Having a little nip, tuck or poke is like watching Big Bang Theory reruns: We're all doing it, but nobody wants to admit it. In 2105, the American Academy of Aesthetic Surgery said that male cosmetic procedures had increased 43 percent over the past five years. There's no shame in the game anymore. The latest treatments can melt love handles affordably and without surgery, fill dark circles without freaky facelifting and patch spare spots without Trumping your look. It's time to get familiar with new procedures that are reasonably priced and, in many cases, can be performed with little-to-no downtime. Below are a handful that more and more conspicuously svelte and handsome men are beginning to investigate.
Coolsculpting
This fat-blasting technique was developed thanks to a phenomenon called popsicle panniculitus. Simply put, popsicle-sucking children were causing "localized cell death" inside their cheeks. Doctors figured out that applying cold to fat cells in other parts of the body had the same effect, and soon people were lining up to have their fat frozen.
During the treatment, a flabby section of your body is sucked into something that looks like a vacuum cleaner attachment. After you're zapped with cold for an hour, an aesthetician massages the semi-frozen blubber under your skin. After a couple of weeks, the treated area begins to diminish in size. At about 10 weeks, that paunch, love handle, FUPA or bingo wing has shrunk by 20-30%. Each area costs around $750 to treat, and there's no downtime. The procedure works best on people who are relatively in shape and have just a few problem areas of stubborn fat.
Kybella
Like opinions, everyone's got one. I'm talking of course about your submental triangle, a fancy name for the central underside of your jaw. It's an area where stubborn subcutaneous fat tends to be deposited — what we commonly call a double chin — and devilishly hard to get rid of with diet and exercise alone. Fat tends to accumulate more readily here as we mature, giving away our actual age even if we've managed to stay lean and mean elsewhere. Kybella is the brand name of deoxycholic acid, a bile acid that breaks down dietary fat in the stomach, helping mammals like you and me absorb it into our bodies. It's also been approved by the Food and Drug Administration for breaking down moderate-to-severe fat on the submental triangle. In other words, it makes double chins melt away. Because Kybella destroys fat cells for good, the results are permanent. As with all injectable therapies, Kybella is priced by the vial. The bigger your wattle and the more of it you want gone, the higher the price. One of the reasons people opt for Kybella over another intervention like smart lipo is the lack of downtime involved. Treatment can range between $600 and $5,000.
Juvéderm
Although you'll have to wait a few weeks to see the results of a CoolSculpting session, you can walk out of a Juvéderm treatment immediately improved. This injectable filler consists of hyaluronic acid, a substance that your body naturally produces to keep your skin smooth and plump. Alhough it's not yet FDA approved, Juvéderm is an effective way to improve the appearance of puffy undereye bags or hollows. On average, treating each eye costs about $800. If you want to keep that patina of youth, you'll need to get a refresh every six months to a year.
Botox
OK, this one isn't new, but the stampede is. According to a study published in the journal Cosmetic Dermatology, American men are lining up to get the lines in their foreheads tamped down: Botox injections for men have surged an incredible 258 percent over the past decade or so. (It's even led some people to rename the procedure "brotox.") Botox works by blocking signals from the nerves to the muscles — in essence, a sort of paralysis. That prevents injected muscles from contracting, causing wrinkles to relax and soften. Prices vary, but you can expect to pay anywhere from $200 to $600, which should keep your forehead smoother for about 3 to 4 months. Although it can be used effectively on forehead lines, crow's feet and frown lines, Botox won't work on wrinkles caused by sun damage. For that, you'll need to look into...
Laser Rejuvenation
As a kid (or after the occasional joint), you thought lasers were cool. Past your late 30s, you might appreciate them in a whole new way. That's because they're as effective at resurfacing wrinkled, sun-damaged skin as they are in striking down Sith lords and making the music of Pink Floyd semi-exciting. The beams used in laser resurfacing remove the outer layer of skin, or epidermis. At the same time, they heat the underlying dermis. This action works to stimulate growth of new collagen fibers and, as the treated area heals, smoother and firmer skin forms. This one can set you back between $1,100 and $2,300.
ARTAS Hair Transplant
If you don't like the fact that you're going bald, you don't have to suck it up, wear a piece or buy a Corvette like the shiny-domed men of yesteryear. You have a natural-looking hair transplant instead. As the name suggests, male pattern baldness follows a pattern: you lose hair up top while the hair below the tops of your ears stays put. It's because the hair around the back and sides is resistant to dihydrotestosterone (DHT), a naturally produced hormone that makes the hair on top fall out. This led researchers to see what would happen if you replanted hair from the back to the top. In fact, the DHT-resistant hair starts growing like gangbusters in its new home.
The most recent major development in hair transplantation came in 2011 with the development of the ARTAS system, in which a robotic arm extracts DHT-resistant donor hair randomly and without necessitating a strip of scalp to be cut from the back of a transplantee's head. At the moment, however, the number of hair grafts you can have transplanted is limited to how much donor hair you have. Once gene therapy and/or hair cloning can be figured out, practically anyone will be able to buy himself or herself a limitless amount of of real, thick, lustrous, growing hair. Depending on how much of your dome needs to be sown, the procedure can cost anywhere between $4,000 and $20,000.
