In The News

Rubber bands to Botox: slowing the hands of time
By: Deirdre McMurdy     Montreal Gazette
January 20, 2005


Copyright © 2005 Montreal Gazette

TORONTO

I'm standing in Anita Lorelli's newly renovated bathroom looking more like Hannibal Lecter than I ever thought possible. There are elastic straps under my chin, across my nose and brow, and latex pads are perched over my eyebrows.

No, it's not one of those humiliating challenges typically endured by contestants in a reality show: I've come to visit Lorelli for a facelift. But instead of anesthesia, surgery and swelling, the Toronto-based physiotherapist is demonstrating her new facial-firming product, the Envisage Exerciser.

"I saw so many of my female clients coming in with Botox and plastic surgery that really made them look bad," she said. "I figured there had to be a better way to help them."

With 20 years experience under her belt, Lorelli set to work to devise something that would naturally flex and strengthen facial muscles, giving sagging chins and drooping eyes a boost.

"Unlike other muscles, the ones in the face are harder to provide leverage to, harder to shape as a result," she said. "The key is something light and comfortable that provides resistance."

But after about 20 attempts, she came up with a design for which she now holds a pending patent. It currently sells through her Web site for $45 and she says she has been amazed at the word-of-mouth demand since she started selling it late last year. ( www.envisageface.com )

"I have to admit, even I was surprised that it took just a month for clinical measurements to show results," Lorelli said.

Even though her initial target market was women age 35 and older, she said men have also been snapping up her elastic bands.

Lorelli's enterprise, which she runs in addition to a private physiotherapy practice, is at the forefront of an explosion as a rapidly aging and affluent population looks for ways to slow the hands of time. Without question, Botox injections and radical elective surgery have become increasingly common - inspired, at least in part, by the number of major celebrity "makeovers" in the media. According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, there was a 267-per-cent increase in the number of Botox injections - a derivative of botulism bacteria that temporarily removes wrinkles by freezing facial muscles - between 2000 and 2003. A 33-per-cent increase in the number of plastic surgery procedures was recorded between 2002 and 2003.

A significant element in the growth of the beauty business has been the emergence of male patients. They now represent about 15 per cent of the total surgery market and the number who underwent procedures soared by 28 per cent between 2002 and 2003 alone.

In the U.S. presidential elections last November, the debate over Senator John Kerry's alleged Botox shots almost eclipsed the discussion of such issues as health-care spending and the military presence in Iraq.

Despite the proliferation of these goods and services, however, there's evidence of a mounting backlash. Recent scandals over the use of cheaper versions of Botox (including charges against the ex-wife of singer Lionel Richie) and a lawsuit against Allergan, the make of Botox, by the wife of Hollywood studio boss Mike Medavoy have made consumers more leery of opting for the quick fix.

So, too, has the introduction of such products as Alloderm and Dermaplant, so-called "biomaterials" manufactured from the harvest of human tissue from cadavers.

Cost can also be a deterrent: a facelift starts at about $10,000, an eye lift costs as much as $7,500, lip augmentation goes for up to $7,000, while collagen and Botox shots run close to $500 each -- more if a large area is treated.

All of this, of course, is just a small part of the multibillion-dollar global market for skin-care products and cosmeceuticals.

Hannibal Lecter never looked so good.

Deirdre McMurdy     Montreal Gazette