Nutrafol, Zoï, Function Health, Quest, oral swabs, InBody, LLMs, cycle tracking, P5P, Sculptra, Prenuvo, lion’s mane, Oura, BPC-157, mood journal, Accutane, IGF-1, Pubmed, bimagrumab, Eight Sleep, Dr. Derya Unutmaz, Apple Health, Github…

Hi! Welcome back to High Touch. Today I’m writing about one of the other tabs that’s always open on my browser, in addition to this one and the MyTheresa new-in page: the Claude chat where I store all of my health and aesthetics data.

To quote a stat from memory, personal health is one of the fastest growing uses for LLMs, and companies like OpenAI and Anthropic are investing heavily in their biology teams. But in an informal survey I conducted via texts to friends, only one in nine is using AI in this way. Below is how I use it. Not necessarily the best way or the right way, just a case study of one such approach.

But first, thoughts and feelings from the High Touch universe.

A touch of High Touch

• We bought a set of electronic cupping tools recently—these ones from Revo—and my back has become a landscape of red and purple crop circles, the deepest of which indicating where my fascia is tightest. They’re <$100, a cheap and instant knot-relief alternative to WTHN’s $120 per-session fee.

• Allergan Aesthetics, maker of Botox (the official brand), introduced a new fast-onset, short-term neuromodulator called Boey, which just got approved for use in Europe. Visible in as little as eight hours, lasts as long as three weeks. Think of it as an event-prep treatment, if you can’t wait the typical 5-7 day period for traditional ‘tox to kick in. Not yet FDA-approved, but already available in some clinics in the US if you know where to look.

• Paging ! Casio (yes) launches a…ring watch that can track heart rate, blood oxygen, and sleep, record running, walking, and cycling workouts, and follows menstrual cycles. It costs $294 and is currently only available in China.

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My routine used to consist of taking Nutrafol and getting botox a few times a year. As my protocol became more informed and complex, my management system needed to be more sophisticated, too.

It started after my Zoï medical review (a French luxury health check-up, I documented my visit and data previously for High Touch). There were minerals I was supposed to take in the mornings while fasted, and others I was to take with food, hours away from other prescribed micronutrients. There were supplement courses that lasted weeks, others months, and others indefinitely. Some on alternating days, some only on weekdays, some only on the first of the month, some only during certain days of my cycle. I was advised to schedule specialist appointments and follow-up bloodwork over staggered time frames.

I organized this info into a Google Doc that was part visual pill organizer, part wall calendar. This worked fine for a while.

Six months later, I signed up for Function Health, an out-of-pocket biometrics platform with group-negotiated pricing, and ran an additional 153 biomarker tests. Results started to trickle into my Function app’s data tab, and then the full panel was in—including a new suite of supplement recommendations, each with their own rules. Now all together, I had pages upon pages of health documents from Function, Zoï, self-purchased Quest labs, and years of annual physicals. Not just bloodwork and urinalysis, but DEXA scans, oral swabs, InBody scores, bio-ages, autonomic readings, etc.

The numbers were siloed and not speaking to each other, just sitting in a folder on my laptop.

If everyone in 2026 is a coder, I am a luddite. And yet, I turned to Claude. I had it code me an artifact that could ingest, preserve, and demystify my entire medical records and dynamic treatment plan. What it created was a single, self-contained HTML file where all of my data is stored, which I keep open in a Claude tab on my browser.

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Buccal facial massage, TMJ, physical therapy, MOCEAN, fight or flight, radiofrequency, Morpheus8, Thermage, DENSITY, UV damage, Shafer Clinic, Dr. Macrene Alexiades, collagen production, osteopathy, Porsche, Yinova Center, TCM, acupuncture…

Can you believe it? It’s In Vivo time again. In case you need reminding, IV is our monthly franchise about what the High Touch community are getting up to across the worlds of aesthetics and longevity—i.e. what my group chats are actually doing.

In today’s send, a lot of journeys are launching. Most of what’s worth doing in this space isn’t one-and-done, it takes reps. begins a months-long physical therapy process to rediscover her parasympathetic state, I recap a deeply restorative introductory acupuncture session and share initial findings from my adventure with the device that Dr. Macrene says “prevents the need for surgery”, and Broderick shares the Parisian lymphatic masseuse who “finely tunes the body like a vintage Porsche”—the one she tells me is THE lymphatic guy everyone in the know goes to.

But first, a few conversation starters from the High Touch universe.

Journeys

Holistic physical therapy with MOCEAN

I’ve been an anxious person all my life, but once I hit my 30s, the physical consequences have officially started to announce themselves. The worst part is having this persistent clenched jaw. It’s messing up my teeth; it’s leaving me with constant neck pain and headaches. I’ve tried everything from acupuncture to buccal facial massages to TMJ treatments to regular physical therapy to a completely souped up exercise regimen. Everyone eventually tells me that, at the end of the day, I just need to “stop stressing out” lol.

Finally, on the recommendation of , I made an introductory appointment with MOCEAN (which they comped, courtesy of being a FOC—friend of Chris), and I’m feeling hopeful. As part of my initial evaluation, they did all these tests and scans that showed how my posture is making everything 1,000% worse (see scan above). Okay, fair! But there was also a lot of “data” from these tests showing that my nervous system is out of whack, that I’m spending far too much time in “fight or flight” mode versus “rest and digest” mode, which checks out. It felt validating, somehow, to see my inner chaos bear out on all those charts and tests. (For example, it turns out that, even laying down on a Thursday afternoon, my breathing patterns more so resemble that of a rabbit running for her life.)

I’m going to try out a couple of months of membership to access MOCEAN’s physical therapy in addition to their various recovery/optimization protocols, hopefully to enact some kind of factory reset to my nervous system. Even typing that sentence out makes me pretttttty skeptical enough of myself. I’m not usually one to get some crazy machines and equipment get involved, and honestly, I simply can’t afford anything longterm with them. But after that first session, I can’t deny that I left feeling wildly gooey and relaxed. It’s been a week since, and I can tell I’ve been sleeping better (and deeper), and at least seem to have a greater awareness for how I’m holding myself. Cross your fingers for me?

–

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Photobiomodulation, Harvard, natural sun, XERF, microwave, stem cells, ZenTite, Macrene Actives, sleep, snail mucin, Mad Cow, K-beauty, Pico Genesis, Neutrogena…

Welcome back to High Touch. You’ve seen Dr. Macrene Alexiades’ name in this newsletter before, when she balanced and brightened my face in all of 10 minutes of sitting in her clinic for PRF injections.

When we met for the first time a couple of months ago, I was bowled over by her—her three Harvard degrees, her pioneering work in so many of the most presently relevant aesthetic technologies, her time management??? She somehow writes textbooks, produces a podcast, has a skincare line, and still lives a fabulous, cosmopolitan lifestyle on top of running her practice. It has to be said that her eye for facial harmony, something that can’t be taught, makes all of those qualifications that much more pressing. After her inclusion in May’s procedure round-up, I had a handful of people who have access to the best providers in the world reach out to say they also see Dr. Macrene.

On a subsequent stop by her Upper East Side practice, I spoke with Dr. Macrene about her background, her philosophy, the common traps in cosmetic dermatology, plus what’s worth the money—the new, virtually painless intervention that’s staving off facelifts, say. Super actionable insights from her ahead, but first, some news from the High Touch universe lately:

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Laura Reilly: How do you describe what you do, and how did you get here?

Macrene Alexiades: I was an artist. I started doing portraits of family and friends as early as three years old. When I was a little bit older, I realized I had been drawing profiles. My mom was an artist and I basically watched how she would draw faces. I started to emulate her and copy the way she was drawing and painting and whatnot. The other thing that really captivated my attention was nature and science. Before I went to school, when I was really young, I put toothpicks in the garden, tracing the path of ants. I noticed that ants always followed the same circuitous path. Even though I was such a small child, I recognized that they were sending signals.

About 16 years later, I was in a Harvard auditorium with E.O. Wilson, a very famous animal and behavioral scientist, saying that they had discovered that ants release pheromones, invisible signals when they find food, and they meander their way back to the hill. All the ants use that random, bizarre pathway, it’s never the fastest or the straightest, but it is the pathway. It’s so cool that I figured that out when I was a kid. That was the competing parts of my mind. It was the artistic side, and then this science and math side. This continued throughout my childhood—I was winning science fairs, but I was also painting portraits.

In high school, I was already in a lab; I was working on plant molecular biology and insect biology. When I got to Harvard, I started as a biochem major. I switched to bio, but the first thing I did was go into a lab. I was working on insect development, finding non-toxic modes of insect control. My idea, which started years prior, was oral contraceptive for insects. It was really brilliant. Then I moved into another lab on plant molecular biology—I did five years on photo regulation, which is light regulation of genes. I started to become an expert on plant biology, photo biology, hence me being a laser specialist.

I ended up in medicine ultimately. I thought I could keep art as a hobby, and I couldn’t. So what I do now, which is basically injectables, lasers, developing technologies—it’s my art, and it’s my gift. I was so good at portraiture, I’m so good at seeing the beauty in the human form and in the world, but mainly the human form. I think that I found a way to give that gift back.

LR: I'm interested in photobiology. I've heard that sitting under LED lights is a crisis waiting to happen, because we're spending so much time indoors and not in natural light.

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Biologique Recherche, Timeline, Dr. Scholl’s, Lumify, WSA, Invisalign, Kaitlin Phillips, compression boots, Metagenics, liposomal phospholipid complex, methylene blue, progesterone, oxytocin, Ballerina Farm, Ashley Javier, wet cupping…

Welcome back to High Touch. Did you even notice we took Independence Day off? That’s wellness. Before I even launched this newsletter, people were telling me I had to talk to . She was, apparently, the beauty industry’s Swiss army knife, a Leónese fountain of knowledge, and at least as enthralled with the worlds of aesthetics and longevity—high tech and low, low brow and high—as I.

Today’s send is the outcome of that inevitable yet still entirely engrossing meeting: a nearly 2-hour interview, which you can watch in full above or read in highlights via her questionnaire below. It’s really good. Surprising and full of threads to pull and refreshingly honest about everything from hand cream to hormones to calisthenics to “RFK-coded” supplements that did for her what other interventions couldn’t.

But first, a few things heard, spotted, injected???? maybe??? in the High Touch universe this week:

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At-Home Products

Skincare

I do product development. I make skincare formulas. I test lab samples. When I’m sick of testing and I need to go back to simplicity, I go back to Biologique Recherche every time. I like a lot of drugstore stuff. Currently I’m using this really lame Cocokind face wash that I’ve written about. I just like the texture and the feel of it. I’ve been using a lot of Timeline products which I think are interesting. I’ve been using the new Goop vitamin C that I think is maybe the best vitamin C I’ve ever tried. I’m loyal to very few things. All the versions of P50 that every brand puts out, it’s not P50.

Haircare

Hair is the one thing that I’ve never gotten quite a handle on. I did the Harklinikken program for a few years. I was using their shampoo and conditioner and then their growth…it’s not even a serum, it’s like a weird liquid. It’s a very annoying process which I do think worked, and then I kind of fell off of it last summer and I need to get back on. Once in a while I have a craving for the Christophe Robin scalp scrub, I’ll have a jar of it that lives in my shower for, like, two years. I’m getting into hair masks, another thing Jen Brill turned me onto. I’ve become obsessed with bonding treatments—like a thing that you spray on before you shower, let it soak in for an hour or something, and then you shower and it gives you smooth, glossy hair.

Bodycare

Prior to Nécessaire launching from Nick Axelrod, who’s one of my closest friends, I would never have spent $30 on a body product like a lotion or a gel. I was using Aveeno and Dr. Bronner’s. He launched, I got a bunch of it. It’s really nice and now I’m spending $30 on body wash. It’s just a different texture and a different experience. I love the Soft Services buffing bar. I think it’s really genius. I go in and out of using oil. The Weleda oil I like a lot. The L’Occitane almond shower oil wash is a top-ten product. I’ve been using Paula’s Choice body retinol, which is neither here nor there. But I trust their formulas even though it’s not glamorous. They also have a weird estrogen line that’s supposed to be for crepey skin.

Hands, Feet, Nails

I hate hand cream. Nécessaire is the only one I’ve used nightly. It feels waxy and there’s a dry down to it. You don’t feel greasy. You’re still using your phone in bed or whatever. It’s really nice. This Dr. Scholl’s stick that I won’t shut up about, which is just like a giant Chapstick for your feet. It’s called cracked heel repair, or something disgusting. I use that a lot, especially in the summer because I like not wearing shoes. I do my own nails at home, I’ve turned into that person. The only shade that I’ll use is one coat of OPI Put it in Neutral. That’s my manicure shade. And OPI Big Apple Red is the only pedicure shade that I use.

Eyes

Lumify eye drops, the purple ones. Lash lifts don’t work on me. I very rarely wear mascara. I like getting my lashes tinted, but I don’t keep up with it. I do it once in a while if I remember, and I just do it at Benefit. Brows I don’t do, I just sort of maintain them myself. I was on a brow lamination journey for a long time and I would go to Jasmine Imani who was in Soho, but now she’s in the WSA building. I love her. She also does amazing lash lifts, I just can’t have one. I’ll dye them at home with Refectocil that I buy on Amazon.

Oral health

For many years, probably a decade, I was just using Crest Glamorous White because I liked the name. A friend told me she bought this new toothpaste and liked it, called Boka. So I tried that. It’s fine. I did Invisalign which I didn’t think I needed, and I felt like it made a huge difference. I had braces in high school and my teeth were sort of fine. I have small teeth, and I felt like the Invisalign actually is helping to hold up the foundation of my face which is nice as you get older. I do think it made a big difference. Not so much visually as sort of structurally.

At-Home Devices

Face + neck

It took me a really long time to get on the LED mask thing. I like the Omnilux men’s. It’s the one that I bought because I read or heard somewhere that it has more lights. I travel all the time. It’s easy to bring with me. I got that Medicube thing. I don’t really care about it. I have a ZIIP, which I do think works, but I’m lazy with it.

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Upper bleph, brow lift, Upneeq, Dysport, Daxxify, Christian Bale, nootropics, nicotine, microneedling, exosomes, LED therapy, centella, reishi…

Welcome back to High Touch. We’ve made it to the next edition of In Vivo, which, as a reminder, is a column where I share all of the procedures, practices, and products my friends and I are testing. Everything you read here started in a group chat or IRL, born out of organic conversation drift or the urgency to recommend something that “works.”

Below, you’ll hear from me about why Daxxify > Botox and what cult facialist Pietro Simone tells me is “the most underrated peptide” in beauty. Miranda Levitt talks almost-as-good-as-surgery eye drops. And Maggie Jones on the nootropic she takes to write for 10 hours straight. But first, what’s happening in the HT rumor mill.

Non-surgical

Upneeq

I’ve been using this eye drop that opens your eyes, and it’s amazing. I feel like it’s a really nice, gentle treatment for women feeling like they need an upper bleph. But it’s a godsend for people with drooped lids like me. It stimulates the Müller muscle (involuntary eyelid muscle) to contract, giving the appearance of a more awake eye. I don’t use it every day. In fact I’m trying to save it for only occasions. Hugely helpful at weddings. Idk if you can tell as much as I can (before I used it, my gf Polina kept being like, “look how much more awake I look!”), but to me looking in the mirror, the difference is huge.

Each tube is supposed to only be used once, but I usually get 2-3 drops per eye out of each. So you can use for 3 days. For me, no side effects. Polina says it makes her eyes a little tired feeling the next day. It’s by prescription only, so side effects are listed and warnings and everything.

I will eventually get a bleph and brow lift, my mom and grandma both had them partially covered by insurance. But for now this is a safe way to give the appearance of a more open eye on the days when I wake up just looking TIRED. Like if I didn’t get a good night sleep or I have an event, I use it and I suddenly look like I had 12 hours, no drinking, no problem.

– Miranda Levitt

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Sulwhasoo, Agent Nateur, water-based lubricant, Bottega Veneta, NuFace, Reddit, Vitamin D + K12 drops, protein, The Beauty Chef, Valery Joseph, Spencer’s Spa, Removery, Rumble, magnesium, veneers, LEEP, Brightwood, CGM…

Welcome back to High Touch. It’s been almost a month since we launched and can I just say how fun it’s been. More than ever, you guys are coming up to me at parties and DMing to tell me about what you’re doing to your faces and bodies, what new thing you heard about on TikTok, asking “is this worth it?” Because of this newsletter I can walk through the most private doors in the UES and ask top dermatologists and plastic surgeons anything I want to know; I can reach out to those among us with the je ne sais quoi and hit them with literal hours of questions that, if not invasive, I don’t know what they are.

Brittenelle Fredericks is one of my good friends who really walks this walk and is today’s subject of my prying, although, even prior to launching HT, she was always one of the most forthcoming people I could have these conversations with. Today, in the text below and in our video call (this is turning into a podcast somehow, excuse the rawness of it all as I settle into a new medium), she tells us about getting a mini facelift in her 30s, living with veneers, lasering off all of her tattoos, her LA ob-gyn who steered her away from cervical cancer. Truly a wealth of experience and intel in “this space.” But first, naturally, some gossip.

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At-Home Products

Skincare

I feel like I naturally have such dry skin. As someone who's blessed to receive gifting, I get to try so many different products. I've always had the notion: if it doesn't work right away, I don't use it again. I love Clarins. Their under eye serum and hyaluronic acid serum make my skin feel amazing. And it smells like I’ve just gotten a really expensive facial. I've used some of the U Beauty products, like the resurfacing compound. Sulwhasoo has a really light moisturizer and I really like that. Moussse miracle drops—I wake up and I feel like my skin is feels shiny and amazing. They have a moisturizer that’s unbelievable, but I already used it all.

Haircare

Diffar fragrance hair oil—it smells so good. I don't care how dirty your hair is, put it on; it's what I've been using to style my hair. I’ve been using water balm pomades to style my hair, I find that it gives my hair a lot more flexibility. Any kind of wax pomade makes my hair feel like a Lego man. I use a lot of purple shampoo. Once a month I do a hair mask—I color my hair so much, I have to.

Bodycare

The Agent Nateur body oil changed my life. I use it right when I get out of the shower before I put my robe on. Then I usually use Nécessaire body lotion or something afterwards, it’s my favorite combo.

Hands, Feet, Nails

L’Occitane makes a cuticle oil that I use and I'm obsessed with it. I’m low-maintenance with the rest of that stuff, to be honest. Sometimes I’ll use a hand mask or a foot mask.

Eyes

Clarins has this double eye serum. I use this a lot. I put it on at night or in the morning. They also have this eye lift one—I haven't really noticed a difference with it, but I love their products. Their serums are unbelievable. I have La Mer cold presses for under eyes—the metal things that you just put on and hold. I use those when my eyes feel super puffy.

Oral health

I use Marvis. This is probably going to be controversial, but I like the lavender (Jasmin Mint). I use one of those over-the-counter mouthwashes that are antiseptic.

Sexual health

Maude. So chic, I love it. I use their shine aloe water-based lubricant a lot, I also think a lot of their products, like their mini vibrators, are unbelievable.

Fragrance

Now I'm wearing Bottega Veneta Good Morning Midnight. I think it might be my favorite scent I've ever had. The packaging is very, very sexy.

At-Home Devices

Face + neck

NuFace. It’s a very temporary thing for minor lifts. It works for me, but a lot of people were saying online—I’m such a Reddit person—they didn’t like it. I like it. I use it when I feel like I’m not feeling that great, or my skin feels too held down by gravity, and I'm like, "Okay, I need some help here."

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Myoplastic facial massage, fascia manipulation, Environ, microcurrent, ultrasound, iontophoresis, scalp gua sha, corneocytes, chemical peels, CO2 Lift Pro, Dr. Evan Rieder, injectables, peptides, SkinPen, Biojuve, exosomes, micriobiome skincare, Cecily J. Braden, Traditional Chinese Medicine…

Welcome back to High Touch. What a night! Something about this newsletter is vaguely athletics-adjacent, right? Anyway, good enough timing for today’s feature on Raquel Medina-Cleghorn, New York’s number-one sports fan (she’s selling soccer jerseys out of her studio this weekend) and its best facialist, according to me. I’ve been going to Raquel for years, since she first opened up her space RAQUEL new york in Tribeca, and count on her to be my magic bullet whenever I feel like I need to pick my face up off the floor. I know I’m mogging out the door when she snaps on her microcurrent gloves for some cheekbone sculpting.

More from Raquel down below—plus a whole section at the end on the techy, biohacky-grade skincare products she uses at the studio—but first, word on the High Touch streets this week.

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Laura Reilly: How do you describe what you do, and how did you arrive at this place?

Raquel Medina-Cleghorn: I am a facialist, and I focus on a combination of technology and holistic manual modalities—different types of massage, lymphatic drainage—all with the intention of supporting skin health and delivering long-term skin health to people. There’s obviously the cosmetic component. People want to fight wrinkles, fight aging, look better, all that. But ultimately, my goal is to ensure that their skin is as healthy as it can be, because that’s what’s going to deliver those results. I’ve arrived here [via] all the education and training I’ve received over the seven years I’ve been doing this.

LR: Can you describe some of that?

RMC: From the jump, it was esthetic school, which is the most basic level of skin education you can get. And then there was the facialist I worked for before; I trained with her and learned her techniques. From there, I was introduced to skincare lines that, like Environ, have really incredible education. Learning more about all of the different cascades of the skin, how the skin works, how ingredients work. And then diving into different technologies: How do they work in the skin? Why are they beneficial? How often should they be used? Training I’ve taken includes manual lymphatic drainage; I’ve done something called myoplastic facial massage, which incorporates a lot of decompression to the tissue. I just registered for a fascia manipulation course. Different hands-on techniques that bring in different elements of supportive skin health, and tissue manipulation, and tissue health.

LR: Walk me through an appointment with a new client. What are you looking for when they come in, and how do you assess their needs?

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Kayla Barnes-Lentz, HIPAA, fasting glucose, visceral fat, WaterRower, Lp(a), Nokia, MethylAge, osteopenia, grip strength, “fish paradox,” Brazil nuts, turkey tail, hydrogen peroxide mouthwash…

Welcome back to HT. You’ve reached part II of this biometric double-header. In yesterday’s send, we toured Zoï’s teak wood Japandi womb of a facility and did dozens of clinical examinations on me. Invasive but somehow relaxing? As promised, today I am sharing the results of those tests in questionable detail. But, before that, a couple of High Touch-y things found around the house:

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A month after my visit to Zoï Paris, I had a follow-up Zoom call from back in New York to review my lab results with Dr. Grimonet. It took us about an hour to go through all of the lab findings and her recommendations for addressing any weak spots and personal goals. Again, this was the first time I’d ever really taken a clinical look at my body in any depth, beyond being told “looks fine, you’re good” after my annual physicals.

I’m sharing the main bits here, along with some relevant / representative lab scans. I get a lot out of others’ specifics— is a big one for me, and I keep up with Bryan Johnson through the ether, but even just hearing from candid randos on the biohacking and supplement subreddits—as it introduces new ways for me to think about health “on paper.”

It’s kind of funny what great lengths Zoï went for my discretion—assigning me the pseudonym Océane Raynaud in external labs, upholding my medical privacy rights under Europe’s version of HIPAA—only for me to release the data to the tens of thousands of you reading this. The first of many ironies to emerge from the gulf between being measured and receiving one’s measurements.

Here’s what I learned about myself:

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Ritz Paris, Frama, Sala Hars, ultrasound, blood pressure, ear thermometer, AGE reader, glycation, electrocardiogram, green anise broth, retinal OCT, NewTom 7G, DEXA, CO₂ bath, Japanese tea…

Welcome back to High Touch. Exciting to no longer be in “launch week” programming, and instead just be. Today I’m sharing the first of a two-parter on my experience at one of the world’s most beautiful biometric testing clinics, Zoï in Paris. Self-measuring is an integral part of longevity (in 2026 terms), so it only made sense for me to crack this journey open here—both in relaying what the labs and imaging felt like (that’s today), as well as what was actually sussed out, down to the individual markers (coming tomorrow). But first, a few things inboxed, screenshotted, whisper-networked since our last send:

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Zoï Vendôme is only two blocks from the Ritz Paris, which meant I had to walk past early-rising tourist couples staking out its entrance hoping to catch celebrities coming and going, as if part of a low-cost sightseeing date. I happened to see Paloma Elsesser exiting while en route that morning in October, implicating myself in their hobby. A few bends later, I approached Zoï’s address and held up a code I’d been issued via my app to the digital check-in, prompting the doors to swing open onto a Kubrick-ian hallway, illuminated by soft-box lighting and flanked with smooth wood walls. I was jet lagged and carrying several flasks of my own pee in a Row Marlo 12 bag.

I had first visited this space in the spring as a guest of Frama, who is an official partner for the on-site onsen, supplying it with towels, toiletries, and an additional layer of design-y credibility. I was back now for Zoï’s core offering: biometric testing covering 150 biomarkers across 32 individual examinations including lab tests, instrument readings, and advanced imaging devices.

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Platelet-rich fibrin, Emsculpt, Dr. Yael Halaas, Dr. Macrene Alexiades, PRF, Yale, cannulas, Helen Phelan, Shou Sugi Ban House, Dimes Deli, Lyma Laser, Remedy Place, the RICE method…

Welcome back to High Touch. It’s the final day of our launch week takeover and the inaugural edition of In Vivo, a monthly column about the procedures, practices, and products my circles and I are testing. Literally, what the group chats are doing.

Below, you’ll hear from me about Emsculpting my ass and PRFing my face. heals her boyfriend from a visible facial injury in a week. got married yesterday (!!!) and shares what beauty prep looks like for the modern bride. But first, some things we’ve seen, heard, or otherwise happened upon this week.

Face

PRF with Dr. Macrene Alexiades

It stands for platelet-rich fibrin, and it’s basically a dermal filler derived from your own blood. I had one of the most successful appointments of my cosmetic career with the delightful Dr. Macrene, an insanely accoladed dermatologist / scientist / Yale professor, etc, whose background as an ARTIST became extremely apparent in the way she surveyed my face and balanced all of my minor asymmetries and early signs of aging. They draw blood, put it in a centrifuge, and inject the fibrin matrix with a tiny needle you can barely feel (not like a filler cannula at all). I could see the results while still sitting in the chair, but your body’s own injected material will continue to promote growth factors in the areas over weeks. A friend I saw the next day told me I looked prettier, imperceptibly, “like I was ovulating.” But actually, this is me in luteal. The highest compliment!!

– Laura Reilly

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Semaglutide, Tirzepatide, Equinox, NAD+, food journaling, weight training, PCOS, breastfeeding, saffron, ubiquinol, perimenopause, alcohol tolerance, synchronized swimming, Lilly Direct…

Welcome back. It’s still High Touch week. Today we’re hearing from a cross-section of New Yorkers who’ve taken or are taking GLPs; brand-name Ozempic and Zepbound to gray-market product via “peptide guy.” One in eight Americans is on a weight-loss medication, and soon we’ll look back and find it hard to believe there was ever any stigma around them at all. (But, to be clear, at this point in time there still very much is.)

Below, I speak to three of my friends about their diverse reasonings for taking the peptide—”being thin” as its own end, as a treatment for PCOS, to lose the baby weight and find themself again…everyone has their reasons. But first, a few things we’ve seen, heard, pined for this week:

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Niko Zucchero, 32

How would you describe your relationship to food, eating, and your body before you started GLPs? What specifically led you to explore them?

I was an emotional eater and had insane food noise, and I was overweight for what I wanted for myself. All of that’s gone.

When and how did you start taking GLPs? I.e. who was your provider, what was the cost, what form(s) did you take?

I tried semaglutide and I was micro dosing it; this was early 2023 but was difficult to reliably get. I took it for a few months and noticed results but nothing major. In August of 2024 I started Trizepitide with a med spa paying $250-$350 weekly—Alchemy43 was my med spa, I chose them because a friend recommended and they had locations NYC and LA. After three months of this, I’d lost 20-ish pounds. Then a friend introduced me to her “peptide guy” and I’ve been with him ever since: it’s $175 per vial which lasts 2-4 weeks depending on my dose at the time, and he has every other peptide you could want; I’ve tried NAD+ injections and a copper-peptide blend, I liked both but didn’t like intramuscular injections with the NAD, and didn’t like the daily injections with the copper blend. I’ll probably circle back to a copper blend now that he has more options available.

What was your initial reaction? How soon did you begin noticing the effects? Did you experience any side effects?

When I switched to Trizepitide and increased dosing on schedule I really started to see results, I lost ~50lbs over the course of a year, quite rapidly in the first six months. (Starting to regularly work out helped.) My side effects have been mild, a bit of car sickness feeling or nausea if I ate too much. Possibly some hair thinning, not enough to stop.

What impact have GLPs had on your health and wellbeing—including any data you've tracked? Positive or negative.

Being thin has helped my wellbeing, sorry it’s tea.

What’s your current GLP protocol? Has it evolved over time?

I’ve taken breaks, and I’m currently more interested in maintenance, or a boost post-holiday / vacation. I’m no longer looking for drastic results, just quieting food noise and maintaining.

Have you noticed GLPs interacting with anything else in your life—other medications, supplements, exercise, alcohol, sleep, mood?

Well, I now take 11 different supplements + a green powder every morning because I am aware that consistently eating only once a day is not going to do everything.

Supplements as of now: NMN 500mg liposomal, probiotic, saffron, liposomal vitamin C 1000mg, B-complex, fiber, astaxanthin 4mg, zinc 15mg + bisglycinate copper 2mg, magnesium glycinate, ubiquinol 10mg, omega-3 (rTG, enteric coated).

Subject to change? I’ve been thinking about adding iron and a collagen powder but I can’t find one I love. My mood is great, being thin puts me in a good mood. I basically don’t drink at all now and I don’t want to be flabby so I also workout.

What do your circles think about your GLP use, if it’s something you’ve shared with them?

I’ve convinced so many people to get on it and try it. I'm screaming it from the rooftops.

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Peptides, BTL, Restylane, PDGF, medical tourism, liposculpture, COVID vaccine, topical Ghk-Cu, vaginal health, Dr. Levine, TM, cellulite, TikTok, GLPs, anti-inflammatory diets…

Welcome back to High Touch. A couple weeks ago I popped into the West Village office of Dr. Paul Jarrod Frank, cosmetic dermatologist and chief medical officer and founder of PFRANKMD and author of “The Pro-Aging Playbook”. He’d topped my list as someone to speak with for launch week after his name was passed to me multiple times during background interviews with professionals when researching this new vertical.

For people who feel the way about a list of aesthetic services the way others do when reading the martini menu at The Grill or a price list at a Prada sample sale—me, to all—Dr. Frank’s website is a dopaminergic blast of anticipation. Tools I know first hand like Morpheus8, Vbeam, and Clear & Brilliant jump out amid tons I haven’t tried or even heard of: Ellacor, AviClear, Aerolase NeoElite Laser (would make beautiful names for a girl), etc. There’s a whole section just for longevity interventions…Niagen IV Therapy, Pelvic Strengthening, even ExoMind, which, to paint a picture, uses magnetic energy to treat depression and is FDA-cleared!

Dr. Frank is a prime example of keeping a stacked deck while playing a conservative hand. More from him on the cosmetic-cultural paradigm shift underway and, more practically, what works and what’s probably a scam, below. But first, some things we saw, heard, chewed on this week.

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Laura Reilly: How long has longevity been a part of your practice?

Dr. Paul Jarrod Frank: Since I started. I have felt that, in a sad way, wellness and beauty used to sit on the opposite sides of the cafeteria when they were always the same thing. Dermatology is no better profession to understand this concept. Generally, beautiful skin is a reflection of the health of the skin. And you can’t see that with our liver, and our brain, and all these things, because [skin] is the largest organ, but it’s all visual.

I’ve always had this idea of “pro-aging,” not “anti-aging.” I started that about 10 years ago, and then in 2019 I wrote my book “The Pro-Aging Playbook.” It was really all about how beauty starts from within, and the things that I’m trained to do are icing on the cake. There’s only so much I can do. I’m having conversations with patients about getting surgery all the time. I don’t dissuade people—if they don’t want it, they don’t want it.

LR: Are you having a conversation with your patients about their lifestyle?

PJF: Eating habits, drinking habits, what their goals are. I talk to them about all of these things. The difficulty right now, which I like the most, is reeducating people, because there’s so much nonsense out there. The regenerative medicine stuff, the peptide gray market, the supplement market, these are all super exciting things in the future. But people don’t want to wait for data. They want to jump on bandwagons. But it’s teaching the ethos of pro-aging and living inside-out.

I went to school to become a dermatologist, and it was as simple as just being involved in skincare—being involved in the health of the skin, the beauty of the skin aesthetically. Now I look at it as: I want to empower people to feel comfortable about aging. Unfortunately, everyone comes in with very specific complaints and feeling that they’re going through it alone. I tell people, “You are special, but you are not uncommon.”

The first thing is to help empower people to feel good about the process. What they don’t realize is that we are all spoiled. A hundred years ago or 150 years ago, life expectancy was half of what it is right now. We’re actually doing quite well, and it’s a blessing to get old and see the wrinkles on our face. We weren’t meant to watch ourselves age. So it’s natural as visual creatures to want the inside and the outside to match. Now we have the technology, and we’re learning a lot about lifestyle things to hopefully help us not only have longevity, but also to have a better health span. There are a lot of technologies and things out now that are combined with that, like peptides, like the BTL products. Using technology that works on the inside, not just on the outside.

LR: You’ve had your practice for 25 years—what did longevity look like then? What kinds of interventions were you recommending?

PJF: I was trying to get patients to let me treat their rashes and do occasional Botox. Lasers were very rudimentary. I took out government loans, and I thought I had the most cutting edge practice, because I had a hair-removal laser, a vascular laser, a pigmented lesion laser. That was it. I always told people, because they’d come in with complaints—“this wrinkle bothers me, this bothers me”—I told them, the healthier we can get your skin, the better you’re going to feel about the way you look.

The first cutting-edge technology that is probably the most impactful thing of my career was Fraxel, which was a non-ablative, no-open-skin way to target sun damage and rejuvenate the skin. That was the ultimate pro-aging device. I do have patients that don’t care about their sun spots, broken capillaries, and things like that, but they do when I tell them it’s those things that are the precursors to wrinkles and loss of elasticity and need for a facelift. I can get your skin healthier, there’s a trickle effect of so many other things.

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TCM, Muay Thai, birth control, hypothyroid, collagen maxxing, intermittent hypoxia, Papa John’s, NAD+, mogging, Aajonus Vonderplanitz, Ray Peat, red Coke, Clavicular, Blue Zones, Carnivore MD, creatine, sauerkraut, EMF exposure, EVOO, Zaid Dahhaj, raw dairy, sleep, non-anabolic steroids, ruminant meat…

Welcome to High Touch! On day four of our launch week takeover, we’re hearing from Substack’s health and wellness new guard—lots to learn there, a million rabbit holes in which to dip an ancestral carrot—but before we get into that, a few things we spotted, tested, heard this week.

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Laura Reilly

Hi Lily, Sami, and Chris,

Thank you all so much for agreeing to participate in this roundtable for High Touch, Magasin’s coming-soon newsletter about aesthetics and longevity.

I’ve said this to each of you individually, but your respective publications represent, to me, the new wave of health and wellness media and are some of the few voices adequately reflecting the real conversations being had on the matter out in the wild. I’m (maybe selfishly) excited to learn more about how you navigate that, and to see some of these topics through your eyes.

So—to start us off...Can everyone introduce themselves and their respective platforms, with some context as to how you arrived at doing what you do?

Hey! I'm Chris. I'm a longtime magazine editor (spent a decade-ish at GQ) and now I'm the EIC of SSENSE, Canada's no. 1 ecommerce platform for buying Lemaire and such. I also host the podcast SuperHuman.

I started my Substack because, like everyone in their mid thirties, I got addicted to working out (Muay Thai) and wanted an excuse to talk to other people about their wellness practices, and maybe even launder a lifelong interest in TCM into the zeitgeist. The name HEAVIES is what someone at my gym called the big kettlebells, and I thought it was a funny name for a newsletter, so here we are.

Fantastic—thank you for hosting us, Laura!

I initially launched as a way to make sense of the ever-evolving world of Health Twitter and related forums. It felt like there were so many insights that simply weren’t being translated for the audiences that could really benefit from them (ie, girls in their 20s who were wanting to get off birth control but unsure how; or people demonizing carbs and generally undereating while also experiencing hypothyroid symptoms1). As I was putting together the pieces in my own healing journey, I felt the urge to share—creating a space for honest explorations of underrepresented / ”alternative health” approaches, along with an open forum for conversation. The name came to me in a dream.

Outside of the newsletter, I work as a copywriter + creative consultant for brands / founders in the health and wellness space. I currently live in Chicago, after 5+ years in NYC.

Hey all, hey Lily, hey Chris, thanks Laura for doing this.

I’m Sami Reiss, I’ve been writing on Substack for three years after a stint of another newsletter, freelance magazine work and working in sports leagues. It began as a feature in my other newsletter a decade ago then a series of columns on Inverse and GQ. It evolved from pure lifting into wellness into something else now… no hard mission but letters now focus on edge of health protocols—raw dairy2, red milk3, collagen maxxing, intermittent hypoxia4, real sicko shit—but framed to an analog tilt: in context of maxxing out the subtle big rocks of groceries and sleep and light environment and movement / lifting / cardio first. The genesis is I started lifting hard in high school because of hardcore music (spec. the back photo of the Age of Quarrel), and got quickly into shakes, PPL splits and macros; I got into the demon obscure shit after an assignment a few years ago and began n=1ing hard on basically everything I cover now years ago. I’ve simplified a bunch since then but do the odd / regular demon intervention / experiment. The name super health… because health isn’t enough…. I am from Ottawa Ontario and live in NYC.

Laura

Yayy we’re all here! Thank you for clocking in and being here everyone.

Jumping in—

The word “health” shows up across each of your newsletters. What does health entail in 2026—what practices fit into that framework?

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Agent Nateur, VRéserve, Veronique Gabai, creative visualization, “The Fat Flush Plan,” glutathione, Abraham-Hicks, cherry juice, margaritas, The Fairmont, Gwyneth Paltrow, Dr. Ellen Manos, Lanserhof, Ava Inness…

Welcome back to High Touch. I first met at a dinner in Paris. I invited her to be in this newsletter while she was in New York, then we spoke over Google Meet a few days later when she was back home in Monaco. She sent me the selfie below from Cannes. To me, Kelly is the ultimate what does she know that I don’t person. How does she do it? In our inaugural High Touch Questionnaire—as comprehensive a survey as I was able to dream up, running through bullet points from sleep hygiene and substance use to plastic surgeons and smart-home devices—I got my answer to those top-level questions, in a fastidious and specific fashion.

Kelly is a bit of a granola mom, albeit impressively disciplined and fully leveraged within that framework considering the demands of her job. She’ll tell you as much herself below, plus things like who her facialist in London is and the functional medicine doctor she shares with Gwyneth Paltrow. You can even watch our full call in the video at the very end of this page. (Kelly’s on-screen grace! My weird lighting!) But first, a few things seen, heard, spotted since our last send:

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At-Home Products

Skincare

I’ve always felt that the closer you stay to nature, the better. Keep things as simple as possible. Certainly in today’s world, where we’re being marketed every single possible thing. I see it with my daughter. It’s a different time to grow up. She has TikTok and she knows everything about every product. I guess I’ve just found the balance of wanting to keep things simple, feel good, and look good.

I’ve always been on the natural side. I’ve always loved it. I remember my mother cleaning the house with certain products. I just thought, “How is this possible? This can’t be good for you.” When I was a kid, I thought, “Oh, I can’t wait to have my own home and use natural products and things.” I’ve always felt that way, even with perfume—I just did a perfume—I couldn’t wear a lot of them. All of these things can be done in a way that’s a bit more natural.

I love to try things and I’m sent things, or my friends will do a line [of products]. There’s always something to try, but I end up with pieces of the puzzle—finding things from each brand that work for me. I tend to like simple things like Agent Nateur. She has one called the Holi Trinity which is vitamin C, an oil, and a hyaluronic spray. Living Libations, really natural good stuff. I like the rose thing that they do: a rose cleanser, a rose emollient serum, a COQ10 serum, and a face spray. Then this line my friend who has bees is making, it’s called VRéserve. I like the Weleda products, the Skin Food is obviously really good. Another one that’s lovely is out of the UK. It’s called Sweet Bee Organics.

Haircare + scalp health

Hair care is more about the brushes. I love the Jäneke brushes and combs. I don't use that much on my hair. I use David Mallet shampoo and conditioner, they’re so good and his salon is so great.

Bodycare

For my body, I love coconut oil.

Hands / feet / nails

I love magnesium cream for feet, or Skin Food. Lately I've gone natural with my nails. This summer I'm going to have to do something. There's a Chanel ballet pink and that really dark, beautiful red that they do, Rouge Noir. Hermès has a nice hand cream, Chanel too. I use a gua sha. I use it mainly if my jaw is tight, or even my neck if it's sore. I use it more as a little massage tool.

Oral health

I like Curaprox toothbrushes, the ones that are different colors. For toothpaste, sometimes I make my own with coconut oil, oregano oil, stuff like that. When I'm traveling, Living Libations makes really good natural toothpastes. Weleda makes a good salt toothpaste.

Fragrance

I recently did a perfume with Veronique Gabai. [Laura note: Kelly also just collaborated with Cayumas on a line of Friulane slippers.] I wanted something rose, and I partnered with a friend of mine who I've known for 15 years who worked at Estée Lauder and did all the perfumes for the brands. And she comes from Antibes, not far from where I'm living. I told her I wanted to be as natural as humanly possible, she already kind of does that anyway with her brand. It's called Rose Première. I'm really excited about it. People are really liking it, so I'm super happy.

At-Home Supplements

Multis / vitamins / minerals

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Dr. Konstantin Vasyukevich, under eye filler, Restylane, Ali Sheets, PA-C, RealSelf, Cephalexin, Hydrocodone, baby shampoo, bromelain, The Row, gua sha, Omnilux, dry January…

Welcome to High Touch. Today we’re talking about my plastic surgery—the questionable cosmetic decisions I made that brought me there, the doc I went to, the acute and long-term healing process, lots of progress pics—but before we get into that, a few things spotted, tested, heard in the High Touch universe this week:

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I got lower blepharoplasty plus fat transfer and CO2 laser in January of 2024, at a point when my under eyes were worse-than-baseline.

Some backstory: 8 or so years prior, when I first started working at InStyle, a plastic surgeon’s PR (Dr. Konstantin Vasyukevich) offered me free under-eye filler in exchange for using him as an expert source in upcoming coverage. This kind of thing happens all the time. I had genetically hollow and dark eye bags, so I accepted. All was par for the course—the change was subtle and I kind of forgot I had even done anything after a while.

In 2022, the Restylane he had injected over half a decade earlier became encapsulated, i.e. hardened and bulging under the skin. This can happen after a virus like a flu (or even one you don’t otherwise notice) passes through you, which I suspected to be the case: A dot of filler I had added to my jaw to even out the line between my chin and cheek (called the sulcus) at an injector’s office more recently (Ali Sheets, PA-C, when she was at Center Aesthetic) had also suddenly hardened and bulged out. Neither of my past injectors had done anything improper, it’s just the complex nature of filler, which the industry is only starting to recognize after many years of heralding it as low-risk and short-lived.

I ended up having to get the stubborn filler in all three sites dissolved over something like five sessions. Hyaluronidase is super traumatic to the area, and the whole ordeal left the skin under my eyes really baggy and thin. Some months later, I took a selfie on an overcast day and was so alarmed that I decided I had to do something about it. Realistically, the aging process also played a role.

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A lot has happened since I announced High Touch earlier this year. First, a vitriolic cross-platform comment war (I got doxxed! It was crazy) and a drone of essays from self-fashioned cultural commentators. I got to be the internet’s Rorschach test for a fortnight. But then…every major publication got their peptide coverage in. A dozen Substacks centered on new-guard wellness emerged. Celebrities and public figures reclaimed the narratives around their regimens in droves. This isn’t the same landscape it was even a few months ago.

We’re launching High Touch with a week of programming that crosses a variety of themes and formats I created this newsletter to explore. Gird your inboxes. No spoilers, it’s all coming starting tomorrow.

Today, though, a collection of concepts and vantage points that together form a High Touch manifesto:

• What I’m calling Selfspan: just as “healthspan” refined our aspirations for our lifespans—not just living longer, but being of sound body and mind for those years—selfspan affirms the desire to identify with the person in the mirror over that time, too. It means whatever it means to you.

• This newsletter is here to document the world around us, not shape it. You’ll never see us saying “do this,” ever. This is both practical—physiologies differ wildly, everyone draws their own line in the sand—but also, it’s just of no benefit or detriment to this newsletter whether a reader picks up Botox or not.

• Relatedly, no moralizing. Planet Fitness said it best when they proclaimed to be a “judgement-free zone.” (Half joking.) However people want to be healthy or look hot or live to 1,000 years old, honestly, let them. Longevity—selfspan—as a personal goal is not mutually exclusive with other human qualities.

• Research is a gradient. Not everything featured here will be based on meta-analyses or RCTs. Not everything will be FDA-approved or on-label. Not everything will be “white market.” Our network of nearly 50 fact checkers will orient the content we publish within the greater scientific literature and link out to further relevant reading. Our ever-expanding professional network is around to lend their insights to the slipperier subjects. And for those conversations along the fringe, the more interest the public shows in a topic, the more research stands to emerge around it.

• It’s called High Touch for a reason. A lot of what we cover here is expensive, exclusive, niche. This comes with a perspective that those paying the high cost of emerging tech are bankrolling the road to eventual lower mass pricing. I’m not saying they always will, but life-changing health implications can emerge from blurring the elective-essential divide. Think about botox for migraines, red-light therapy for wound healing…I’d bet we’ll be seeing hyperbaric oxygen therapy prescribed post-surgery en masse within a decade. Still, this trickle down is secondary to the fact that people can spend their money how they wish.

In keeping with High Touch’s central tenet of agency, I’ve made it really easy for those who want to be here to enjoy all of the work we’re publishing, and for those who don’t to opt out without losing access to Magasin’s core content—biweekly fashion and interiors shopping sends (and beyond). You can do that through this button ↓ that lets you toggle on/off your HT and Magasin subscriptions separately.

Manage your subscription

Also important to state is that High Touch is a paywalled product. Free subs will still get a preview of each feature, plus our industry news cull (for now), but you’ll need to sign up for a paid subscription to read the bulk of our work. $8 a month, $80 a year. Founding plan for $800 just to see what happens (it could only make our content better). That link above leads you to your subscription tier, too.

Until tomorrow x

In the beginning, there was health! Then came wellness. And self care. Today, we’ve arrived at another inflection point in the way we think about our bodies from the inside out. Once fringe, the apertures of longevity, aesthetics, biohacking, maxxing and otherwise “beyond the gloss” pursuits are widening to include more of us every day. We are entering the high touch era.

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In January alone, I’ve done Botox, Emface, IPL, scheduled Moxi / broadband light, seen my orthodontist, cardiologist, GP, OBGYN, ophthalmologist, dermatologist, plastic surgeon, trainer, and pilates instructor. I’ve renewed my health insurance and medspa membership. I’ve drawn blood three times and given two urine samples. My current skincare routine is 6-8 steps, my daily supplement stack is 17 pills (20 on Mondays) and a peptide taken subQ, and I’ve engaged at least 5 high-tech tools from my home device library (red light, SAD light, PEMF, etc). I’ve tracked every meal, macro, and relevant micronutrient. All of this, and I consider myself pretty healthy and not hypochondriac. I am n=1, but I am not alone here.

GLP-1 use doubled in a year. Peptides went mainstream. Aesthetic procedures are up 40% from pre-pandemic levels. My group chats are planning out cos-medical tourism itineraries in Korea and swapping Tixel providers and talking NAD+. I’m willing to bet yours are, too. Gossip matters when it’s building what could become a $130 billion industry by 2030. This is the scene we will be tracking through exclusive personal interviews, medical advisories, first-hand journeys, anonymous tips, community tableaus…

After more than a year in development, I’m excited to soon introduce you to Magasin’s newest and most ambitious vertical: High Touch, coming this spring.