Hands-on alternative
For those seeking a less intimidating option, Susan Rosenblatt-Schehr believes she has the answer. Schehr, a Physical therapist sees clients at three locations in the area, founded her company, Refacée, after patients whose headaches, sinus and jaw pain she treated with physical therapy techniques reported a bonus: improved skin quality. Schehr stresses that her method, which she developed in 1997, is not massage, but a system of manipulating facial muscles back into proper balance and tone, and retraining the brain to keep them there. It's a "neuromuscular" approach to relaxing that furrowed brow or creased cheek, says Schehr, who charges about $100 for each 15to 25-minute session and says it takes some 10 to 15 sessions, on average, to locate and release the points of tension behind the Unwanted lines.

“It's just wonderful," interior designer Kirn Coale, 53, says of Schehr's treatment. "She has magic hands. A lot of the lines were relaxed and I just looked better, fresher." Coale, who had an eye-lift in the past, liked the idea that Refacée was completely natural and required none of the pain and recuperation time of surgery. As for Schehr, who expected to draw her clientele from a holistic demographic, she's been surprised at the attention her technique has drawn among cosmetic Surgery devotees. Many of her patients have had full or partial face-lifts, eye-lifts, peels and laser treatments. "We owe it to people to give them a natural alternative to surgery," she says.