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The Aesthetics Edit

Welcome to The Aesthetics Edit™ - our educational platform at the intersection of art, beauty, medicine and science.


Explore by category and read our latest articles below,

or see a full list of all of our pieces here

 

Latest articles

The Rise of “Instagram Face”
Aesthetic Medicine Dr Emmaline Ashley Aesthetic Medicine Dr Emmaline Ashley

The Rise of “Instagram Face”

The concept of “Instagram face” is not a new one, but has received more recent attention as Meta has banned filters that encourage plastic surgery. Awareness of the role that social media and photo editing plays in aesthetic medicine is incredibly important for both clinicians and patients. The influence of social media can be incredibly negative, and it means it’s more important than ever to navigate between good, ethical medical practice versus “selling” cosmetic procedures.

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Aesthetic Complications in Skin of Colour: What You Need to Know
Skin Biology, Skin Concerns Dr Emmaline Ashley Skin Biology, Skin Concerns Dr Emmaline Ashley

Aesthetic Complications in Skin of Colour: What You Need to Know

The lack of representation of skin of colour in medical training means that patients can lack the confidence that their skin concerns will be recognised and treated appropriately by their healthcare professional.

If you are a patient with skin of colour, which complications associated with cosmetic treatments should you be worried about?

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The Importance of Skincare
Skin Concerns Dr Emmaline Ashley Skin Concerns Dr Emmaline Ashley

The Importance of Skincare

We all know how much I love skincare, but did you know that you should take your skincare all the way down to your neck and decollatage?

Check out this incredible photograph to understand why!

This shows the cheek and neck of a 92-year-old lady who used UV-protection on her face but not her neck for over 40 years.

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What is Letybo?
Injectables Dr Emmaline Ashley Injectables Dr Emmaline Ashley

What is Letybo?

2022 seems to be the year of new botulinum toxin innovations! You might have been hearing some buzz in the UK about a new toxin approved for the market, Letybo (also known as Letibotulinumtoxin A), from Croma-Pharma.

So what should you know about Letybo?

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What to Expect at Your Injectables Appointment
Injectables Dr Emmaline Ashley Injectables Dr Emmaline Ashley

What to Expect at Your Injectables Appointment

There are a few very basic things you should expect from your injectables appointment.

This is why I am often surprised and even baffled when I hear that patients who have seen other practitioners have not been consented properly, have not been offered reviews, or have had their faces dissected and told they “need” XYZ treatment at quite a cost.

Don’t get me wrong. A clinician needs to be honest about what is achievable within your budget for a result that you have said you have wanted to achieve. That’s different from unsolicited critiques of any small asymmetry.

To that end, there is the Aesthetics Guide to the basics of what you should expect from your medical aesthetics injectable appointment.

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Madame Anna Ruppert: The Beauty Doctor’s Dangerous Legacy
Medical History Dr Emmaline Ashley Medical History Dr Emmaline Ashley

Madame Anna Ruppert: The Beauty Doctor’s Dangerous Legacy

The story of Madame Anna Ruppert is a fascinating one. She was clearly an enterprising and ambitious woman, but one who did not let her lack of medical training get in the way of selling beauty to others. For a brief time she reached dizzying heights of fame and renown, lecturing to sold out crowds (an unheard of feat for most women of the time), enduring attempts on her life via poisoning, and finally ending her career exposed as a fraud.

She is a fascinating and complex woman - clearly someone ahead of her time and determined to forge her own way in the world. But she has also left behind a dangerous legacy, one that is echoed in the current landscape of the UK aesthetics world today.

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Trending: What is New in the World of Skincare
Skincare Science Dr Emmaline Ashley Skincare Science Dr Emmaline Ashley

Trending: What is New in the World of Skincare

Skincare is the bedrock of aesthetic medicine - but it is also a field that is filled with conflicting information from influencers, cosmetic chemists, and dermatologists. I have fallen in love with skincare, but I also recognise there’s a constant desire to chase the latest trend. There’s nothing inherently wrong with wanting to know what’s new and exciting in the skincare world, and to that end I wanted to touch on the hottest current trends in skin.

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Highlights from Asian Skincare
Skincare Science Dr Emmaline Ashley Skincare Science Dr Emmaline Ashley

Highlights from Asian Skincare

I’ve written before that Asian skincare brands are often neglected in most clinics in the UK, despite the fact that there is a growing appetite and interest for their unique products and formulations amongst the general public. I wanted to share some of most beloved and popular skincare ingredients from Asia, as well as take a quick look at what we know about the science behind them.

Who knows - these might be up-and-coming and trending ingredients over the next few years!

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Summer Skin: Some Things You Probably Don’t Hear about Enough
Skin Concerns, Skincare Science Dr Emmaline Ashley Skin Concerns, Skincare Science Dr Emmaline Ashley

Summer Skin: Some Things You Probably Don’t Hear about Enough

There are some things about summer skin I wish I’d always known, and this goes beyond skincare tips (which of course I’ll include).

But I also want to cover heat rashes (I ALWAYS seem so sensitive to this - but…is it really a heat rash?) and sun protection BEYOND SPF. Also, why are childhood sunburns just so dangerous?

Let’s jump in.

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What is Alluzience?
Injectables Dr Emmaline Ashley Injectables Dr Emmaline Ashley

What is Alluzience?

It’s not every day you see a potential innovation in the world of botulinum toxin!

So what is Alluzience?

Alluzience is a brand new botulinum toxin type A first announced in summer 2021 - soon to be launched by Galderma (the company behind Azzalure) in the EU. It represents an exciting innovation with a quicker onset and longer duration than other toxin brands out there.

Let’s find out more.

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Hypochlorous Acid: Skincare’s Secret Weapon
Skincare Science Dr Emmaline Ashley Skincare Science Dr Emmaline Ashley

Hypochlorous Acid: Skincare’s Secret Weapon

What is all the buzz around hypochlorous acid? 

Find out about this great skincare ingredient - how it's a powerhouse at killing microbes and reducing skin inflammation, all while being extreme gentle and soothing for your skin!

We've known about it for a century, it's something our own white blood cells make to protect our bodies, and it's only in recent years some clever chemists have been able to synthesise the chemical and make it stable enough to use in skincare.

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Psychology and Cosmetic Medicine
Skin Biology, Psychology, Cosmetic Doctors Dr Emmaline Ashley Skin Biology, Psychology, Cosmetic Doctors Dr Emmaline Ashley

Psychology and Cosmetic Medicine

Assessment of the psychological needs of our patients is an essential aspect of good medical practice, and it is what separates the medical model from the purely “cosmetic model.”

It probably seems intuitive to suggest that there is a connection between our minds and our physical health. And the evidence holds that patient psychology matters massively in aesthetic medicine.

In this article we are going to briefly summarise some of the basic ways that cosmetic medicine and psychology intersect for clinicians.

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“Fox Eyes:” My Eyes Are Not Your Beauty Trend
Aesthetic Medicine, Medical History Dr Emmaline Ashley Aesthetic Medicine, Medical History Dr Emmaline Ashley

“Fox Eyes:” My Eyes Are Not Your Beauty Trend

The first second I saw #foxeye trending, an instant little curl of disgust went through me. Whether it was through posing, make-up, or thread lifts, I was bombarded with image after image of mostly white women pulling up and slanting their eyes as if it were a fashion statement.

Some of my earliest memories from school are of fellow students pulling up their eyes in the same gesture towards me - this time not as a beauty trend but as a taunt and insult.

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Protect Your Tatas: Why You Should NOT Be Getting Filler Injections in Your Breasts
Injectables Dr Emmaline Ashley Injectables Dr Emmaline Ashley

Protect Your Tatas: Why You Should NOT Be Getting Filler Injections in Your Breasts

While the idea of a liquid or “lunchtime” boob-job may sound appealing on the surface, getting filler in your breasts is not recommended by most ethical clinicians.

Why?

Well, not only is it a procedure that was rapidly withdrawn from the market over a decade ago, it was never supported with much safety data, there were various complications and risks that went with it, and it makes breast cancer screening almost impossible!

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Feminism and Cosmetic Medicine
Aesthetic Medicine Dr Emmaline Ashley Aesthetic Medicine Dr Emmaline Ashley

Feminism and Cosmetic Medicine

Are feminism and cosmetic medicine mutually exclusive concepts? Does having an interest in aesthetics involve tangling ourselves into knots to try reconcile two fundamentally opposed ideas? Are we shrinking ourselves to match society’s concepts of beauty and youth because (somehow) we don’t know any better?

I’m going to say the answer is, “No.”

Now let’s look at why.

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