“The face is the mirror of the soul” – Do fu, chin. Poet, 712-770

Beauty is both a myth and an obsession. For centuries, man has used ointments, water, powder, syringes, corsets and operations to technically optimize his body. For a long time, however, the ideal of beauty publicly negotiated concerned only one sex: the woman. But the men are catching up. The times they are a changing…Good so. The Neanderthals had their time.

What is beauty?

But what is beauty? Isn’t it simply a game of showing, exposing and concealing, of hushing up and accentuating, an “unproductive pretence,” as George Bataille called it, that tries to suggest what nobody has yet been able to define – which is beauty? Is beauty recognizable at first glance or does it need a closer look? “What one sees at first glance,” wrote the philosopher and sociologist of culture Nicolaus Sombart, “is to a certain extent only an optical illusion, a ‘trompe-l’œil.

Something is perceived as beautiful that is symmetrical and balanced in proportions, but this is where the problems begin, because absolute symmetry is again unaesthetic, every beauty needs a little flaw. The more precise the attempt to describe beauty, the more poetic and metaphorical it becomes, until the definition at the end contains what is to be defined: Beauty is what pleases. Unfortunately, something is often ignored when it comes to beauty: beauty is above all when someone feels beautiful.

Dietmar Kamper and Christoph Wulf capitulate in 1989 in “Der Schein des Schönen”: “The attempt to seize beauty destroys it. It forms a world that cannot be reduced to other worlds, is useless and plays with erotic desires on the edge of chaos and the hope of imperishability.

As early as 1930, the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud had nothing left for such beauty prose, which mythologizing conjures up the incomprehensible, but only ridicule: “The science of aesthetics examines the conditions under which beauty is felt; it was not able to provide any information about the nature and origin of beauty; how common is the lack of results concealed by an expenditure of full-sounding, empty words.

Connections between beauty, self-perception and psyche

Today Freud should be rolling in his grave, because: Psychology and psychiatry in particular now seem to be finally becoming aware of the importance of the appearance (and thus, despite all subjectivity) of beauty: It is about self-perception and self-confidence coupled with it. The daughter born from the union of self-perception and self-confidence is the charisma and this in turn is the sister of the charism. Hand on heart: Don’t we rather meet charismatic people than grumpy sourpusses and misanthropes?

Whether we have a good or a bad day, whether we feel safe or insecure, happy or unhappy, sad or happy is written on our face. Like a business card, it indicates who we are, even in an environment where we don’t always want to reveal personal information like our age. The demographic change and the associated demands to look fresh and awake until the advanced age justify the demand for an aesthetic consultation.

This is one of the reasons why we have increasingly dealt with this topic in recent years and months and also completed additional training in aesthetic medicine. This has led to the creation of the BC-Aesthetics department within the men’s practice. (BC for Bürgin & Caimi) A long way, but with a lot of fun and joy and the experiences made last year are really fun!

Very little creates a lot

Minimal changes in facial expressions can already have significant effects on mood and drive. Men, in particular, often suffer from a pronounced frown line, which makes them appear strict, disgruntled or even hostile-repellent, like the caretaker Krause in an apartment building or the schoolhouse caretaker Rüdisühli on the playground. Since neither Krause nor Rüdisühli are evil people, their perception of others has a feedback effect on them. At some point they become prisoners of their strict, controlling and always reprimanding role, otherwise they have the feeling that they are no longer taken seriously.

With a minimal amount of botulinum toxin, the anger line can be defused to the maximum. If it concerns an older person, it seems however laughable, if one injects also the forehead wrinkles away, because these belong to the Vita and history of the face and this should not mutate to a facial expression-free mask.

Even with mild or moderate depressions or depressive moods, such punctual, fine and reduced measures lead to a clear improvement in mood and an increase in drive, often without additional psychotropic drugs. Studies have shown that through minimal interventions can significantly improve self-image, self-confidence and mood. This is known as “facial feedback”.

Also the face dehydrates

The same applies to narrow, stroke-shaped lips, deep nasolabial wrinkles or eye grooves (in women also crow’s feet). Here, however, one does not work with botulinum toxin, but with so-called fillers, i.e. hyaluronic acid. Hyaluronic acid occurs naturally in the body. Therefore it rarely leads to allergic reactions. It corresponds to the protection of the upper skin layers and, to put it simply, works like a sponge. The colourless gel binds after the injection in small amounts of water and leads to a firmer and more elastic skin, among other things also by the fact that more collagen is formed again. Depending on skin type, age and previous damage, this effect can last up to 24 months. In the case of lips, a slight definition of the lip contours or the lip wrinkles above the lip red without any increase in lip volume is often sufficient to achieve a fresher and friendlier appearance.

When it grinds at night…

Nocturnal teeth grinding (bruxism) can be significantly improved by a minimal amount of botulinum toxin injected into the largest masticatory muscle (masseter muscle) and, for example, make these less sleep-friendly splints superfluous.

Pain?

Treatments within the framework of aesthetic medicine are practically painless. You work with ultra-thin needles whose insertion is hardly felt. An exception is the mouth region (lip contours, lips). We use a local anaesthetic ointment in our own formula (Emla is hardly effective) which, applied 20 minutes before, reduces the pain to an absolute minimum.

Reduced to the max!

“Time may heal wounds, but she’s a miserable beautician.”Mark Twain –

“Less is sometimes more!” (less is often more) once said the great architect Mies van der Rohe. What is right for architecture is even more true for any aesthetic-medical measure. We always strive for improvement, no change and certainly no alienation. Dinghy lips may have an erotic impact on certain men – à la bonne heure. But they have nothing to do with conscientious aesthetic medicine and, on the contrary, they prevent people who could benefit considerably from it without the personality changing medication.

Every face has its own vita and history. It is only under this aspect that an age-appropriate beauty and freshness can be defined.