The Price of Beauty

Dermatologists around the world practice their medicine in two separate domains. One major area is the treatment of disease and the other is the realm of anti-aging and beauty. Each discipline offers medications and procedures. Prices for anti-aging treatments are high despite most of them having questionable value. Prices for drugs treating diseases have skyrocketed.

There appears to be no reasonable economic explanation for the massive increases other than the drug and manufacturing companies monopolize the market and can set prices because they have no commercial competition. To begin this short series on pricing we start with a current list of topical and oral treatments for beauty used in dermatology practice. A later blog will examine the dramatic price increases of drugs treating disease.

A woman is more responsive to a man’s forgetfulness than to his attentions.

Jules Janin

How we spend our money for beauty:

Chemical Peel: $20-$600
Vitamin C+E Serum: $162
Fillerina Hyaluronic Acid: $80-$100
UL therapy: $1000-$5000
Cleaning Serum and SPF 30 Sunscreen $42 & $45
Kybella Injections: $1200-$2000
Decollete Cream: $285
Vitamin Injections: $400
Facials: $150-$200
Botox: $250-$1000
Fillers: $300-$1000

About the Author: Dr Marvin Rapaport, MD

In 1978 I initiated and set up the contact and photo dermatitis clinic at UCLA. There was a need to evaluate a large group of patients who exhibited severe eczematoid rashes, especially on the face. Patients were referred from all over Southern California. All patients underwent a lengthy history and examination. Further evaluations included blood studies, allergy patch testing, special sunlight (photo) testing and skin biopsies. From the start it was apparent that most patients experienced a mild dermatitis on various parts of the body that progressively worsened. Their histories always included numerous doctor visits, multiple physicians, and therapy consisting of an increasing amount of corticosteroids. My testing failed to reveal any specific culprit chemicals, cosmetics, perfumes, workplace or recreational exposures. It became increasingly clear that the physician’s therapy, the corticosteroids, was invariably causing the problem. I wrote 7 scientific articles that were published in the most august peer-reviewed dermatologic journals and I gave many lectures at various dermatology meetings. To this day an unfortunate reluctance exists on the part of most physicians to accept this simple concept.