Beauty & Body Health & Fitness

Keeping Your Look Natural: The Philosophy of Dr. John Vartanian

Cash for your car

Dr. John VartanianIt is not hard to walk down the streets of Hollywood or Beverly Hills and notice all of the people who look like “they have had work done”. It is an unfortunate consequence of today’s technological advancements and over-ambitious surgeons. However, lucky for Los Angeles residents one of the leading facial plastic surgeons in the nation, Dr. John Vartanian, works locally in Beverly Hills with the goal of eliminating this “they have had work done” look.

Dr. Vartanian specializes in advanced plastic surgery on the face and remains on the cutting edge on surgical facial procedures. His philosophy is a simple one: make a difference but keep it natural. And this, no doubt, has been quite successful. The whole purpose of this [plastic surgery] is to free people from their perceived physical problems and for them not to think of the surgeries once the healing is complete, said Dr. Vartanian.

This philosophy is achieved by first meeting with patients and going through an in-depth consultation. This allows for patients to voice their goals and concerns of the procedures. Keeping the patients wishes in mind, Dr. Vartanian uses computer imaging technology that allows patients to see a before and after surgery image simulation. This gives patients a very accurate idea of what the results will look like once the procedure is complete.

Dr. Vartanian conducts both non-surgical and surgical procedures and spoke candidly on both.

Non-Surgical and Minimally Invasive Procedures

Botox

Currently, we have the tools to battle aging and at the least look younger. Usually the first step with that is Botox. My philosophy using Botox is to get a result that looks natural and not fake or mask like. Therefore, I tend to under-treat the forehead but aggressively treat the area around the eyebrows and target crows feet. Thus, the goal is to decrease lines on the forehead but also elevate brow position. Here is an example, a patient about 3 or 4 months after Botox, I would argue the brow position is nicer and we actually elevated it a bit. This has to do with a balance between the muscles when elevating the brows and injecting them in a way that is customized to patients face and how they use their muscles. Here is a patient who wanted her brows elevated and some of the lines on her forehead gone. We simply accomplished that just with Botox.

Dermal Fillers

With time and age the face loses volume and we are increasingly finding new places to put fillers [Restylane] in and this makes a dramatic improvement in most patients, creating a very natural look. We are all familiar with fillers with enhancing lips and filling lines around the corner of the mouth. However, there are new areas in which we are using Restylane. Eyes, cheeks, nose, or even acne scars, basically anywhere in the face that has a depression that you want to correct or fill. The reason I like Restylane is because it can be reversed by injecting another medicine. This is great because if the patient doesn’t like the result, fine, we can inject the patient with another medication and then in 3-7 days the Restylane is gone. Fillers can be performed instead of surgery or in conjunction with surgery. Restylane works great for the eyes, we will just inject some of it around the eyes and suddenly they get a smoother look. Here is a patient who is complaining of looking like they are tired all the time. What usually happens in time is that cheeks start to loose volume and pull down. All of this unsupported tissue then becomes a combination of skin and bone, which we call a tear trough deformity. So we go in a fill it in with Restylane. Here is another example, here is a young patient in here late 20’s who has a youthful face except for under eyes. With a combination of bleaching creams and Restylane, we were able to bring this part of her face in harmony with the rest of her youthful face. It’s a ten minute procedure and I haven’t had an unhappy patient yet.
We are also using fillers to improve nasal shape for some individuals. If you have minor depressions or dips or divots in your nose we can fill those and make the illusion of a better proportion. It also works well for raising nasal bridges, for patients with no nasal bridge or who had reduced their nasal bridge through previous surgeries. I have actually used this on my patients who have come in after having surgery somewhere else and are really jaded by surgery but still want an improvement.

Here is a patient who wanted the shape of her nose improved but doesn’t have time for surgery. So instead, we analyzed her face and saw where we needed to put the Restylane. And sometimes this will take two sessions, because the face often swells and we want to be as accurate as possible. Therefore, we wait two or three weeks and bring them back for another injection. Sometimes this is a nice prelude to actual surgery. The Restylane in this area lasts seven to eight months.
Other Non-Surgical procedures performed by Dr. Vartanian include Laser Hair Removal, Skin Rejuvenation, Skin Peals and Rejuvenation, and reducing Rosacea.

Surgical Procedures

Rhinoplasty (Nasal Surgery)

When I was training and even now whenever I am sitting at a party or in an airport I see all these noses that look done, and I don’t like that. So the way we try to eliminate that is by really analyzing the face, creating soft contours, creating a nose that fits the face of a patient’s facial features and minimizing the tall tale signs of surgery. Something that I do is to use a lot of non-evasive techniques and then create very small changes. This will lead us in time to a look that is natural and desirable. With these changes we are noticing less bruising and less harm with these less aggressive surgeries.

Of course there are people who get bruised, though I would say that only less than half our patients get bruised. We give patients plenty of bags of ice water to reduce bruising. In the end, we manage to address the patients concerns and yet, they look natural.
The same concept applies to reconstructive cases. A patient of mine had a disease in which the cartilage was attacked; she had been in remission for 10 years and decided to get reconstructed. We were able to reconstruct the nose so it looked natural.  But again, here in LA we have a very diverse population of patients. So each nose is different, because it has to be. One patient, whose sister had a rhinoplastly, came in and wanted it done as well. We had to completely revise it. Before she was a young woman with pretty features but a not so ideal of a nose. And I would argue that she is a much more elegant looking person now.

Aging Face

Aging is another area where we try to combat with surgery. There are predictable changes with aging that happens with everyone, eyebrows go down, eyes become hollower, cheeks go down, lines develop on the neck and lower face. And again the key is to reverse these changes without having a “pulled look” or an “overdone fake look”. I feel lucky that I can work after so many great surgeons who have basically come up with so many techniques so that my generation of surgeons can pick and choose from a menu and use them on patients as we see fit. We often elevate the cheek and some of the tissues underneath the eyes. We use various skin closure techniques that allows for minimal tension where the incision is made and we can basically achieve an invisible incision lines.
For a woman in her forties who was complaining of a shriveled look but was worried about the look of being “pulled”. So what we did was elevate the cheeks and reposition the deep tissues without pulling the skin too much and the result she has a much friendlier face.
In another patient who just wanted to look healthier we did an upper eyelid rejuvenation surgery and lower eyelid fat repositioning, very conservative cheek lift, and a face lift. We also put some Restylane in her lips. She doesn’t look done, she looks pretty natural. All the tension is on the deep tissue, there is no tension on the skin, which helps with camouflaging the scar.


In an episode of “Discovery Health” that I did, the patient is a mother of three boys and is a teacher. Her biggest concern is that there is a mole on her head. We removed her mole, we did a very conservative brow lift, a very minimal nasal reshaping, face lift, and minimal Restylane to her lips. I don’t normally do makeover surgeries but she was very healthy and motivated so we did it. And she certainly looks good.

For more information on other procedures available by Dr. John Vartanian, please visit:
www.facial-plastic.com

About the author

Amy Grensted