Thursday February 8, 2001

Younger Hands

You can nip, tuck, pull, and prod, but your face isn't the only place that gives away your age. If you really want to look young, you better talk to the hand!

Fashion buyer Stevie Goetz is embarrassed by her haggard hands. She says, "You know when you're aging and I will show you. When you put your hand in your jacket and your mother's hand comes out. My appearance is very important to me. The image that I have to come across is that I am young."

That's the reason Stevie's already had a facelift. But she can't shake the years off her hands. She tells us, "For years I've looked at women who look exquisite and beautiful and then you always look at the hands and then you say 'Oh my God.'"

So Stevie went to Dr. Jonathan Grossman a board certified plastic surgeon who says your hands won't hide your age. He says, "The hands age in a similar fashion some times more rapidly than the face does."

Dr. Grossman says that's because the hands are the first place we lose the fat responsible for giving us that younger, smoother surface. He says, "I decided that in addition to adding fat to areas of the face to enhance those areas and fill in defects, maybe I'd try it on the hands and it works very successfully."

Here's how it works. Stevie stays awake for the whole procedure. Fat is liposuctioned from her belly and transferred into her numbed hands. Then, the fat is massaged into place. Stevie lost the ridges and wrinkles and found smoother, younger hands.

Stevie says, "When I put my hands out there now, it's not my mom's hands, it's the hands that go with the face."

Stevie is thrilled with the results - hands down!

By the way, there's also a way to get rid of those age spots on your hands. That's the next step for Stevie, and we'll show you the results on a future show.