has written about laser resurfacing, skin tightening devices, thread lift procedures, the newest dermal fillers, eyelash extensions, the effects of hard water, and how climate change can impact the skin.

In addition to her ongoing column, Dr. Wesley contributes to peer-reviewed journals and medical textbooks, including a recently published chapter on “Beauty and the Aging Face” for the simply (and accurately) titled textbook Dermatology, 4th edition. She is frequently sought out to provide information to members of both local and national media. Readers can find her quotes on blogs, magazines, and in The New York Times alike.

Meet Dr. Wesley and the rest of the Skin Care and Laser Physicians team—Dr. Derek Jones and Dr. Jeanette Black—by visiting their Los Angeles-area dermatology practice. Contact them online to arrange a consultation, or call 310-246-0495.

Smoke and Skin: A Bad Combination

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With rain falling more frequently, California is finally edging out of the dry season that seems increasingly prone to wildfires. The entire state spent what seemed like weeks smothered in smoke in 2018, with the threat—and sometimes reality—of burning homes displacing thousands of people and impacting millions. The effects of these devastating fires will be felt for years as people work to rebuild their lives from the ashes of what they lost.

Unfortunately, some of those effects will also be felt and seen in the very bodies of anyone who found themselves surrounded by the smoke. Wildfire smoke contains very small particulates, which means they more easily settle into the skin—not just sitting on the surface to be washed off.

Smoke particulates can cause short-term irritations and long-term damage by stressing the skin, leading to everything from the premature development of wrinkles and spots to flare-ups of chronic skin conditions, such as psoriasis and eczema.

Since we’re on the subject, we should note that tobacco smoke is not good for skin, either. It can cause discoloration, destruction of beneficial elements in the skin, and an overall reduction in health, which reduces the body’s ability to replenish the components necessary for keeping skin healthy, pliant, smooth, and tight.

Smoking is banned in specific areas in many communities throughout California, but the dermatologists at the Los Angeles area’s Skin Care and Laser Physicians of Beverly Hills cannot emphasize enough: Avoid smoke if you can. Anyone concerned about the effects smoke exposure has had on their skin can contact the practice to arrange for a consultation. Call 310-246-0495 or send a message online.

A Third Cosmetic Use for BOTOX® Gets Approval

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As a dermatologist instrumental in investigating the benefits and safety of addressing crow’s feet with BOTOX® treatments, Los Angeles-based physician Dr. Derek Jones has long used the injectable cosmetic for a range of applications, some officially approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and some considered off-label. Toward the end of 2017, the FDA gave BOTOX® Cosmetic a new stamp of approval, bringing the total federally recognized cosmetic uses up to three.

Already enjoying FDA approvals for frown lines and crow’s feet, BOTOX® now has the government’s nod to be marketed as a treatment for horizontal forehead lines—a change that makes the most popular cosmetic treatment in the country now the most versatile such treatment as well. No other neurotoxin (the word for botulinum toxin-based injectables, of which BOTOX® is just one example) is indicated for three areas on the face. In the United States, it is the sole neurotoxin approved by the FDA for aesthetic applications beyond frown lines—technically known as glabellar lines.

Clinical trials revealed that BOTOX® Cosmetic was considered more effective than a placebo at smoothing out frown lines, assessed at 30 days after the treatment by both an investigator and the test subjects themselves. In fact, subjects who received injections of the actual cosmetic and found it effective once they reached their primary endpoint numbered 61 percent in the first trial and 46 percent in the second. Subjects who received the placebo and found it to be effective at the same endpoint numbered zero in the first trial and 1 percent in the second.

Three treatment cycles yielded overall similar response rates.

What does this mean for patients who choose Skin Care and Laser Physicians of Beverly Hills? Since the physician-only team is already experienced in using the injectable to treat forehead lines—and more—available applications will remain the same, but women and men alike can find satisfaction in their choice of the reliable, effective, and popular BOTOX®.

For more information or to set up a consultation, call 310-246-0495 or visit the Contact Us page.

Choose a Dermatologist Over an Internet Life Hack

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The Internet is great for a lot of things—near-instantaneous communication and cat videos among them—but literally anyone can put anything online. From blogs to YouTube videos, content can come from your friend and neighbor, well-meaning helper or prank-loving teen. One popular genre is “life hacks,” which offer simple, often surprising solutions to everyday problems, such as keeping electrical cords from tangling or cleaning grimy headlights on your car. While the vast sea of electronic resources may be a great place to discover a new way to keep your chips from going stale, it shouldn’t be used as an alternative to seeking medical advice from a doctor, such as a board-certified dermatologist. Los Angeles-based Dr. Derek Jones, Dr. Naissan Wesley, and Dr. Jeanette Black have years of education and experience in dealing with a range of common and uncommon skin problems, both medical and cosmetic. So if you, say, hear about the wonders of smearing glue onto your face, then peeling it off to eliminate blackheads, you can turn to them for their take.

There are plenty of dermatologist-recommended treatments and skincare routines you can safely do at home, but the key words in that phrase are “dermatologist” and “recommended.” Before beginning any regimen, you should consult with a doctor not only to ensure it’s safe for you—considering your specific skin type and health history—but to determine whether it can truly and effectively accomplish what you want it to accomplish. Clearing away oil with a daily cleanse won’t do anything if your problem isn’t cause by oil.

Your skin is important, so the advice you get when it comes to caring for it should come from a trusted, reliable, and proven source. Talk to a dermatologist at Skin Care & Laser Physicians of Beverly Hills to meet that source today. Visit the Contact Us page, or call 310-246-0495.