Quick Face Fix: The Non-Surgical Facelift

Vera Kantor is best known for her gourmet food facials, using sumptuous, fragrant ingredients like pumpkin pie, chocolate, champagne, caviar and paprika. The charming owner of Verabella had two years of medical education in Russia before she arrived in the States in 1976. She has a master's degree in English and Russian History, and she boasts the most educated beauty staff in Beverly Hills, with numerous graduate degrees among them. It makes for quite a lively atmosphere in the small, elegant skin care studio.

Vera treated us to the non-surgical facelift, a non-invasive procedure that stimulates the facial muscles with a machine that was originally designed for physical therapists to use on patients suffering from palsy or stroke. With her background in medicine, Vera herself was skeptical about the treatment until she tried the machine on one half of her face and saw a lopsided reflection in the mirror: one side taut, the other side not. The machine uses micro-electric current (which you can't feel, by the way) to "exercise" the muscles in the face, plumping them up and increasing cell mass. Vera allowed us to take a look in the mirror when she was halfway done, and sure enough, we saw something of that lopsided reflection too. Vera's celebrity customers like the procedure for a quick lift before a party or award show, but numerous treatments are necessary in order to see significant results. Customers can also add the non-surgical facelift to a facial for an extra $75.

Each of Vera's treatments ends with a gourmet mask selected from her assortment of handpicked products from around the world. For our acne-prone skin, she brushed on a citrus and lemongrass mask, though she allowed us to sniff the carrot cake, which smelled so good it made our stomach grumble. We left Verabella with taut, glowing skin and made a beeline for the nearest bakery...

Review originally published 10/18/2007.