Page 14 - Expert Issue 2015 (2)

Turning Back Time:

Dr. Tess Mauricio, MD

The Time Machine Procedure

By Deeba Van Overberghe Photos by Lisa K. Miller

Have you ever had a moment of low self-esteem? Have
you suffered from flawed skin? Did you ever think there
was a correlation between the two? Dr. Tess Mauricio, MD
will tell you there is. She is the founder of Scripps Ranch
Dermatology, later renamed My Beauty By Tess, with
multiple clinics in San Diego and Los Angeles. The creator
of new, non-invasive approaches, with specialized technol-
ogies, Dr. Tess can help people who have flawed skin feel
better about their appearance. And because they are not
concerned about their appearance, their inner beauty has
a chance to radiate and come forward thereby supporting
better self-esteem and self-confidence.

This can be such a problem when we are young…and
then again as we age. In my years as a teenager,
14 I suffered from a very bad case of oily skin and acne. It
looked as if my cheeks were on fire. I had been teased
and called Pizza Face in Junior High School. It left me
with the damaging psychological scars of being self-con-
scious. Little did my mother know, my skin was sensitive
to soaps, lotions and make-up. To this day, I still do not
wear foundation of any kind and use the lightest moistur-
izers out there. In the past I’ve been told that I don’t look
my age. However, this is changing for me. I have begun
to experience sagging skin from weight-loss, turkey neck
from aging and my cute smile lines and dimples are actu-
ally becoming frown lines and pits. I can’t even begin to
think about how my eyebrows left my forehead and
traveled to my upper lip!

Often I have thought about body altering options, peels, fat
sucking and pummeling. I’ve thought, no way, not for me.
I have seen what happens to a person ten to twenty years
down the road from a facelift after natural weight gain,
and I have always known it is a temporary solution to the
inevitable tic-tock of life’s clock. I have believed I should
embrace age with confidence allowing nature to take its
course. That is, until recently. I have just learned about
the miracles Dr. Tess is offering her patients and how she
can literally turn back the clock of time in regard to the
condition of our skin.
Dr. Tess is an amazing human being. She, too, suffered
from flaws in her skin. Her personal experiences were
a driving force behind her understanding the correlation
between self-esteem and the condition of one’s skin. Our
faces are what we use to make an impression, to com-
municate, to express thoughts, feelings and desires and
when our skin isn’t the greatest, it can present a barrier for
acceptance either by ourselves, or by others.