In recognition of June being Men’s Health Month, I chatted to renowned plastic surgeon Dr Jack Zoumaras from Artiste Plastic Surgery in Sydney about men’s facelifts, male procedures and the motivations for men having surgery and how they differ to women. This is a really insightful podcast.
Trish Hammond: Hey listeners. Welcome once again to Transforming Bodies with myself from Plastic Surgery Hub. And today I’m talking to the wonderful Dr Jack Zoumaras from Artiste Plastic Surgery in Double Bay around that area in Sydney. So welcome Dr Jack Zoumaras.
Dr. Zoumaras: Thanks for having me Trish.
Trish Hammond: Thanks for coming along again. I always love having a chat to you. So, look it’s Men’s Health Week this week. So, I thought we’d cover some of the stuff for the men because we don’t do probably as much as we should for the guys. And I know that you do quite a few facelifts for male patients. So, I thought I just start by asking you, you know, have you noticed that there’s main … what are the main motivations for men wanting a facelift. Are they different to women wanting a facelift?
Dr. Zoumaras: Yeah, look outside. Look, there’s similarities in terms of you know, wanting to look younger and wanting to get rid of their gels or excess skin, but the real difference that I noticed with men, it has specifically to do with the way they look in regards to their career. That’s the one big thing that I’ve noticed. All the facelifts that in men, there’s been something with regards to their career.
So, one that I recall was a patient that was basically in between jobs. And he thought the way he looked was too old, and his words exactly to me were, “Why would someone employ me when they could get someone that looks younger, looks better, and does the same job?” So, that was his motivation as well as obviously to look better to … he was out of a relationship as well, to potentially make himself presentable for a relationship.
And also I had another patient that has his own business and he was kind of semi-retired. His son was running it, and then the business got a bit busy and has to come back into the business and he wanted to get back into the business and because he wanted to get back into the business, he kind of said to me, “I just want to fresher it again and since I’m going back to work, I just want to look a bit younger.” So, I guess the motivations I see is really to do with career.
Trish Hammond: Yeah, right. Well, it’s really funny that … because I actually did a bit of Facebook live with a gentleman yesterday who’d lost weight and he’d had a facelift and I would never have known but also more than anything else, I just would have … like, he’s not someone I would have looked at and thought, number one, he had a facelift. Number one, he’d even consider having a facelift. So it’s not a certain type of guy, and I think it’s just a general-
Dr. Zoumaras: I totally agree. It’s definitely a general and some patients, not that you like grouping people into different categories, but a lot of the time a male patient that requests a facelift you think, “Oh, there’s no way I would have thought he was going to request a facelift.” Because there’s a lot of clients of mine that are so self conscious, because plastic surgery is too easy to boo. They don’t even tell my front stuff what they’re looking for. They’d rather keep it quite. Obviously they’ll find out afterwards because they need to, for the logistic paperwork and things like that, but they just say, “Look, it’s personal. I’ll let Dr. Zoumaras know when I see him.” So, a lot of the times it’s a bit of a surprise to me what they want as well until I see them.
Trish Hammond: Yeah, sure. And so when you’re doing the facelift for a guy as opposed to a woman, do you have different … I mean of course you do different things wouldn’t you?
Dr. Zoumaras: Yeah. You definitely do different things, like as men do age a little bit differently. Men have a few more risks with facelifts as opposed to females. For example the risk and the main reason for that is because men have a higher blood pressure. So, from an aesthetic point of view, the main things that are different is to not pull the skin as much. Not that I like pulling the skin in the female, but not pulling it as much, because he was having a pulled look on a facelift and the guy is really telltale and not aesthetically pleasing, Mickey Rourke comes to mind, like the facelift I did last week, the patient told me, “Don’t make me look like Mickey Rourke who has a really pulled face and pulled eyes.”
The general direction that you pull a face, the internal muscle is kind of like a 45 degree angle. So not all the way up, not all the way across, but sort of a 45 degree angle. So what we call a superior medial vector, which is in line with a smile muscle. What makes you smile.
So in a male you tend to do … you don’t use that vector. So depending on what their age and deformity is, because again it can be different, we either go directly vertical or we go 90 degrees to vertical. So, we go towards the ear lobe for example, to pull that way. And what that does is, it just enables the skin and the ageing process to be reversed without really changing the way they look here.
Trish Hammond: Well this guy showed me before photos, because I wouldn’t have picked it and I wasn’t looking for it anyway, but showed me before and afterwards and like, I would never have known he had a facelift, but looking at the before, there was a significant difference in his … I don’t know, just like he looked kind of … he had like as he got older … I mean he was only 47, but he had, you know, like the sort of sad face, I call it the upside down smile I don’t know.
Dr. Zoumaras: Yeah, I understand, yeah. Like they look sad or-
Trish Hammond: Yeah.
Dr. Zoumaras: Tired and upset, yeah.
Trish Hammond: Yeah. And then with the facelift, he just looks rejuvenated and also he said he felt amazing. That was out of all his surgeries like the skin lift, and because he had a lower body lift and a gynecomastia, and this was the most like, he loved it. He was just like, “Wow, that was the most dramatic.”
Dr. Zoumaras: Yeah. Excellent. That’s good news for him.
Trish Hammond: Yeah. Awesome. So tell me, have you actually seen an increase in male patients that want plastic surgery compared to like, when you first started practising ? Like just over the years that you’ve been-
Dr. Zoumaras: It’s a good question. I’ll say to you this look, to be honest, that’s a very good question. I have to analyse my data to be honest with you. That’s something I should do. But looking at just, maybe just looking at this year, there probably is a slight increase, but I wouldn’t say that there’s been a huge increase. For example, there’s more people inquiring about Brazilian Butt lift, there’s no doubt about that. So, I wouldn’t say there’s just more males having plastic surgery, at least in my practise, but there’s definitely you know, there’s a certain you know, percentage of my practise that is definitely from males. And as you mentioned, already, some of it is facelift, rhinoplasty or gynecomastia, they’re the three piece big ones for males.
Trish Hammond: Yeah. Okay, so sorry. What were they again?
Dr. Zoumaras: Yes. A facelift, rhinoplasty and gynecomastia, like male breast reduction.
Trish Hammond: Yeah. Okay, awesome. And of course, if you’re going to have a facelift, can you do a rhinoplasty at the same time?
Dr. Zoumaras: You can. It depends on how extensive the facelift is. Like as we said in the previous podcast and on your YouTube group, essentially if you’re doing a very long facelift operation, it’s probably not the appropriate time to do the nose at the same time, because a nose is three hours of operating. But if you’re doing just the lower facelift or an upper facelift, then you can certainly do the nose at the same time.
Trish Hammond: Okay. And so if someone’s looking … if a guy’s out there he’s looking to have a facelift, does he have to get a, you know, set to go to a GP first or it … like how does it work? Is there any Medicare entitlements-
Dr. Zoumaras: Yeah.
Trish Hammond: Or is it anything that he can, you know, is there any way that he can do it without letting a whole lot of people know?
Dr. Zoumaras: Yeah. There’s no Medicare item numbers for facelift, whether it’s female or male, so you don’t necessarily need to see a GP. I mean, while some people still get referrals from GP, you don’t necessarily need to see one. So, they can discreetly contact my staff or private messaged me on social media and I interact with them that way and then they booked an appointment and come in.
The one thing I do know with male patients is that, when they do present for consultation, they’re ready for the surgery. Like they don’t want any more thinking time and they want it done within the next six weeks usually.
Trish Hammond: Yeah, I think that’s probably happening more often these days. By the time they come to you, they already know they want to have it done and usually nine times out of 10 they know that they want you to do it because they’ve done their research online and-
Dr. Zoumaras: Yeah, exactly.
Trish Hammond: I just want to make sure they can resonate with you.
Dr. Zoumaras: That’s exactly right.
Trish Hammond: So tell me, so if a guy come to see you, has a consult, and like would you have before and after to show him of people that, you know, guys that you’ve done or women that might have some similar features as well?
Dr. Zoumaras: Yeah, I do. Absolutely. And obviously it’s more pertinent showing him a male facelift because they’re male as well and it’s a little bit different. So you know, we run through the technical side of what a facelift is and what it will do for them afterwards from a self esteem point of view, and how it’s going to make them feel. I think that’s more important and definitely run through before and afters with male and female patients but tend to be more male. But the presentation I showed them is a gallery of male and female patients.
Trish Hammond: Okay. Yeah, of course. And to some extent I know that you’ve got an amazing non-surgical Clinic attached to the [inaudible 00:08:25] Artiste Medi Spa, and tell us a little bit about the most popular procedures that you perform for men in the non-surgical realm that you offer at your clinic.
Dr. Zoumaras: Yeah, cool. Yeah. So probably the most popular stuff we’ve done for men in non-surgical apart from Anti-wrinkle injections, and Anti-wrinkle injections under the arms for sweating that’s always popular in men, is probably the Vivace, Radio Frequency Needling. We’ve got one of our signature packages which is essentially, we kind of aim it at males but it can be obviously for everyone and the Luminosity, and what that involves is basically a Vivace Radio Frequency Needling every month starting with the skin assessment, they get a bit of Anti-wrinkle injections and filler and also a little bit of LED light.
But what the Vivace does is great for males, is it’s excellent for pores around the nose and the forehead, and we know most male patients don’t cleanse, I would say religiously as female counterparts, so they always have more built up pores, blackheads and things like that. So, the Vivace just kind of opens all of that up straight away and enables them essentially to not have to worry about skincare for at least four, five days after the treatment. And they love that aspect of it because they don’t have to put much on their face. So, that I’d say, that’s probably our most popular male non-surgical procedure.
Trish Hammond: All right. So, that’s like a Radio Frequency Needling. Is it right?
Dr. Zoumaras: Yeah, exactly. So, you would have heard of just needling on its own with a Dermal roller or other propriety name brand. So, basically what the needling is, is it’s exactly that. You just needle the skin and what that does is it promotes, what actually causes I controlled trauma to the skin and therefore stimulating the skin to produce fresh collagen and you do get bleeding at the same time.
But what Radio Frequency Needling does, it takes it to that next level. And not only does it produce the needling, the device delivers radio frequency energy to the deep layer of the skin. So, the needles traumatise the skin and the radio frequency energy also stimulates the skin, kind of like a laser to rejuvenate the skin and because a radio frequency is like a pulse, it also minimises the actual bleeding. So you get open pores in the skin without actually getting the bleeding you will get with traditional rolling like a Dermal roller, for example.
Trish Hammond: Okay. So, like this guy that I met with yesterday, he actually said to me, “Oh, what I want to do now is I want to kind of, go and have some skin treatments to pump out like the Marriott lines.” The lines that go down the sides of the nose down to the corners of your lips those little lines there, he said, “I really want to get those.” I thought, “Oh yeah that would be perfect for,” because all he really needed really was some skin … because he had the face done now, so you just made us-
Dr. Zoumaras: Yeah. Some skin treatment.
Trish Hammond: Yeah. And that’s exactly what he would have wanted something where he can go once a month, or is it cost of treatments? Or do you just-
Dr. Zoumaras: Yeah, look, I mean the needling, you probably want to do it at least three times in a space of at least six weeks apart to get the ideal, because the idea of the needling and radio frequencies, is you deliver the energy, you do the needling, and you go deep every time you do it, because your skin’s producing more collagen. And therefore you’re encouraging it to continue the lay down collagen to make the lines a little bit less obvious. So it’s recommended minimum three times up to six times within a year.
Trish Hammond: Okay. All right. So you could do it every couple of months if you wanted to?
Dr. Zoumaras: Yeah. You can do it every couple of months for just three times a year. And then after that, depending on how your skin is, you probably have to maintain it on a yearly basis. But once the collagen is formed, then that’s your collagen, it doesn’t go away. So it’s not it’s not like a temporary fix, like once the collagens form because it’s your own collagen, it stays there.
Trish Hammond: Of course, and I think like you said before, what the RF Needling is really good for is the large pores, because I have seen some before and afters and it makes a tremendous difference because sometimes there’s no other way really to get rid of large pores unless, you know, you’d still need extra help to get rid of large pores.
Dr. Zoumaras: No, exactly. You totally do it. Yeah. And guys a lot of time do you have larger pores especially around their nose and forehead and just blow their eye. Not under the eye, but kind of just where, your kind of upper cheek area.
Trish Hammond: Yeah. Yeah. Alright. So basically so you’ve got the surgical options for the guys and pretty much any treatment that they want, including facelift rhinoplasty and the gynecomastia.
Dr. Zoumaras: Yeah.
Trish Hammond: So do the demo injections and the anti-wrinkle injections?
Dr. Zoumaras: Yeah.
Trish Hammond: Do guys-
Dr. Zoumaras: They’re quite common, yeah.
Trish Hammond: Yeah. And you’ve got the LED light which is absolutely amazing. And I’ve got a little story of someone who came here and had one done. They loved it. So, the LED light the Vivace and skincare basically.
Dr. Zoumaras: Yeah, exactly, exactly. And the good thing about the packages we have for the men, because a lot of the guys don’t like thinking about what they have to do. So, it’s almost like a recipe of what they have to do with skincare for three to six months and they love that aspect of it. Like we did a recent international male model and I’ll disclose name if he lets me disclose it, but I’m sure he will. It’s probably going be on our Instagram pages.
But basically like he was in town for about I think four months, in between jobs from South America and North America and he basically had our signature package in that time just to maintain his skin in between shoots and he’d have the LED light before he’d go to a shoot and the makeup artist would say, “My God, you don’t even need any makeup today.” So, it’s just great for folks to just maintain that skin.
Trish Hammond: Oh, look LED is amazing and I’m surprised a lot more who do not offer, because it’s just a bit of a game changer that one. So, are you … just because I know I mean it’s not Father’s Day yet, but it is International Men’s week, so International Men’s Health Week actually. So, it’s not only about some internal health, but of course about the external health as well. Are you offering, like do you have vouchers? Can people buy vouchers if they just want to buy a gift for, you know-
Dr. Zoumaras: Yeah, absolutely. We have vouchers. So we have you know, at least vouchers that can be used for all the non-surgical treatments that we have here, absolutely.
Trish Hammond: Fantastic. All right, excellent. So if they want, they can just contact your office, buy a voucher over the phone, it’s as easy as that?
Dr. Zoumaras: Absolutely. Buy a voucher over the phone. We’re in the process of setting up our E-commerce website. So, you’d be able to do it online as well. And we basically just send you a code and then you can redeem that code obviously in our practise for whatever treatment they want.
Trish Hammond: Oh that’s great. That’s awesome. Well thank you so much for taking the time and sharing a bit of what you guys offer to the guys for national Men’s Health week this week, and for you guys that are out there, if you’re looking for an amazing clinic and the most [inaudible 00:14:36] plastic surgeon, you definitely don’t go past a Dr. Jack Zoumaras from Artiste Plastic Surgery and Artiste Medi Spa attached to the plastic surgery clinic as well. They’re in [inaudible 00:14:46] Double Bay, New South Wales and yeah, thank you so much for your time today Dr. Zoumaras.
Dr. Zoumaras: No problem. Thanks for having me Trish, really appreciate it.
Trish Hammond: No worries. Have a great one. Bye.
Dr. Zoumaras: Yeah, bye.