The Doctor Will See You Now: KaplanMD Beauty
Aug. 18 2009, Published 5:49 a.m. ET
Celebs know Dr. Kaplan, the Beverly Hills dermatologist Stuart H. Kaplan, M.D.,whose KaplanMD Skincare is based around a number of treatments specifically designed to prevent and treat all three types of skin aging caused by Time, Natural Hormonal Progression, and Environmental Damage.
We decided to ask the good doctor a few questions about his new line.
Dr. Kaplan: My new skin care line is a focus that has not been used in any other skin care line before and that's the concept of natural hormonal progression. The idea is that up until now skin care lines have really focused on environmental aging and chronologic aging and they've focused on anti-oxidants and things to heal environmental and chronologic aging. We also age hormonally. That does not mean menopause, we start a natural hormonal progression from the day we're born from infancy through puberty, acne, changes in fertility rate, the idea is not only do we have a natural hormonal progression internally but our skin also has a natural hormonal progression. If your skin care line is not treating that third prong of aging you're missing the boat.
Dr. Kaplan: It's relatively new and skin care has always been a little behind the rest of medicine. Skin care products are usually based on one or two active ingredient. KaplanMD is unique because we have 10 active ingredients in every product. We only have the very basic six products in our line. A cleanser, toner, day cream, night cream, serum, eye cream and we just added a scrub for the seventh and we just added a lip product.
How much time does the regime take?
Dr. Kaplan: I would use in the scrub in the shower to exfoliate my face. Moderation is not a word that is commonly used in skin care. What I believe is you don't want to do it to the point where it irritates you the next day. Our microfoliant is very finely pulverized and processed grapeseed extract and that is the physical abrasive and we have papaya and pineapple enzymes that give you ore of a chemical exfoliation. By combing the two types of exfoliation it's mild enough to use every day. After the shower I would use a toner on my skin. It's very simple, during the day I'd use the day cream, which has the smart vector SPF, which means that it only activates once ultraviolet light hits it. So if you put it on at six o'clock in the morning but you're really not going out until noon it will be ready when you hit the ultra violet exposure. Also, the difference between SPF 15, 30, and 45 is just a couple of percentage points, so the higher SPFs sometimes aren't the most necessary. You need to apply it every two hours, no matter what but with KaplanMD you put it on a half hour before the application in the morning and it is going to give you the readiness that you need in the afternoon.
Dr. Kaplan: Natural hormonal progression begins in your mid 20s. In the evening use the serum, what I would do is use the cleanser, then the serum, serum usually goes under the day and night cream. Then I would put on the night cream. The day cream and the night cream you don't need to put around the eyes. We have a separate eye cream for both day and night, the intensive eye cream. What you're getting is you're getting the benefit of 30 or 40 ingredients with just those applications.
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This is for men and women?
Dr. Kaplan: We all have estrogen and testosterone, just in different concentrations. The reason estrogen is important is it maintains the collagen in our skin and the collagen gives us strength. Men age hormonally as well. Hormonal aging starts at birth but the hormonal regression starts in our mid 20s. All your changes internally are reflected externally. I have a lot of men who use my skin care products.
This isn't a quick fix, not botox is it?
Dr. Kaplan: If you want to look 10 years from now like you look today, then you need to start taking care of your skin now. You don't wait until you have a heart attack to start getting in shape. It is much better to maintain something than to fix something.
Dr. Kaplan: I want to tell you one more thing, about our lip product.
Dr. Kaplan: Glosses are terrible for you, it's like putting baby oil on your lips. It enhances the ultra violet damage of the sun. And plumper's causes and irritation in your lips, it's like putting poison ivy or poison oak on your skin. Rapid expansion and contraction will cause more wrinkles. The point is that's now how you want to have plumping; our product treats in four different ways. It moisturizes because it has seabuckthorn berry extract, which is 20 times more moisturizing than vitamin E, it protects as an SPF 20. It repairs, it also firms. I don't like to use the word plump, because there is too much emphasis on plumping; everyone wants to look like Angelina Jolie. What you want to do is firm and our says the peptides, the maxi lip, it has the Patented Hyaluronic Filling Spheres, which are micro-injected into the lip tissue to immediately smooth fine lines and wrinkles and cause a natural fullness of the lips. It is not a needle, it naturally does the fullness.
Dr. Kaplan: The whole point is you get better results. We've tried to scientifically get the best products and put them in as few bottles as possible. You're getting the benefit of 10-3-1 every application gives you at least 10 active ingredients treats all three types of aging in one line. As people are trying to get away from surgery they realize that plastic surgery will get rid of the amount of skin you have but won't improve the quality of your skin.
As with any regime, please consult your personal doctor or dermatologist before starting.