THE HANDS HAVE IT
Well-heeled ladies aren’t just fretting about keeping their faces wrinkle-free
Pamela Prather, 52, gets her hands injected with Restylane fillers by Dr. Anetta Reszko. Below, her hands before the treatment and two weeks after.
E XECUTIVE coach Pamela Prather teaches her clients to project an air of confidence, working with them on everything from breath and vocal range to body language. But recently, she began to feel self-conscious about one of her own body parts.
“I was losing collagen in my hands; the veins were much more visible and reminded me of my grandmother’s hands,” Prather, 52, tells The Post. “I [wasn’t] ready for my hands to look like that . . . I have a young son and a lot of friends who have kids his age are 10 years younger.”
So Prather, who lives in Fairfield, Conn., turned to her Park Avenue dermatologist, Dr. Anetta Reszko. Reszko injected the filler Restylane into her hands to make them look plumper, and zapped off age spots with a laser. “Dr. Reszko has been helping my face with Botox and laser [for years],” says Prather. “But the hands creep up on you. I like to keep everything in good order.”
Well-heeled women have long relied on fillers and fancy facials to keep their complexions looking youthful, and now they’re turning the same attention to their hands.
“The face was the first frontier, but hands are also constantly exposed and visible, and people began noticing a contrast between the face and hands,” says Reszko.
Prather is thrilled with the results of her treatment. She had abandoned her regular manicures, because she didn’t want to call attention to her hands, but she’s now back to weekly visits. “I’m even wearing fuchsia polish!” she says. Upper East Side plastic surgeon Dr. David Rapaport has seen a 25 percent increase in hand rejuvenation in his practice in the past two years.
“There are better treatments now, and patients are getting more educated about it,” he says.
In May, the Food & Drug Administration approved the use of hyaluronic acid-based filler Restylane Lyft — long used for plumping the lips and cheeks — for use in hands. Injecting such a filler in the hands is fairly easy: The treatment usually takes about 20 minutes, typically costs $2,000 to $3,000 and lasts about a year.
“You may have a little bruising on the tops and some minor soreness for a couple days, but it’s really a lunchtime procedure,” says New York Dermatology Group’s Dr. David Colbert, who has noticed a 30 to 40 percent increase in patients asking for such treatments.
But while the procedure is simple, precision and a judicious application is key, just as it is when working on the face.
“You have to be careful with filler, because you don’t want chubby hands,’’ says Midtown dermatologist Dr. Dendy Engelman. “You want to look youthful, but still see some veins.”
For those who want a less invasive fix, many spas have added hand-enhancing minitreatments to their facial menus. Karina NYC on the Upper East Side now offers microneedling — pricking the skin with very fine needles to activate collagen and allow products to go deeper into the skin — on the hands for $250. At Union Square’s Rescue Spa, clients can pay $50 on top of a regular facial (from $150) for a hand treatment that involves microdermabrasion and a mild, electric-current treatment often used in physical therapy.
“We suggest to our clients that they treat their hands with the care they treat their faces,’’ says Rescue Spa owner Danuta Mieloch.
The surge in hand-improvement treatments has changed what was once a true barometer of age, according to Rapaport.
“You used to be able to look at someone’s hands to determine their real age,” he says. “But not anymore!’’