“Addicted to Beauty” TV Show – Not Such a Pretty Picture of a Medi Spa

It was bound to happen…a reality show with a spa focus.

While Bravo TV has had Tabitha’s Salon Takeover on for a couple of seasons, it was more salon oriented than spa oriented. I actually quite liked Tabitha’s Salon Takeover – although Tabitha herself was a bit hard to like at times. You’ve got to respect her though – she knows how to make a salon profitable and is herself a star stylist. And let’s face it – she is entertaining.

So now we have the new reality show Addicted to Beauty on Oxygen. The basic “plot” is that a plastic surgeon’s office and a day spa merge to become a medi-spa. (They probably don’t know – yet – that the term MediSpa is trademarked by Dr. Bruce Katz of Juva MediSpa in New York).

Dianne York-Goldman heads up the spa team and Dr. Gilbert Lee is the plastic surgeon. The new entity is called Changes Plastic Surgery and Spa and is located in La Jolla, California.

The only problem is (and they got this right because it is a real-life issue) that the cultures of spa and medical are not mixing so well. The spa employees are drama-all-the-way-around and the doctor is very buttoned up…more than a few conflicts result.

While the mix is entertaining, the biggest problem in my opinion is that all the employees who work for this new medi-spa have themselves had more than a tad of plastic surgery – and the results are a bit scary. Young faces with lips that are too large and uneven, blown up breasts that make everyone look topsy turvy, cheek implants and narrow noses….it’s not as bad as Michael Jackson but some get pretty close to that Joan River’s look.

So what do I think of this show considering that I am in the spa industry? Well, thankfully we have had so many reality shows to date that we are all used to the outrageous. Just like we know that most housewives are not like the Housewives of New York, Orange Country and Atlanta, and normal Bachelors and Bachelorettes don’t end up confused about who to marry, I think that most people will know that this depiction of a medi-spa is pretty out-there.

While Addicted to Beauty doesn’t exactly paint a pretty picture of a medi-spa, it does show that spas have joined the big leagues…and, I will probably be tuning in again next week!
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