In The Spotlight: Dr Wassim

When Doctor Wassim Taktouk opens his door to me at his west london clinic the first thing I notice is his striking good looks and friendly laid back personality, so I’m not surprised to find out that his first career ambitions were to be an actor. Luckily for us he chose his current profession and is fast becoming known as the Doctor to go to if you want to look like you haven’t had any work done.  

So, Dr Taktouk, how did this all begin?

I originally trained at Bartholomews and The Royal London Hospital Medical School before spending a year in Australia working in A&E. On returning to the UK I trained to be a GP but I realised I really missed the acute side of medicine so went back to working in Urgent Care this time at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital Medicine. I spent ten years in this challenging, fast-moving environment but I felt I wasn’t utilising my dermatology and minor surgery experience. That’s when I started to research the field of Aesthetic Medicine, the perfect combination of medical skill and creativity. Every time I learned a new technique I would call up friends and ask them if I could practice on them. I was hooked.

Its clear you’ve come a long way since botoxing your friends for practice.  You now run your own successful clinic and also work in the prestigious Dr Rita Rakus in Knightsbridge where you do anything from Botox, facial sculpting with Dermal Fillers, PRP to Silhouette Soft.  What would you say is your USP? 

I’m very honest and will say ’no’ a lot of the time as I’m not afraid of turning someone away if they want a treatment I believe they don’t need. A medical background gives me the tools to make a mental health assessment which is a very important part of this role and I take my responsibilities seriously. Aesthetic Practitioners are in a unique position, we have to recognise that our clients are sometimes disclosing their vulnerabilities, we therefore need to act sensitively and responsibly at all times.

If I had to pinpoint what I’m really good at I would say it’s a non-surgical 'liquid face lift'(enhancing the patient’s face using fillers). I have gained great experience in enhancing the clients features without veering too far away from the patients natural aesthetic, maintaining a natural, subtle yet refreshed look. No one wants to look like they’ve had something 'done' - achieving the right aesthetic and turning back the clock whilst remaining undetectable is key.  

Why does it seem the age of women getting injectables is getting younger and younger, especially when someone say in their 20s, really doesn’t need botox? 

I’ve seen an increase in younger girls wanting  to have “preventative” treatments and I don’t necessarily agree with that mentality. Each patient is uniquely beautiful and many factors play into the ageing process, full consultations are key. There may be cases where I would advise it but it is not a case of one rule fits all. 

I also see waves of different trends, thankfully the trend for really large lips is slowly on the decline in favour of a more natural aesthetic, with chins and jawlines trending at the moment. Social Media and celebrities are factors in promoting these trends and looks but there is a little bit too much of this “quick fix” mentality and lower priced package deals. By this I mean when some clinics offer to fix your chin, lips, nose for just £200. My concern is that people are losing their individuality and this is what makes them beautiful - who wants a nation of clones? Lack of regulation over the industry is also another concern of mine, I hope that we do not have to wait for a disaster before this is addressed. 

Being that we are in the .age of the selfie'.. have you ever had anyone come to you with a filtered version of themselves asking you to make them look like that?

Definitely, I like to call it ‘Selfie-itis’. Clients are coming in with Snapchat-filtered pictures of themselves and asking to look like them. These filters aren’t realistic because no individual face is that flawless - for example, the tear trough and nose to mouth lines can even be seen in children so why erase them? It’s not human to look like that.

Then you have the dating apps. People are uploading heavily-filtered pictures of themselves onto the dating apps and that is causing all kinds of problems. I had a new patient come in to see me as she had uploaded a filtered picture of herself onto a dating site and when she turned up for the date her suitor was quite disparaging and said she didn’t look anything like her picture. I call this “Snap Fishing”. You have to take some sort of ownership of that and realise that you are setting yourself up for failure as the person you are meeting is expecting you to look like the ‘filtered airbrushed you’ and like I said, no one looks like that and no one should want to look like that.

If a patient could only do one thing what would you recommend?

Investing in a good skin care is key. Well hydrated skin looks plumper and youthful. I’m particularly fond of a treatment called Redensity 1. It’s a power house of vitamins, amino acids, minerals and hyaluronic acid and gives your skin a beautiful healthy glow and it just looks radiant.

For home care I think a good vitamin C, a retinol and SPF is what will always make you look good for you age.  Don’t forget to use the SPF in the winter too. There are also lifestyle changes  to make like exercising regularly (although running excessively can cause jowls), eating healthily, keeping optimally hydrated, staying out of the sun and not smoking. I’m not saying anything new, it’s all the stuff we’ve heard before and deep-down know, but a good skin care is a great starting point… and that’s for men as well as women.

I’d like to talk to you about Silhouette Soft as some doctors I’ve spoken to say that it works some say it doesn’t. What’s your take on it?

It’s a great treatment, very interesting and the results really come down to patient selection, as the doctor needs to use their expertise to identify if it is going to work for them. The patient has to have just the right amount of skin laxity  to be optimally effective, however since it first came out the techniques have advanced and we are getting better results than ever. What you also get with this treatment is not only it’s lifting effect but also a collagen boost. 

For those who don’t feel comfortable with the idea of threads I recommend Ultracel. We have performed over 20,000 of these treatments at Rita Rakus Clinic and it targets the muscular layer of the face, the very layer that is lifted during surgical facelifts. It’s a painless treatment and has zero downtime. I’m a big fan. 

Any new treatments coming through that we should look out for?

EMsculpt! This is a brilliant treatment using cutting-edge magnetic wave technology. This pain-free treatment builds muscle and burns fat on your abdomen and even reduces the muscle-separation following pregnancy. Not only that, but we can select a programme to lift and shape the buttock muscles too. It achieves 20,000 ’supramaximal muscle contractions’ at an intensity not even an Olympic Athlete could do in just 30 minutes. I’ve seen some really incredible results from this. Watch this space as Rita Rakus will be the first to get the new applicators to be used for biceps, triceps and calves. You’ll know where I’ll be if you need me.

When you first meet someone outside of the clinic and you tell them you are a Cosmetic Doctor what’s the first thing they say to you?  I can almost guess what you are going to say…

"What do I need done?” ... which of course I am never going to answer, especially as this is normally in a social setting.

 During consultation I always ask them what is it that they like about themselves and then we go from there.  It’s about enhancing what you already have, which in my opinion is far more impactful. I try to steer clear of telling them what I think they need as it might be something that doesn’t bother them, then all of a sudden I’ve drawn attention to something that may have never been on their radar.

The whole thing with cosmetic treatments is that it’s not a ‘one size fits all’ technique because we are all uniquely individual. We need to be respectful of a patient's natural aesthetic and tweak and enhance that for optimum results. Our technology is so advanced now and our knowledge of the ageing process continues to improve so we are able to do subtle, natural looking and undetectable work. Conveyor belt clone faces will hopefully be a thing of the past - especially if I have any say in it.

To find out more and book an appointment with Dr Wassim Taktouk then go to www.drwassimtaktouk.com