The year is drawing to a close and Christmas is almost upon us! Fortunately we still have some limited appointments available, so if you haven’t managed to get in yet, and have been intending to, contact our team now to secure your pre-Xmas (or post Xmas!) appointment. 🎅 🎄 Next week we will be launching our Live web chat which will be available during working hours, so if you wanted to request an appointment or ask a question but not have it go through your email, or make a phone call in a busy office environment, you have an easy alternative way to contact our team.🤩
If you’ve been struggling for gift ideas, you might want to consider a fabulous TFP voucher, giving your loved one, colleague or friend, the gift of great skin and improved confidence for Xmas. A $$ value voucher can be used for any of our products and services… and if you’re one of those people who is hard to buy for, you might want to drop some hints to your loved ones that one of our vouchers would be greatly appreciated!
Our big news this month is that our Britomart clinic will be moving next year to a bigger, brighter, more private clinic space closer to Commercial Bay! We have been at the current Britomart site for almost 10 years now, and when we first moved there it was a big statement to say that it was time for Cosmetic Medicine to come to the main street and be proud to be front and centre, rather than hidden away in second level clinics as we had been for the previous 13 years. It indicated the growing acceptance at that time for cosmetic medicine procedures, and we were proud to lead the industry in bringing it forward into the public eye.
We are still waiting on a final move date to the new clinic, depending on how quickly council approves our plans, but it’s most likely to be between February and April next year. We are super excited, and will keep you informed of progress!
For those already working in the industry, we will be launching the first workshop dates for our new training academy, The Face Place Academy, very soon. Follow us on @tfp_academy for updates.
I’ve been enjoying being back in clinic seeing a few patients a week, and it’s also meant I’ve been able to have a few treatments myself, including topping up my bioremodelling Profhilo treatment for my neck and chest, and having slightly more regular skin and Healite treatments. I feel very lucky!
We are constantly looking at new procedures to see if they will fit the very stringent criteria we have for any new product or treatment we look to introduce. Is it safe? Simple and effective? Naturally based and non-animal? Is it medically proven – and most importantly, is it something I would personally be happy having myself? If it fulfils these criteria we then have our team (and sometimes patients as well) trial it to get extra information and feedback. The questions we then look at are – is it high reward and low risk? Is it tolerable? Does it generally avoid creating scar tissue? And is it good value for money?
We have been looking at quite a few different machines recently, including some RF needling machines, and there was one in particular that has had good reviews internationally, had good medical evidence, and seemed to fulfil our criteria. I had heard it was ouchy, but was not prepared for how uncomfortable it was. Even with 20-30 minutes of strong numbing cream I was unable to complete the whole treatment, only managing one pass of the planned 2-3. So while it fulfilled our initial criteria, when we trialed it, it didn’t pass the secondary criteria, and we probably will not be offering the treatment in clinic. There are many treatments that we are consistently trialling that don’t make the grade for us deciding to offer them for our patients. Our mission is for you to have the ultimate experience in non-surgical cosmedicine, and this means looking after your comfort levels, and also making sure that immediate positive results don’t end up being/looking worse months to years down the line.
My favourite new machine that we have found to be innovative, comfortable and effective in the long term as well as the short term is EmFace, which stimulates the lifting muscles of the face while improving skin tone and texture. We are finding that more treatments give an even better effect, so in the lead up to Xmas we are offering a special package of 6 treatments for the price of 4. Ask your clinician if this is a treatment that is right for you.
A personal highlight for me this month was getting the all clear from my breast surgeon after my annual mammogram and ultrasound scan. After the last few years of recurrent breast cancer followed by several scares, I had significant ‘scanxiety’ ahead of my appointments. It was such a relief to get the all clear, and it has been so nice to start feeling more and more like my old self again!
I celebrated the news with being gifted a teeth whitening session at The Whitening Co in Ponsonby. It has been years since I had done any whitening on my teeth and when we measured them I couldn’t believe how yellow they were! The last time I had laser whitening was about 15 years ago, when I had a lot of zingers in my teeth during the session. This time around it was completely comfortable, and my teeth responded really well! TWC also do home care kits including whitening strips to maintain your results, which I’m excited to use… if you’ve been considering whitening, I found them very professional and friendly, and you can get 15% off any products or services if you quite the code TWCCAT 😉
You may have read in one of my previous blurbs about my doing a Ted-Style talk for Entrepreneur’s Organisation (EO) on ‘Grow Younger With Great Sex’. We had 2 short workshops to develop the talk, and then a dress rehearsal practice run, and although it wasn’t completely polished, my speaking skills grew considerably from beginning to end. If you would like to see a video of the talk, you can access it HERE. This week, I will being doing a 2 day speaker retreat with Miriam from Naked Audience who was my speaker coach for the TED Talk, with the intention of upskilling my abilities to do paid professional/inspirational speaking about my cancer journey, our industry, and of course, sexual rejuvenation! I’m excited to see how much my skills up level again with an intensive 2 day course!
Another personal highlight was going caving with my EO forum at the Nikau Caves near Port Waikato during our annual retreat, and then catching up with my old forum from over 10 years ago for our annual Xmas dinner at Sails!
It has been a huge year from both a personal and professional level, and I’m delighted we are finishing the year having completed so many incredible new projects at TFP, thanks to our wonderful team and our fabulous GM, Nicci. We are also super excited to welcome Ciara to the team as a new receptionist at the Takapuna clinic – I’m so looking forward to having you on the team!
But we could not do it without YOU. So thank you for your love and support, through the good times and the hard times. Wishing you a very special holiday season with family and friends,
Meri Kirihimeti, with loads of love and hugs,
Dr Cat 😻
