Mpls.St.Paul Magazine - Health

Hot Hair in the Cities

Thu, 02 May 2013 08:27:41 GMT

Are you ready for this? Twin Cities stylists and salon owners are—and We’ve gathered their trade secrets for your best-coiffed summer possible. With Their combined 131 years of experience (wow!), no hair follicle was left unturned. Hello, sunshine!

Beauty Advice

Wed, 20 Feb 2013 10:18:10 GMT

BEST BETS

It’s hard to remember a time when there wasn’t a Caldrea or Mrs. Meyer’s product at every sink in my house. This month, the Minneapolis-based company that put high-design homekeeping on the map is expanding into personal care. Caldrea Hand & Body combines the brand’s signature aromatherapy with Park Avenue packaging for a collection of body crèmes and fragrances that are altogether vanity-worthy. Find them at Bibelot Shops, General Store of Minnetonka, and caldrea.com

Q. Do people still use Noxzema? Do you recommend it?

A. Unfortunately, yes, and absolutely not. I could’ve been the poster teenager for Noxzema—anything for that squeaky-clean feeling. But most adults aren’t oily anymore and even if you are, stripping your skin with alcohol-laden toners and cleansers such as Noxzema will only cause skin to overcompensate by producing more oil. It may seem counterintuitive, but some of the most effective cleansers are actually creamy or oil-based formulas. The oil gently breaks up and lifts dirt and makeup while leaving skin soft and hydrated. Juicy skin, I like to call it. Pick up Eminence Coconut Milk Cleanser (eminenceorganics.com) at salons including Jon Charles Salon or Nude Perfect Cleansing Oil Face & Eyes at local Sephora stores.

Q. Can you recommend a good colorist in the Twin Cities?

A. I rarely color my hair, but the remarkably patient Mi Shaun Schmidt-Schwab at The Beauty Room (4300 Chicago Ave. S., Mpls., 612-724-4111) has rescued me from botched box jobs (research has its price) and has a gift for giving people the color they should’ve been born with. At Evolution (2836 Lyndale Ave. S., Mpls., 612-870-2979), my gorgeous and wildly talented stylist Mel also happens to keep my besties looking like a million dollars even in the carpool lane. I only recently discovered that one of them isn’t a natural blonde.

BLUSH BEAUTY ROOM

If your makeup routine is older than Taylor Swift (no really, do the math), schedule a “wardrobing” session at the new Blush Beauty Room, around the corner from Sebastian Joe’s in Uptown. Bring in your makeup bag, and the Blush makeup artists will put together looks and make product suggestions. Or leave it to the pros: full face makeup plus lashes is $30. Spacious and contemporary, Blush is an ideal setting for parties—schedule a group or rent the whole place. Blush sells affordable accessories and jewelry along with beauty products and tools. 2004 Hennepin Ave. S., Mpls., 612-871-2688
—Allison Kaplan

Photos by Stephanie Colgan

Where to Get Pampered

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 15:48:29 GMT

Forget the overpriced floral arrangements. Put down the bottle of Kendall Jackson chardonnay (you know the one). And don’t even think about making dinner reservations unless you’ve already ordered the corsage. All your significant other really wants on Valentine’s Day is to get naked and have her feet rubbed. Fortunately, the Twin Cities is a hotbed (ha!) of spas that offer the royal treatment—from impossibly plush to profoundly therapeutic.

• Book your favorite girly girl for an afternoon of head-to-toe pampering at The Beauty Room. I recommend a cut, color gloss, Arcona facial, and gel mani. 4300 Chicago Ave. S., Mpls., 612-724-4111, thebeautyroom mpls.com

• Get worked over from head to toe at Spot Spas, where ashiatsu, an adaptation of an ancient form of barefoot massage, is popular with guys, who tend to like the sensation of someone walking on their backs. 401 Hennepin Ave. E., Mpls., 612-331-4182; 1600 W. Lake St., Mpls., 612-823-7768, spotspas.com

• If you’re trying to impress, splurge on one of Ivy Spa Club’s luxury services such as the Collagen Booster Therapy or Oriental Ceremony, a Balinese-inspired body treatment straight out of Eat Pray Love. 201 S. 11th St., Mpls., 612-343-3131, ivyspaclub.com

• I don’t know a single woman who doesn’t love a good facial, and I only trust my pores to Sara Mattson Skin Therapy (6420 W. Lake St., St. Louis Park, 612-922-1511, saraskin.com), Sonja Eileen Aesthetics (4748 Chicago Ave. S., Ste. 13, Mpls., 612-799-3588, sonjaeileen.com), Kristin at Bespoke Hair Artisans (3918 W. 49 1/2 St., Edina, 952-224-4062, bespokehairartisans.com), and Kate at Phresh Spa Salon (Shops at West End, 651-288-4040,phreshspasalon.com)

• Escape to Fusion LifeSpa for the best kind of couple’s therapy: healing bath rituals in a Japanese soaking tub, followed by fluffy robes and green tea before a roaring fire. 18142 Minnetonka Blvd., Deephaven, 952-345-3335, fusionlifespa.com

Ask local beauty guru Elizabeth Dehn a beauty question at elizabeth@beautybets.com or @beautybets on Twitter, and check out her blog at beautybets.com.

Best Bet...

Perfume on Vday can be so cliché, but I’d happily make an exception for this intoxicating elixir in the prettiest of bottles, new from local designer Laura Nelli. Spicy, warm, and exotic, it’s definitely not for the faint of heart. One of Two ($85), by Nelle, nellehandbags.com

Beauty Resolutions

Fri, 21 Dec 2012 14:14:30 GMT

As we welcome 2013, much will be said about eating less, sleeping more, and hitting the gym harder. But you won’t hear it from me. This is a beauty column, after all, and I resolve to encourage only habit-forming products and treatments that make you feel good—not guilty. With that, here are a few ways to show yourself some well-deserved love in the coming year:

Don’t go to bed without washing your face. How can you possibly sleep knowing that your pores are clogged with blemish-causing dirt and makeup? All I can think is, you’re tired. Very, very tired. Solution: Keep a pack of face wipes on the nightstand (I like Yes to Blueberries) so you can swipe one across your face before it hits the pillow.

Wear sunscreen. Every single day, no less than SPF 30, even in winter—no excuses. Unless you want wrinkles, age spots, and saggy skin? Didn’t think so.

Get a massage. Or a facial. Or acupuncture. Whatever you need to feel more centered and relaxed needs to move to the top of your to-do list. Taking care of your mind and body isn’t selfish (unless you drag your husband to your waxing appointment); it’s essential for a happy, productive life.

Don’t leave the house without makeup. I can hear the protests now. Makeup is fake and oppressive and you are real and beautiful just the way you are! True, but if you don’t walk just a little bit taller after concealing those dark under-eye circles and slapping on some lipstick, I will leave the house without makeup.

Ask local beauty guru Elizabeth Dehn a beauty question at elizabeth@beautybets.com or @beautybets on Twitter, and check out her blog at beautybets.com.

Best Bet...

Bobbi Brown’s new Pretty Powerful Uber Basics collection of universally flattering blushes, glosses, shadows, and lipstick is foolproof for even the most novice beauty.
$21–$25, from Macy’s, several metro locations,
macys.com

Intelligent Nutrients

Thu, 29 Nov 2012 10:34:48 GMT

With Horst Rechelbacher, the ideas are big and the drama is high. So it was no surprise that a conversation about opening a store at Mall of America for Intelligent Nutrients, his follow-up to Aveda, bounced from global warming to preservation to the very essence of consciousness.

“I’m in my 70s,” Rechelbacher said over herbal tea at IN headquarters in Northeast Minneapolis. “I’m preparing to leave my body. And I don’t want to leave with guilt.”

Rechelbacher has spent the years since selling Aveda to Estée Lauder on a mission to prove to the beauty industry that it’s possible to make food-grade organic beauty products that smell great and work well. He built Intelligent Nutrients slowly, starting with a chemical-free shampoo and expanding into anti-aging products made with a biotech process that cultivates antioxidant-rich plant cells without using soil. In all, the line has grown to more than 100 products. Enough to fill a store.

MOA was the company’s first choice, and plans got pushed up to the holidays when a prime spot suddenly became available on the first floor, south side, where the most upscale brands tend to be located. As of press time, the store was scheduled to open on Black Friday.

“Mall of America is as critical as having a store on Fifth Avenue in New York City,” says Tyler Heiden Jones, president of Intelligent Nutrients. The brand has a passionate global fan base but remains under the radar, especially beyond Minnesota. In New York, where a second store is already in the works, Intelligent Nutrients is currently available through just one retailer—ABC Carpet & Home.

The Intelligent Nutrients store, like the company, isn’t only about products. There’s an oxygen bar, as well as iPads with which to research product ingredients. A treatment room will be used for select salon and spa services including cranial massage, aromatherapy, skin analysis, and even hairstyling. The space itself, decorated in rich woods and metals, was acoustically designed to block noise pollution from the mall.

“The days of just opening a store are gone. There’s got to be a reason to send someone there vs. buying online,” Jones says. “It’s experiential. It’s about gaining information and making intelligent decisions.”

Don’t be surprised if you see the founder himself working the counter.

“I’m a professional retailer,” says Rechelbacher, who grows product ingredients on his organic farm in Osceola, Wisconsin. “The best way to make an introduction is in a store.” Mall of America, intelligentnutrients. com

Love in Lakeville: A Family's Battle With Mitochondrial Disease

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 10:51:05 GMT

Kalynn Wendt has the more-passionate-than-life looks of someone who tumbled off the cover of a bodice-ripper romance novel. She has big, fiery, ice-green eyes, eyes that romance writers give to girls about to swing onto pirate ships or tear over the moors, eyes that sparkle from her skin of fairest ivory, framed, needless to say, by gleaming jet-black tresses.

But Wendt, whose fortress stands on a cul-de-sac in Lakeville, has two things romance novel heroines never have: two kids who can’t walk, talk, or feed themselves and are expected to die before their senior prom. So she devotes her days to therapies, doctors, specialists, and fundraising as she battles mitochondrial disease, a foe hardly anyone has ever heard of but is deadly nonetheless.

Mitochondria are one of life’s great mysteries. Many scientists think they are the spark that allowed life to grow bigger than a microbe. Once upon a primordial time, the thinking goes, a bacteria invaded a cell, survived, and set itself up as an energy factory for that cell. A happy symbiotic relationship ensued, and soon enough humankind came up with the romance novel. But when mitochondrial DNA gets a typo in it, bad things happen.

“We had misdiagnosis after misdiagnosis,” remembers Wendt, talking to me at her dining room table one drizzly fall morning as an aide sat on the floor with her children. “We had Sonora’s first MRI when she was 6 months old. They said she was fine. We knew she wasn’t.”

The Wendts visited a dozen specialists. None could tell them why their first-born baby couldn’t make eye contact, roll over, or babble. Finally a Minnesota doctor told Wendt: “The last thing you can do is fly to Atlanta for more tests.” She made the trip and came back with the answer she had desperately wanted and now didn’t want at all.

She and her husband, Justin Wendt, both have that typo in their mitochondrial DNA, so their two oldest children— a kindergartner and a 4-year-old—have no energy in many of their cells. They also have a healthy toddler, conceived with the help of specialists. Depending on which cells are affected, mitochondrial disease is mistaken for SIDS, heart disease, cerebral palsy, or autism. A Minnesotan family typically has to go out of state for diagnosis and treatment.

Kalynn Wendt takes her two children to Cleveland every three months to participate in a drug trial that she says has helped. “If Sonora got sick, she used to just stare at a wall for six months, but now the lows aren’t as low,” Wendt says. “She’s a bit of a wild one—she just screams with joy when she hears her dad in the garage, coming home. They listen to Adele or Kings of Leon and just dance. Colten’s more of a snuggler—he’s just the sweetest little cuddler.”

Sonora has eyes like her mother’s, green and luminous, though sightless; she has weighed 32 pounds for three years. Colten has deep baby blues, like his dad. “If I think about them dying, I can’t breathe,” says Wendt. “But if I think about them as 16-year-olds, I can’t imagine that either. What happens when I can’t carry them?” Now Wendt can take all three to the Mall of America—the baby in a front pack and the other two riding in a double stroller.

“I’ve been to a couple therapists. My question to them was: ‘How can I be OK with this?’ They’d say, ‘I don’t have an answer for you.’ Well, then why am I here? I have things to do.”

Things like raising money. Wendt is president of the Minnesota chapter of the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation (umdf.org). Since joining she has boosted the proceeds of their summer walk from $2,000 to $70,000, met with Senator Amy Klobuchar and Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, and helped pass Leo’s Law, which sets aside a week in September to raise awareness of the disease. The foundation also aims to create a clearinghouse to coordinate research on the many diseases with mitochondrial components and to encourage medical students to specialize in the disease. The ultimate goal, of course, is a cure.

“What if in 20 years it’s no big thing,” Wendt says. “You just pop this pill?” As she hops up to check on Sonora, I notice the handiwork of her husband, owner of Wendt Masonry. A project is underway, he is transforming their living room, stacking stone on stone to create strong castle-like walls befitting a beauty with flashing green eyes.

“When we got the diagnosis, I was devastated. I told him: ‘I thought we were meant to be together. Obviously we’re not because we can’t have a healthy child together.’ He said: ‘We are.’ I told him: ‘Wouldn’t you be happier with someone you can build a regular family with?’ He said: ‘We will.’ He wouldn’t let go, so I got better, and we kept going. Now we just want a cure.”

With that, Wendt, not unlike a romance novel heroine, scoops up her tiny daughter, bundles her onto one hip, and charges off to afternoon kindergarten.

Bee Venom Facial

Fri, 26 Oct 2012 14:22:22 GMT

The Scoop: The beauty world has been buzzing since Kate Middleton reportedly received a facial with bee venom prior to her royal wedding day (her stepmother-in-law, Camilla, is also a fan). Although the treatment has been hyped as a needle-free alternative to Botox, in reality it acts as a natural skin plumper. According to Dr. Jess Prischmann, who began offering the facial this fall at her Edina practice, the bee venom lightly “stings” the skin, temporarily increasing blood flow for a healthy English-rose glow. “Just like in nature, the body responds to the venom,” says Prischmann, “so the science makes sense.”

The Service: This isn’t the first time I’ve slathered something exotic on my face in the name of beauty (I’m looking at you, bird poop). A little bee venom couldn’t hurt. At Prischmann Facial Plastic Surgery, it’s administered as part of “The Royal Treatment” facial. After a luxurious cleansing balm and gentle exfoliation using British-based Organic Pharmacy products, my aesthetician applied the creamy bee venom mask using a brush.

I was almost disappointed when it didn’t sting. Right or wrong, over the years I’ve developed a no-pain-no-gain mentality about facial treatments. A few minutes later, I started to feel the slightest tingle and was told that my face was flushing nicely. Satisfied, I dozed off for a 20-minute hand and arm massage. The treatment finished with the Duchess’s favorite oxygen-infused moisturizer. So that was what it feels like to be queen bee for a day.

Our Take: My skin was plump and pink in all the right places when I emerged from my cocoon. In addition, the hydrating manuka honey in the mask has imparted a red carpet–level dewiness—the sign of a good facial. My skin looked even more radiant the next day, like a blushing bride’s.

Small Print: $95 for The Royal Treatment; $35 as an add-on to any facial service. Prischmann Facial Plastic Surgery, 5201 Eden Ave., Ste. 170, Edina, 952-567-7151, mnfacialplastics.com

Ask Elizabeth a beauty question at elizabeth@beautybets.com or @beautybets on Twitter.

Fall Hair Trends: Long, Sleek, and Embellished

Wed, 26 Sep 2012 15:13:31 GMT

Twin Cities Mobile Beauty Services

Thu, 06 Sep 2012 11:34:30 GMT

Getting prettied up can be time consuming, so beauty pros are hitting the road and bringing the salon to you. If you can order duck confit off a truck, why not a spray tan? Here’s our little black book of mobile beauty services in the Twin Cities.

Bavia

Serving 14 metro hospitals, Bavia massage therapists offer pre- and post-natal services to new moms, including a range of massages, foot treatments, manis and pedis, and more. They even offer some services for non-maternity patients in all areas of recovery. At Park Nicollet Methodist Hospital, all orthopedic and birth center patients receive a complimentary mini Bavia spa service. Some services are also offered in-home.

$45–$199. bavia.com

Glow Mobile Beauty

Before a vacation or a night on the town (bachelorette party, anyone?), get your glow on! A member of the Glow team will come to you for custom airbrush tanning and now lash extension needs as well. It’s efficient and neat—they set up a tent in the middle of your office or living room to avoid any mess. When you and your friends get tanned together, everybody gets a $20 discount. It’s $65 for a single-person airbrush session, $45 for two to six people at a time, and the host’s services are free when you have six or more people.

Lashes are $225 for a full set. goglow.co

Jett Makeup

The team at Jett does phenomenal work. They’ll beautify you and your ladies onsite with airbrush makeup and lashes for special events and parties. The studio is also a great place to host the start of a bachelorette or birthday party, so you can all get your makeup and lashes done together before going out on the town. In-studio pricing starts at $75 per person. Onsite special event pricing (non-bridal) is $65 per person, with a minimum of four people, and a 20 percent gratuity is added to the party total.

Lashes are $20–$195. jettmakeup.com

Emily J. Hair + Makeup

Create a custom package depending on your needs. Just want a makeup lesson? No problem. Looking for full makeup, lashes, and an updo for an event? Emily J.’s team can do that too. They do everything from galas to boudoir sessions.

$30–$85 per person, per service. emilyj.com

Top Doctors 2012: How It Works

Thu, 09 Aug 2012 07:05:10 GMT

We asked 5,000 Twin Cities doctors and nurses which physicians they would go to for medical care. The result is the 16th edition of our Top Doctors list, which includes more than 580 doctors in 42 specialties.

Search 586 physicians in 42 specialties voted a Top Doctor by their peers.(Search results includes multiple locations.)

THE STORY BEHIND THE RESULTS: When compiling a list of such importance, quality research is essential. For this year’s survey, Mpls.St.Paul Magazine turned to Key Professional Media, Inc., a leading national researcher and publisher of Super Doctors®, to compile our Top Doctors list.

Research began by asking 5,000 licensed metro-area physicians and registered nurses to nominate one or more doctors (excluding themselves) whom they would choose if they or a loved one were seeking medical care. In addition, the research team complemented the results with expanded research.

The candidates who made the final list were evaluated on indicators of peer recognition, professional achievement, and disciplinary history and grouped into 42 specialties. Professionals with the highest scores from each grouping were invited to serve on a blue-ribbon panel and asked to evaluate the candidates in their practice area. Finally, doctors who acquired the highest total points from the surveys, research, and blue-ribbon panel review were selected as Mpls.St.Paul Magazine’s 2012 Top Doctors.

Of course, no list is perfect. Many qualified doctors who are providing excellent care to their patients are not included on this year’s list. However, if you’re looking for exceptional physicians who have earned the confidence and high regard of their peers, you can start your search here.

New this year: As a result of the research partnership with Key Professional Media, our local Top Doctors will join a prestigious group of doctors from more than 20 markets around the country who have been selected to Super Doctors and appear on superdoctors.com.

Search 586 physicians in 42 specialties voted a Top Doctor by their peers.(Search results includes multiple locations.)