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See The $300 Treatment That Can Change Your Face

No surgery, no needles, no downtime, no filter — yes, please!

Tyra Banks may have coined the term smize, but we all do it. And every smize enthusiast knows,  that it’s just as much about the eyebrows as it is the eyes. While filling in brows (or $1,000+ microdermabrasion treatments) are all the rage right now, perfectly groomed brows mean nothing if they’re droopy. Essentially, brows frame the face and are responsible for a more bright-eyed and bushy-tailed appearance. So if you find your brows falling flat, you better get you a brow lift, girl!

Yes, it’s totally a thing. And yes, we have the scoop on the no-surgery treatment that will give you a more youthful appearance without a hefty price tag. While you can do a brow lift with Botox, which is injected high on the forehead, in most cases the effects only lasts three or four months, so we spoke to Dr. Todd Schlifstein, founder and owner of top-notch EGA Medical Spa in New York City, who has a much better alternative. Dr. Schlifstein has served as a medical expert on a variety of topics for top media outlets, from the New York Times to Maxim Magazine, and conducts eyebrow lifts his practice, which is why BET.com tapped him to spill on the hot new treatment. Here’s the lowdown:

“Lifting the brows is a common desire of many patients to open their eye more. People have a lot of skin under their eye that is hanging.... So, it’s a very common concern among people. We do a lot of brow lifts using Ultherapy. Ultherapy is an ultrasound heat wave that goes deep into the connective tissue, heats it up and then that builds up collagen. By building up collagen, that area will tighten and lift. The skin underneath the brows before you get to the eyelid is a common area to be treated after the skin loses its elasticity over time. You lose about one percent of collagen a year as you get older, unfortunately, and the thinnest skin of the body is around your eye. It’s often the first area you notice the collagen lost. It gets tighter and tighter until it reaches its maximum benefit in six months. Once it achieves that benefit, then that benefit can last two years. Now, by focusing it underneath the eyebrow, what we’re doing is we're allowing the energy to be focused on the area where it needs it most specifically.”

An eyebrow lift with Dr. Schlifstein will only take you 15 minutes and run you $300. The doc assures it’s perfectly safe. Ultherapy is the first and only FDA-approved non-surgical lift. As far as side effects, you may be a little red for a few minutes or at most a few hours, but afterward that’s it. Temporarily it may look even tighter because it’s been heated, then it settles. You only need one session because, remember, it takes six months to reach its full potential. If you do desire a second session, you can totally go for it after the six-month period, but Dr. Schlifstein says most of his clients are happy with just one. While this seems to be most popular among 30- to 40-year-olds, since they will typically see the loss of collagen more, younger folk are coming in for preventive measures.

“People come in earlier and earlier because they’re much more aware of it. You know, even if their eyelid or top of their eye comes down a millimeter or two you’ll probably notice it in pictures. A millimeter or two sounds really, really small but it’s noticeable, especially since people take so many pictures of themselves,” says Dr. Schlifstein

“People are much more attuned to their facial features, like if I’m using a filter, ‘Why do I look so good in that filter?’"

“People are much more attuned to their facial features, like if I’m using a filter, ‘Why do I look so good in that filter?’ Well, a lot of them do few things: they taper your cheek, enhance your cheek line, make your eyes bigger and brighter,” he continues.

Sounds like just about every Snapchat filter ever made. Are eyebrow lifts, e.g. Ultherapy, the future where we become the filter? Dr. Schlifstein seems to think so. “I think you can look at more of this as preventive not necessarily therapeutic before it’s really a problem. And it’s your own body healing itself, altering itself. It’s a very natural way of maintaining your youthful appearance.”

Well, this just got Black Mirror on us real fast. But with the rise of the Instagram model, non-invasive procedures are bigger than ever. So far Ultherapy has been approved for other areas on the face as well as the neck and décolletage by the FDA, and they’re about to get approval for certain body areas. The future is here, and it’s just a more plucked, pulled, injected version of you.

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