Begin Reading Table of Contents Newsletters Copyright Page In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights. To my tens of thousands of patients whom I have had the privilege of treating over the years and who have taught me so much in return. Thank you. Acknowledgments First and foremost I must thank my family: my parents, Sara and Michael Lancer; my beloved wife, Dani; and my daughters, Alexis and Blair. Thank you for your unending love and support. At Lancer Dermatology: A million thanks to my amazing, tireless staff and aestheticians, without whom I would be incapable of giving my many patients the individualized treatment they deserve—Nadia Aguilar, Natalie Aguilar, Susan Albovias, Beth Averion, Liliana Ayala, Mia Belle, Ruth Dela Cruz, Louise Deschamps, Yvonne Esformes, Vangie Equina, Michelle King, Melissa Medrano, Ram Prakash Khalsa (RPK), Tess Raymundo, Kat Rudu, and Marigil Santos. At Lancer Skincare: Jeanne Chavez, Shannon Culhane, Jack Davies, Madeline Davis, Fanny DeCoster, Kenna Dworsky, and Alex Van De Leur, thank you for your tireless dedication to achieving my vision of the Lancer Skincare brand. To our wonderful publicists—Dara Busch, Jill Eisenstadt-Chayet, Jenny Halpern- Prince, and Richard Rubenstein—thank you. To my Younger Team, Diana Baroni, Diane Reverand, David Vigliano, and the entire team at Grand Central Publishing, thank you for putting my professional vision down on paper. Ruba Abu-Nimah, Kevin Ley, Eric Nyquist, and Mary Schulte: Thank you for your creative contributions to Younger. Ginger Bercaw, Carly Brien, Chris McMillan, Debi A. Monahan, Olivia Morgaine, and Gunnar Peterson, thank you for dedicating your time and for your expert contributions to the book. Many thanks to Victoria Beckham, Simon Cowell, Ellen DeGeneres, Ryan Seacrest, and Oprah Winfrey for graciously disclosing that they enjoyed the care of my office and products, sending the Lancer line further than we ever thought possible. A huge thank-you to Lisa Love, Tracy Margolies, Pat Saxby, and Peter Zimmerman for trusting the Lancer brand with their personal skin care and business. Sarah Brown, Janelle Brown, Nicola Guarna, George Hammer, Vesa Kahlo, Cece King, Gemma Lionello, Marigay McKee, Anna Wintour, and Hazel Wyatt —thank you for your help in making the Lancer brand what it is today. Finally, thank you to all of the professors at Brandeis University, UCSD Salk/Scripps Institute and School of Medicine, and Harvard University, as well as St. John’s Hospital for Diseases of the Skin and Sheba Medical Center in Tel Aviv, for the invaluable knowledge, experience, and priceless education you endowed upon me. A Note from the Author D eep down, everyone wants to be beautiful. If you think about it, part of beauty is looking radiant and fresh, which is why just about everyone wants to look younger, too. The urge to be appealing transcends vanity. Attraction is the driving force in all of nature, a fundamental impulse in the physical world. We are hardwired to feel this way. It is in our DNA. The need to appear youthful and alluring is instinctive. Being desirable guarantees your survival, not to mention your contribution to future generations. Beauty elicits acceptance, admiration, and love from others. Being attractive heightens your power and influence. In other words, the world runs on the strong force of attraction or, as I like to call it, sex appeal. No wonder the annual global sales of beauty and personal care products have reached a staggering $426 billion and are rising, even with worldwide economic instability. Soft, youthful skin, hair, and nails are the key components of physical beauty. Your skin is the first thing anyone and everyone notices. Luminous skin commands attention and outshines other qualities. A glowing, clear complexion at any age sends a message of health and vitality, the formula for attraction. I have devoted the past thirty years to helping my patients make the most of their looks and erase years from their faces and bodies by dramatically improving their skin. I am a physician and surgeon with special training and certification in dermatology. I care for a roster of thirty thousand patients from around the world, an eclectic mix of all ethnicities from all walks of life. Since beginning my solo practice in 1983, I have treated all of my patients from beginning to end. Lancer Dermatology offers the most up-to-date medical, surgical, alternative, and cosmetic care at my Beverly Hills office, a wonderful space designed to be an oasis of comfort and beauty. My philosophy of skin care is neither theoretical nor lab-based. Rather, direct experience in daily patient care for the past three decades has allowed me phenomenal opportunities for observation and creative solutions. My ideas and innovations have evolved from daily interaction with my patients. I have been dedicated to developing effective treatments for the many skin conditions that keep people from feeling and looking their best, and that includes the effects of aging. I treat many A-list celebrities, whose privacy I respect. Even so, several stars have praised my skin care regimen and skin care products in the media. Oprah selected the Lancer Method Skincare products for her “2012 Favorite Things.” The same year, Ellen DeGeneres included her personal favorites from Lancer Skincare in “Ellen’s 12 Days of Giveaways.” The celebrities who come to me can choose anyone to care for their skin. I am honored that they put their famous faces in my hands and trust me to help them look their best. They are radiant, and their beauty remains their own. They know they will not leave my office looking as if they have spent a month in deep freeze or had a visit to the filling station. I take pride in knowing that my patients become the best version of themselves under my care with the invaluable help of the entire staff. Experience is a great teacher. I have learned so much from being exposed to fifty to sixty patients a day. I see very few patients who are “dermatology virgins,” who are consulting a dermatologist for the first time. My predecessors’ evaluations help to mold my treatment strategies. After all, something was not working, which was why these patients came to consult with me. I now had the chance to solve their “derma-dilemmas,” often complications resulting from invasive procedures. So many people today are looking for a quick fix and lose their judgment in the quest for eternal youth. The results are often disappointing, if not catastrophic. I see scars, bumps, crookedness, ripples, and countless other undesired outcomes. The cost is high, both figuratively and literally. Most of my new patients will never have a radical procedure again. Twenty years ago, I had an epiphany that became the vision for how I practice dermatology today—my focus is on restoration, not alteration. I believe that the secret to beautiful skin has nothing to do with an artfully wielded laser, an injection, or cosmetic surgery. Lately, there has been so much focus on wrinkle freezers, line fillers, and lasers that no one considers what a simple high- quality skin care regimen can do for you. Glowing, healthy skin cannot be attributed solely to magic creams or even the gift of good genes. Genetic good fortune can take you only so far. The secret to an extraordinary complexion is your commitment to caring for your skin with my breakthrough three-step method—polish, cleanse, nourish—which I will reveal to you in this book. This program is the game changer that enhances the way your skin operates beneath the surface. The Lancer Method can improve the color, texture, elasticity, firmness, and hydration of your skin, and you do it at home in less than ten minutes a day. In Younger: The Breakthrough Anti-Aging Method for Radiant Skin, I want to share the Lancer Method, which produces what is known in Beverly Hills as the Lancer Glow. As you will soon learn, the Lancer Method changes the focus of skin care. Skin care, as it is practiced by my colleagues and marketed by cosmetics companies, consists of quick fixes and false promises. Some people have never seen a blemish vanquisher, wrinkle reducer, skin plumper, eye circle eradicator, pore shrinker, redness reliever, line smoother, collagen builder, or super moisturizer that they did not want to try. Their bathroom drawers and cabinets are overflowing with their collection of expensive products. It is a scene from Hoarders. Nothing seems to give them the results they want, but they cannot resist the new products and magical ingredients that hit the market with great fanfare so frequently. When the products do not work, they turn to increasingly invasive treatments, now available at medi-spas and strip malls in your neighborhood. My approach is different. I teach patients how to achieve profound, long- lasting changes to their skin without having to spend thousands of dollars on the latest products, laser treatments, and peels. I always recommend that my patients give the Lancer Method a try before opting for anything invasive. For many of my patients, my at-home skin care program proves to be intervention enough. They see rapid results and save time, money, and discomfort. I am talking about bringing the science of skin care and anti-aging technology home. The full-body program you will find in Younger is state-of-the-art dermatology, and you are in charge. My groundbreaking approach to treating the skin has produced such good results that many patients have delayed or skipped invasive treatments they had been considering. Of course, your skin reflects your physical and emotional health. If you want to look younger, you have to combat the effects of time by living an anti-aging lifestyle. And in this book I will outline the best lifestyle choices you can make in order to get the best results. After all, making the right choices in all aspects of your life, including diet, exercise, and stress management, is essential if you want to restore the youthful glow to your skin. Think of this book as an extended visit to my office. You will become an associate patient. I want to show you how to be comfortable in your own skin. I want you to smile at your reflection in the mirror. When you look good, you feel good. And when you feel good, you look even better. My breakthrough anti- aging method will transform you. Harold Lancer, MD FELLOW, AMERICAN ACADEMY OF DERMATOLOGY BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA