Baby boomers boosting anti-aging 'skin trade'

By Dennis Quick
Senior Staff Writer

Even though their AARP memberships remind them of the passage of time, baby boomers are not surrendering to old age; they're fighting it.

Baby boomers, the generation born between 1946 and 1964, are waging war on wrinkles, sunspots, unsightly veins, unwanted hair and other signs of aging.

In doing so, boomers are fueling a national medical-aesthetic economy that experts say could surpass $20 billion by the end of 2006.

Many of them are preserving their youth and improving their looks through non-surgical cosmetic treatments offered at medical spas, or "med spas," like AesthetiSpa LLC in Mount Pleasant.

Baby boomers are not ready to consign themselves to the retirement home.

"They're still out in the work force and still want to look their best," said Dr. Christy Cone, who along with Dr. Richard Schaffer Jr. owns AesthetiSpa.

"How you look shows how you feel about yourself," Schaffer added.

Thanks largely to an influx of baby boomers to the Lowcountry, Cone and Schaffer have seen their number of patients soar to 1,500 in 21 months since they opened AesthetiSpa in November 2004. Business has doubled in the past eight months, Schaffer noted.

AesthetiSpa treatments usually take between 30 and 40 minutes and range from laser hair and vein removal techniques to wrinkle-reducing Botox injections to chemical skin peels that restore sun-damaged skin. Prices for services generally range from $50 to $500.

Med spas are the fastest-growing segment of the spa industry. In 2004, there were about 750 med spas in the United States, but by the end of 2006 there could be as many as 2,500, according to the Web site CNN Money.

"Baby boomers make up about 90% of my business," said Dr. Claudia Welber of Natural Hideaway, a med spa on Calhoun Street. "They want youthful, translucent skin. They want to look as good as they did when they were 20."

Since Natural Hideaway opened about six years ago, business has grown steadily, Welber said.

"The culture is changing," Welber observed, adding that there is a "greater acceptance of having things done" to improve the way we look.

Boomer power

There are more than 78 million baby boomers in the United States. Collectively, they wield an annual spending power of more than $2 trillion, according to the MetLife Mature Market Institute's 2005 "Demographic Profile of American Baby Boomers."

Boomers have the disposable income to purchase anti-aging products, the sales of which jumped 13% in 2003, more than double the growth rate for the previous two years, according to the NPD Group, a Port Washington, N.Y.-based provider of consumer and retail information.

That sound of the cosmetic cash register is music to the ears of Marcy Priester, the Mount Pleasant district manager for Arbonne International, an Irvine, Calif.-based manufacturer of Swiss-formulated, botanically based skin care products.

Arbonne products cover the gamut from body lotions to hand creams, from sunscreens to shave gels. In addition to skin products, Arbonne offers nutritional supplements and weight-loss shakes to help boomers and others get fit.

Arbonne, which sells its products through direct marketing to consumers rather than in retail stores, saw its national sales jump 164% in 2005, according to Priester.

Boomers were responsible for much of that increase.

"Anti-aging skin care products are among the preparations baby boomers reach for," said Priester. "For both men and women, looking good stems from being healthy and fit 'within,' not simply from the surface application of cosmetics."

Being "old" is not what it used to be, Priester noted.

"Our philosophy of life has changed," she said. "People are living longer and more healthfully. It's a lifestyle revolution."

Dennis Quick covers health and wellness for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dquick@charlestonbusiness.com