Shimmian Manila redefines beauty

MANILA, Philippines - Many people these days will do anything just to be beautiful and always youthful. Some of them even travel the world to seek the best beauty services that will help them develop more self-confidence and a renewed sense of self-worth.

While the idea of a beautiful face may vary according to one’s perspectives, it cannot be denied that the face with divine proportions is the universally accepted concept of beauty.

“Beauty is all about harmony and symmetry. The objective of a cosmetic surgeon is to create a beautiful face, not a beautiful nose. Sometimes, people associate a beautiful nose with a beautiful face, but that’s not the real score,” says Levi John Lansangan, Shimmian Manila Surgicenter managing director.

Shimmian Manila is one of the most preferred and trusted providers of dermatological services and cosmetic enhancement services in the country, with patrons coming from different parts of the globe. It also provides different medical tourism packages inclusive of a cosmetic enhancement of a patient’s choice, hotel accommodation, relaxation and rejuvenation, airport-hotel-airport transfer plus dermatological consultation.

“In cosmetic surgery, we have to balance all the facial features of a patient to make it a beautiful face. As Michelangelo said, the face is divided into one-fifth vertical dimension and one-third horizontal dimension,” Lansangan continues.

Lansangan, together with his team at Shimmian Manila, has come up with the “five pillars of the face” – the forehead, nose, cheeks and chin – which he says should be well-proportioned. “When people look at you, they don’t only look at the front view but they also look at the profile view.”

Looking at the face from different angles is where one can observe its proportions. “The nose is 80 percent of that because it’s the anteriorly projecting part of the face. The other 20 percent lies involves the forehead, cheeks and chin. So with this, we have to put emphasis on these facial features in order to make it a beautiful face,” Lansangan explains.

While not everyone is naturally born with the golden facial ratio, there certainly are many people who seek professional help to achieve that perfect symmetry in their face.

To address these slight problems of the face, Shimmian Manila has been offering its facial contouring services, which Lansangan defines as “the contouring of the other parts of the face in relation to the nose.”

It begins with chin augmentation, which is a surgical procedure intended to redesign the shape, contour and balance of the face with the use of implants specially intended for the chin. For this procedure, autologous grafts – bone, cartilage or fats – could be used, or Silastic implants like Gore-Tex or silicone.

“Sometimes, you wonder why the person’s nose looks nice but there still seems to be something wrong with the face. That’s because the chin is receding so it looks like something is missing. Small chin looks like there’s lack of confidence in a person. It’s not proportioned to the face. The lower five percent is being contributed by the chin. That’s the first part of facial contouring,” says Lansangan.

Chin augmentation is then followed by cheek augmentation, which enables a patient to have fuller cheeks and more strongly defined cheek bones. Lansangan says, “Sometimes, the mid face is low, so in cases like this, we usually augment this portion to emphasize the nose.”

For cheek augmentation, the procedure can be done by also using autologous grafts or Silastic implants such as silicone and Gore-Tex.

To achieve the perfect facial structure, Lansangan suggests that a cherubic forehead is the ideal, like that of a young child with a protruding forehead. This part of the face starts receding when a person reaches his 20s. “A cherubic forehead goes in harmony with the nose,” he says.

For the forehead, autologous grafts can be applied but Silastic implants are not advisable.

Apart from its facial contouring services, Shimmian Manila also offers Mandibular Contouring, a surgical procedure designed to augment facial contours and form a smoother and sloping mandibular angle that perfectly balances with other facial features. It is suggested for those with overly flat, wide or square face, or those with disproportionately prominent cheekbones and distinct lower jaw angle.

These facial contouring treatments at Shimmian Manila are painless and enable patients to recover in a few days, given that they are just minor touch-ups on the face, contrary to the common misconception that cosmetics procedure is highly invasive.

Lansangan says, “The facial contouring that we do is just a slight modification and is just underneath the skin, not a major reconstructive surgery. It’s a beautification process which results in boosting one’s self-confidence.”

Of course, going through all these procedures also requires serious preparation, especially setting a positive outlook and realistic expectations. Lansangan reminds patients, “Surgeons are not magicians so don’t expect to look like Nicole Kidman after a surgery.”

While many people still think that cosmetic surgery is only for celebrities and for the rich, Lansangan says that it is now becoming more affordable. “I don’t believe in targeting only one percent of the population. You have to make it affordable and relatively available for everyone.”

Beauty is not only for TV, magazine covers or beauty pageants. Lansangan says, “In this ever-changing world, having the edge, not only in terms of skills but also of physical attributes, will help get you that dream job. And oftentimes, it will also help you have the dream partner that you want.”