Hyaluronic Acid      

A golden stitch in time saves nine years of ageing

Date: 9th December 2008, Source: Hyaluronic News

Growing numbers of Japanese women are getting cheeky boasting about the glittering results of the latest beauty treatment to have struck gold in this country, according to Friday (7/15).

The women are mimicking a treatment first developed thousands of years ago in ancient Egypt and sewing threads of pure gold into their cheeks.

Golden strings laced into the face are said to have made Cleopatra look at the time of her death at age 39 as though she had the skin of a 15-year-old.

And now Japanese women are flocking to get a glimmer in their mugs.

"When I first heard about it, I didn't believe it. When I heard how I worked, I finally understood," Kiyotaka Uchiyama, head of the Belle Cosmetic Surgery Clinic in Tokyo, tells Friday. "When the gold thread is inserted into the epidermis, the body naturally creates large quantities of collagen around the gold. This doesn't just improve the state of wrinkles and sagging, but makes wrinkles smaller and whitens the skin so that it doesn't appear so dull. And the effects work for 10 to 15 years."

Bodies recognize gold yarn inserted under the skin as being foreign objects and the immune system comes into play. Capillaries extend to carry cells to fight off the gold, while collagen and hyaluronic acid are also produced to heal the damage caused by the immune system in its fight with the invader.

About 400 Japanese women have filled their countenances with gold since the cosmetic surgery was first offered in April 2004. Among them was model Nanako Kashiwaya, who recently underwent the procedure.

"A friend of mine had the gold thread put into her face and she came out looking really young," the 21-year-old catwalker tells Friday. "I was looking forward to it, but a bit scared."

A surgeon injected anesthetic into Kashiwaya's face then, when it had taken effect, used a huge needle to thread a grid of golden thread across her face. Inserting about 3 meters of golden thread took around 1 hour and set back the model some 800,000 yen.

But she was delighted by the results.

"Right after the surgery I had a look in the mirror and was shocked by how swollen my face had become, but within three days I felt good enough to go back to work again," she tells Friday. "Now, I love staring at mirror morning and night just to see how much my face has changed." (By Ryann Connell)