The RealSelfer Blog
Founder of RealSelf.com talks about the company and trends in the aesthetics industry
On The Mind Of RealSelf.com Members
What do RealSelfers care about, think about, share? I decided to dump a bunch of feedback from outreach to our members, and created a cool text cloud (courtesy of Wordle) that captures it brilliantly
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Plastic Surgery Play Time
Wondering if plastic surgery has gone mainstream? When children perform plastic surgery on their dolls, it's a sure thing.
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Are There Virtues In Self-promoting Spam?
Commenting on RealSelf.com has picked up steam every since we launched a feature that let's users get notification of new postings via email. Commenting has increased 3-fold since the change. I love features that actually drive engagement.
Not all comments fly. We don't allow personal attacks and personal email address postings. We block spam. But is it a knee jerk reaction to take down self-promoting spam?
Case in point is the message, below. Bria is pushing a cosmetic procedure called hydrogel that's controversial in both form and means of distribution.
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40-percent Think Botox Parties Might Be Ok
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Survey results are now available for consumer perspectives on cosmetic injectables (i.e. Botox, Juvederm, Restylane, Collagen). We found that most consumers are confused over key safety factors, but trust specialty physicians and their peers to make smart decisions.
Highlights from the survey conducted by RealSelf.com and the Physicians Coalition for Injectable Safety, include:
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RealSelf And Lifestyle Lift Reach Settlement
Today the U.S. District Court in Eastern Michigan signed off on the settlement reached on the lawsuit by Lifestyle Lift against RealSelf.com as well as the counterclaim made by RealSelf.com.
Both parties reached mutually acceptable terms and I'm excited to get full attention back to helping consumers share their stories related to Was it worth it ("WiWi").
Have you undergone any cosmetic treatment, ranging from Lasik to teeth whitening to cosmetic surgery?
Please share your WiWi with others.
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Why Is It So Hard To Learn About Lipozap?
Technology combination is muddying the waters in the aesthetics market, such that consumers often get left in the dark on whether a cosmetic procedure is safe and effective.
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Is Olayforyou.com A "killer Online App"?
This is not a pretty chart, estimating visits to Olay's website olayforyou.com:
Yet, Olay for you --heavily advertised across TV and other media-- is touted in a recent Advertising Age as an unusual success. In Jack Neff's article Olay translates killer online app to retail aisles he states:
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RealSelf.com Named Best Doctor Recommended Health Website
Today we were listed by Real Simple Magazine as a top health website.
Honored to have RealSelf.com on a list that includes:
- mayoclinic
- healthfinder.gov
- cancer.org
- medlineplus.gov
- webmd
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Featured On ABC 20/20: RealSelf.com Members Speak Out
RealSelf.com members are featured in the investigative news program ABC 20/20, 'Lunchtime Lipo' Draws Concern from Doctors
The 20/20 story centers on the controversial and hotly debated cosmetic treatment called Lipodissolve (referred to as "Lunchtime lipo").
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Superspecialists The Future Of Cosmetic Surgery?
Dr. Robert Kotler, a Beverly Hills cosmetic surgeon, recently joined our fast growing professional community. Dr. Kotler has contributed great content to the RealSelf community, including sections of his book The Essential Cosmetic Surgery Companion.
When I connected with Dr. Kotler on a call earlier this week it gave me an opportunity to ask him whether the economy was having an impact on cosmetic surgery practices. He confirmed that certain markets were undergoing big declines in demand for aesthetics, especially those hard hit by the real estate market (such as Florida).
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Beyond Boomers: Mainstreaming Of Aesthetics Market Underway
Interview of Allergan's CEO David E.I. Pyott indicates the mainstreaming of aesthetics is core to Allergan's growth strategy and overall industry expansion
Q: The concept of mainstreaming aesthetic treatments has been discussed extensively by industry analysts and journalists.What does this really mean in terms of procedure volume statistics and the potential for market growth?
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Startup Pitching Circa 2000
My wife is still making me pay for using her story in RealSelf.com TV coverage, requiring that I clear out old papers and files sitting around the house.
As I recycled a recruiting letter from the CIA and a crazy list of attributes I sought in my future college roommate, I hit upon a cache of circa 2000 dotcom pitches. Since these are headed for the post-waste world I thought it was worth sharing the most buzzword loaded pitch that captured the height of the bubble.
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Men's Expert Hydra-Energetic Turbo Recharger Instant Facial Skin Fuel
No, really, that's the name of L'oreals new skin care product for men. The Drugstore News states that Men's Expert Hydra-Energetic Turbo Recharger Instant Facial Skin Fuel is an aftershave and moisturizer that addresses men's top skin concerns-razor burn and dry, flaky skin-in one product.
L'oreal product copywriting aside, the men's skin care market represents a growth opportunity.
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Magic + Anti-aging = Fake
Not discovered: a scientific breakthrough in anti-aging (data turns out to be bunk).
The respected scientist behind the fake findings "claimed to have discovered a technique he named "MAGIC" to use magnetic nano particles to find target proteins in human bodies, a step toward potentially developing anti-aging drugs." Results from his research were published in international science journals.
Source: South Korean biotech professor faked data
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British Women Crave Tummy Tuck Surgery
The demand for cosmetic surgery in the UK is strong. Mintel research says 22 million Brits desire some form of cosmetic surgery.
Women who seek body reshaping operations (tummy tuck and liposuction) are the key to an expanding cosmetic surgery market. Procedures for body shaping surgery, led by tummy tuck surgery which increased in surgeries performed by 29% from last year, totaled £148 million for 2007.
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Anti-aging Product Sales $1.2 Billion In 2007
NPD reports prestige beauty product market grew four percent in 2007 despite over skin care product sales declining by 1 percent. Where did the growth come from? Anti-aging products.
Anti-aging beauty product sales hit $1.2 billion in 2007, up five percent from 2006. Anti-aging products have grown sales by 28 percent since 2003.
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Where Can I Find An Error Page For My Home?
Using a breadcrumb to drill back to a Error 404 page is a decidedly sub-optimal user experience.
Source: Benjamin Moore
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High Growth In Anti-aging Market Thanks To 20-somethings
Anti-aging products are for older adults, right? Not really. The benefits of anti-aging (fewer wrinkles, lines, and age spots) are increasingly appealing to more youthful consumers. 
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Bad News Cycle For Botox
The number one cosmetic treatment, Botox, has faced a slew of challenges over the last few months.
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A Community Forms Around A Blog Post
What's important to RealSelf.com community members and readers? For many, gray hair. This is a great discussion by women who've decided to stop coloring their hair and to let it go natural. Over time the thread has evolved into a support group, taking me by surprise that community can form around a single blog entry.
When starting out RealSelf.com I would never have guessed that a blog post could take on this dimension. But looking at other examples of robust discussions within our blog, such as comments associated with the active fx skin treatment blog entry, I've come to realize that community will take hold wherever it's relevant, not just contained areas deemed to be community-forming, like our beauty forums.
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7 Toxic Words For Your Botox Sales
Allergan (maker of Botox) offers the following advice to physicians for "Practice Patient-Friendly Communication"
Use these terms...
Protein
Purified protein
Relaxes
Minimal discomfort
Tiny injections
Temporary
Instead of...
Toxin
Poison
Freeze, paralyze
Pain
Needle
Deadly
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How Much Does Botox Cost? Check The Map
Back when I worked for Expedia.com, I spent a lot of time working on delivering great prices to travelers for their vacation. Our vacation packages deals delivered savings due to the fact each trip component (hotel, air, car) was lumped together into a total price. This opacity enabled hoteliers to often deeply discount their hotel room rates for package buyers. And since no one could turn around and call the front desk and ask for the Expedia Vacation Packages hotel rate, hotels loved it as a revenue management tool. Pricing opacity was good for consumers who got great savings.
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Defending Our Community's Right To Share Real Experiences
Today we responded to a Complaint made against RealSelf.com by Lifestyle Lift Holdings, a firm that markets the Lifestyle Lift. The Lifestyle Lift is marketed as a "minor one hour" facial firming procedure. Some patients who've had this procedure have shared on RealSelf.com both positive and negative experiences by writing Lifestyle lift reviews and adding over 1,000 comments to the RealSelf.com beauty forum.
Complaint against RealSelf.com
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Can Dove Keep It Real?
Unilever's Dove ad campaigns appear in web, TV, print, and even theater to hammer home their "real" brand positioning for Pro-Age and other Dove skin care products. This foots with Uniliver's core belief that brands must create meaning. Because "if there is no meaning then it won't be important and we will ultimately piss away our marketing dollars. Life is about ROI," stated Geoff Craig, Unilever's vice-president and general manager, brand building (in December's Marketing magazine).
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Google Poaching
Google ads running on RealSelf are often incredibly well targeted. Maybe too much so when they're targeting our dev team with recruiting ads (and no url to block it).
Certainly have to hand it to the GOOG recruiters for great ad copy and rotation: the ad only appears in our test environment pages.
Platitudes aside, I want to off it. If someone knows the URL for this ad unit --which funny enough we can't click without violating terms---I'd love to know.