by Vanity Fair, 2020
On March 12, Kelly Ripa, Live! With Kelly and Ryan host and an open and enthusiastic Botox advocate, dropped by the offices of Robert Anolik, M.D., board-certified dermatologist in New York and frequent morning show guest in his own right.
“These are great CDC rules and I appreciate them,” Ripa told her followers on Instagram Stories from the examination room chair, referring to the Centers for Disease Control’s guidelines on maintaining distance in order to avoid spreading the deadly COVID-19. “Having said that, in this time we can notice that there’s been a lot of worrying. You can see it’s written all over my face, but Dr. Anolik decided to be brave today and come into work to treat my acute Botox deficiency syndrome.”
By the end of business the next day, Dr. Anolik had closed his office to nonurgent and cosmetic procedures (he, along with the rest of the doctors mentioned in this piece, will continue performing procedures deemed essential to help keep patients out of already overrun emergency rooms); the White House had finally declared a nationwide state of emergency; and Ripa began her work on Live! With Kelly and Ryan from her home, all set on the injectables front for another three to five months.
COVID-19 is in all 50 states and nearly every country on earth. It’s infected more than half a million people whom we know about and killed upwards of 35,000 people at the time of publishing. It has touched almost every part of every person’s life, whether or not they have come into direct contact with it. But it turns out vanity doesn’t go away even as crisis draws closer and closer to oneself or one’s family—especially, unfortunately, because we’re all seeing a lot more of ourselves lately.
Three months ago, I would never have guessed that would be possible. See more of myself? What with the actual mirrors and portrait mode and the many forums on which my face has been posted for posterity? Inconceivable. But in the past three weeks, I’ve been staring at my face even more frequently on FaceTime, Zoom, and occasionally, just for a little variety, on Google Hangouts. We’ve long lived in a hall of mirrors, but now it’s mandated.
Feeling bad about my neck (and undereye circles and those new and strange bits around the mouth) still takes up a small amount of headspace relative to more serious issues, like, say, the morality of delivery or what to do if family members who live alone contract the disease. The disappointment kind of flits across my thoughts before disappearing into an anxious ether. But it does come and go with more frequency now that I am confronted with myself everywhere I look, in this virtual box or that one. I suspect the concern is a fraction of what people whose livelihoods are tied to how they look regularly feel.
It’s them that I find myself thinking of, weirdly. As the number of coronavirus cases grows, so too does the generalized ache for normalcy. For some people that means ordering at-home hair dye. For others, that means attending a boutique fitness class with a favorite instructor on YouTube. For still more, it means opening a beer at the end of a work day, as one retires from the bedroom/home office to the living room/bar. But what recourse does the injectable set, for whom maintaining normalcy can mean bolstering plumpness and smoothing complexions, have? What will those who make a living with the help of their faces—the influencers, the talking heads, the show hosts, the actors, the regular job-havers who know that perceived attractiveness historically correlates with pay grade, and more—do during this down time? And what are the doctors who care for faces doing to help their clients during this unprecedented time?
It’s them that I find myself thinking of, weirdly. As the number of coronavirus cases grows, so too does the generalized ache for normalcy. For some people that means ordering at-home hair dye. For others, that means attending a boutique fitness class with a favorite instructor on YouTube. For still more, it means opening a beer at the end of a work day, as one retires from the bedroom/home office to the living room/bar. But what recourse does the injectable set, for whom maintaining normalcy can mean bolstering plumpness and smoothing complexions, have? What will those who make a living with the help of their faces—the influencers, the talking heads, the show hosts, the actors, the regular job-havers who know that perceived attractiveness historically correlates with pay grade, and more—do during this down time? And what are the doctors who care for faces doing to help their clients during this unprecedented time?
“To patients who might be feeling anxious, I’d say, ‘Stress is terrible for the complexion, so don’t.’ And, ‘This too shall pass,’” Dr. Anolik told me (Anolik is married to Vanity Fair contributor Lili Anolik). “In all seriousness, I hope people are focusing on their overall health these days. On eating well and sleeping well. Don’t worry. I can take care of those sun spots and fine lines in a month or so.”
That goes for Ripa and his other celebrity clients, many of whom Dr. Anolik inherited from his mentor, the late Dr. Brandt. For, according to Dr. Anolik, now is a time to lean on retinol and peptides, at-home lasers and sunscreen—yes, even indoors.
“In theory, this is a great opportunity for [celebrity clients] to do stuff because nobody expects them to work for the next month,” said Macrene Alexiades, M.D., Ph.D., FAAD, and director of the Dermatology and Laser Surgery Center of New York. Based on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, which remains a hot spot of the American epidemic, Dr. Alexiades is not currently seeing her usual roster of society types, models (mostly from DNA Models, mostly for acne), public figures, and actors in person. If she did decide to resume some more involved elective procedures for clients in New York, she says it would be more of an ethical than a practical dilemma.
“The problem is the ethics of actually using PPE [personal protective equipment] for aesthetics as opposed to using it for fighting the pandemic,” she said. “And that’s where you can run into some ethical dilemma on a personal level. Nobody’s going to come knock on my door and arrest me, but still on a personal level, you do have to worry about that.”
The United States Conference of Mayors released a survey on Friday that said 91.5% of American cities do not have an adequate supply of face masks for first responders, 88.2% did not have enough personal protective equipment for them, and 85% report a lack of ventilators. There are reports of medical staff reusing protective gear, as the virus exposed fissures in supply chains.
The cost-benefit analysis of moving forward with any nonessential procedures will depend on guidance from local and national leaders as she makes case-by-case assessments in the coming weeks. But most of her clientele will be fine, she says. Unlike some Botox brandishers and dermal-filler wielders, she has long encouraged her clients to be patient. “There are people who look good out there, don’t get me wrong, but it’s obvious they’re doing something that you feel like if you prick them with a pin, it would all just kind of deflate,” she said. “It looks pristine from afar. It looks great in selfies, but it can come crashing down at any moment or [it’s] teetering on the edge of looking abnormal.”
She instead asks her clients to give her one year. In that time, she applies a series of techniques that work in a set-it-and-forget-it fashion. But what happens when you take a month out of the process? What about three? Dr. Alexiades says that her people will be able to afford a pause. “My patients are permanently improved,” she said. “It’s not a temporary fix that wears off after three months.” (The curious can read her textbook to find out how.)
Over on the West Coast, Dr. Jason Diamond’s practice in Beverly Hills has treated the likes of Kim Kardashian West, Chrissy Teigen, and Vanderpump Rules star Lala Kent, and he’s a reality star in his own right thanks to appearances on E!’s Dr. 90210. He told me that in at least one small way, the pandemic was well-timed. “Luckily for my patients, we were in the trenches anyway because of the seasons coming up. Awards seasons, the Met Gala, Cannes Film Festival, these kinds of things. And there were some celebrity weddings coming up.” Many of the procedures he specializes in—for example, his signature Diamond Facial procedure—last six to 12 months.
