Juvéderm Voluma XC was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in December as the first injectable filler to immediately add volume to the cheek area. Similar to other fillers such as Restylane, Juvéderm and Perlane, Voluma is made of hyaluronic acid, a naturally occurring substance found in the skin. However, Voluma offers special benefits.
“It’s unlike anything else available,” says Donna Fay. “You can lift her face. You can sculpt faces. You can reverse facial aging. -And now we can do it in a way that lasts for at least 18 months, and in some cases up to 24 months.” Dr Pearlman is amongst a small select group of doctors across the country who are taking part in educational studies. Donna Fay warns that injecting Voluma requires special training and an understanding of aesthetics such as facial harmony and bone structure. So the patient should see a doctor who is experienced with Voluma. They say, “If a doctor doesn’t have an artistic eye, you can look very fake with it”.
“It also fills space better, so a little bit goes a long way. It takes more removal, so it will push up more skin than any other filler of the same volume,” says Donna Fay, who has consulted several Voluma patients, using an average of two or three syringes. “And it feels very soft and natural on the skin. You do not feel it after it settles.
Voluma is also less painful than other fillers because it’s injected deeper into the skin where there are fewer nerves. For the same reason, it may be less prone to causing bruising because it’s injected under a vein. “As we get older, the ligaments and tendons that hold the fat pads in the skin expand, so things go south, and we get jaw and sagging. It can really lift the face. This is an anatomically correct facelift. Instead of looking like you’re in a wind tunnel, you look like you had the volume back when you were younger. I see it as a great option for people, like men, who can’t afford a bruise every nine months. This way you can do it on Thursday and off Friday and back to work on Monday, and no one will know you’ve done anything.”
“I represent the face of health and Aesthetics, so it’s important for my face and body to look good, but I think we are also responsible for our face and appearance,” said Donna Fay. “So this is just a way to continue projecting the best image for myself and the profession.” Indeed, for both men and girls, the lifting effect may be significant. “Men get a detached look in the center of their face – you see it in the center of the cheeks. Just adding a little bit of filler takes decades, and it goes undetected.” Apart from the cheeks, they also inject Voluma in other areas such as the hollows of the temples, chin and jawline. Additionally, they used Voluma together with other fillers such as Restylane to fill in the nasolabial folds — the folds that run from the sides of the nose to the corners of the mouth. “Finally we have something indicated for the cheeks,” says Donna Fay. “Whether it will be better than anything we have on the market remains to be seen. I really enjoyed working with him in Dr Pearlman’s practice and having him, but it also made me a little nervous. Now anyone can inject it, and that doesn’t mean everyone has a great aesthetic taste, like Dr Pearlman, so I advise consumers to use experienced doctors. The best results are when you don’t know. . . .”
“It works against gravity by adding to the cheeks, because if you lift – if you put your finger on the cheekbone below the outer eye and pull up, you can pull the jaw up, and that’s sort of the theory,” she adds. “If we can put volume in there, we can pull up from the bottom and create a better jawline. That’s great – until they stop looking like themselves.
