Signals for what’s next – and what matters
Health ⎪ Innovation ⎪ Society
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Hey Reader,
We’ve come a long way since our parents’ beauty creams back in the day.
The near future promises you to:
Sculpt your face like an architect
Maintain your muscle like a bioengineer.
Rewind your skin like a software update.
Here in LA, the epicenter of beauty and image, a new trend is becoming clear: to be beautiful in 2025 is no longer a question of good genetics or makeup—it’s a protocol. In fact, its not a trend it’s transformation.
We are entering the Age of Aesthetic Optimization. This isn’t just about looking better. It’s about redefining the very interface between identity and biology—with treatments that blur the line between performance, youth, and selfhood.
Regenerative aesthetics alone is projected to reach $2 billion by 2031, growing at a CAGR of 33.1% from 2025 onwards.
This is movement is converging with the body optimization movement that has included the quest for perennial youth through code supplements and biohacks.
Thanks to breakthroughs in regenerative medicine, AI, peptide therapeutics, and cellular rejuvenation, your face, body, and skin are now modifiable systems—programmable, measurable, and enhanced in ways that were impossible just a decade ago. VCs are pouring capital into clinics, platforms, and product lines that merge beauty with performance and longevity.
Much of this work is still incipient, but there are promising breakthroughs including an exciting study from Regeneron pharmaceuticals on muscle building and fat loss.
But this isn’t just about face creams or supplements – or anything that promises to revolutionize our lives.
This isn’t just a new category—it’s a new ontology: beauty-as-bio-signal.
The First True Era of Aesthetic Optimization
We’re on the cusp of a transformation not seen since Botox, liposuction, or the invention of retinol. But unlike those singular interventions, today’s convergence of biotech (e.g., stem cells, exosomes), pharmacology (e.g., GLP-1 agonists), and regenerative medicine is reshaping what’s possible across four fronts:
- Fat Loss: From semaglutide to dual or triple agonists paired with myostatin inhibitors, we’re now designing fat loss that’s selective, muscle-sparing, and possibly permanent.
- Muscle Growth: Bioengineered antibodies like Regeneron’s anti-GDF8 agents promise pharmaceutical hypertrophy—gym results without the gym.
- Skin & Hair Rejuvenation: Exosomes, polynucleotides, and next-gen retinoids show potential to reset cellular signaling for aging skin and dormant hair follicles.
- Longevity Crossover: Many of these interventions (e.g., NAD+ precursors, senolytics) aren’t just cosmetic—they address the root of aging itself.
Specific Promising Emerging Technologies
- HIFEM Technology (e.g., Emsculpt Neo) ⚡️ Uses electromagnetic pulses to stimulate 20,000+ muscle contractions in 30 mins. Combines with RF heat to melt fat simultaneously.
- Skin Rebirth via Exosomes + Polynucleotides These nano-vesicles restore cellular communication, while PNs fuel regeneration. Results? ✨ Improved elasticity, glow, tone, and dermal density.
- Jet Plasma: No-Needle Delivery Cold plasma opens skin channels to deliver peptides, exosomes, and growth factors without trauma. Already popular in elite K-beauty clinics.
- Red/NIR Light Therapy: Mitochondria on Demand Photobiomodulation at 630–850nm rejuvenates cells, boosts ATP, and aids in hair regrowth, scar reduction, and wrinkle repair. Stack it with PRP or peptides for amplified effect.
- RF Microneedling 2.0 (e.g., Morpheus8) Microneedles + thermal RF energy remodel deep collagen structures. Now with AI-controlled depth and temp for precision sculpting.
- Peptide Revolution – While not ready for primetime yet, the successs of Ozempic promises other peptides to be studied and commercialized from skin to sexual health to neuroprotective agents and more. Examples: BPC-157: Skin + joint healing, Thymosin beta-4: Tissue regeneration. CJC-1295/Ipamorelin: GH secretion, collagen support. These are already commonly used by bodybuilders, pro athletes and Hollywood actors. Retratutide promises to even better for weight loss.
- Liquid Biostimulants (Profhilo, Rejuran, etc.) Not fillers—these injectable skin boosters hydrate, lift, and tighten from within. Use polynucleotides, amino acids, and hyaluronic acid hybrids to nourish the skin matrix.
- AI Facial Mapping + Predictive Beauty Design 📸 AI scans your face in 3D, models aging trajectories, and optimizes treatment plans to preserve or enhance symmetry. Soon: Facial “preventative aging” baselines for every 30-year-old.
Arnold Becomes Us: Muscle Building on Tap
The standard knock against Ozempic, Zepbound and Wegovy is that the weight loss involves a significant component of muscle and lean tissue loss.
Regeneron has a phase 2 combination regimen that seems to mitigate much of this weight loss and can actually boost muscle growth. The drug is trevogrumab (anti-GDF8/anti-myostatin) + garetosmab (anti-activin A). As a reminder, myostatin is an extracellular cytokine mostly expressed in skeletal muscles and known to play a crucial role in the negative regulation of muscle mass. Activin A is cytokine involved in a plethora of effects but including wound healing and metabolism.
In combination with semaglutide we see essentially cleaner, leaner weight loss + muscle enhancement:
The recent COURAGE trial indicate that while semaglutide alone led to a 34.5% loss of lean mass, the combination therapies preserved 50%-80% of lean mass and increased fat loss . It’s worth noting that none of these study participants did resistance training, which would likely have boosted the metabolic benefits.
This data is promising for this precise reason: the only drugs for muscle building (and fighting muscle wasting) are androgenic anabolic steroids. While effective, they have a litany of dangerous side effects that limit their clinical efficacy. This is why you hear of bodybuilders, unfortunately, dropping dead in their 20s and 30’s every years. However, these “designer” drugs are the future of body recomposition. And subsequent iterations will be even more effective.
How’s it Lookin’ Good Lookin’?
LA, Dubai, and Miami are already pursuing these interventions with other urban metros to follow. Unlike the supplement stacks that bro-influencers like Joe Rogan hawk, we are seeing the emergence of empirical data for targeted precision beauty.
We’re moving from:
- One-off procedures → Integrated protocols
- Surface treatments → Cellular & energetic rejuvenation
- Beauty as cosmetic → Beauty as data-driven, performance-enhancing, & longevity-aligned
Postscript
Beauty is the most culturally accessible and commercially viable form of using biology and technology to remake ourselves. As such, it’s a harbinger of larger changes in our society.
We now have (or soon will have) the tools to: look younger longer, build bodies without brutal training, reverse signs of age and stress, design our appearance with data. Beauty is no longer earned, and not even merely bought but engineered.
The coming years will offer a kind of cosmetic singularity. And just like with AI, what we gain in power may cost us in soul—unless we remember that the point of beauty is not perfection, but presence. Our faces, weathered and wrinkled, tell the biographies of our lives– meaning, loss and resilience. What will we lose when we can gain supple skin?
The role of doctors will likely change as well. Cosmetic providers will be highly paid (cash only of course), and act as some hybrid of scientific craftsman x modern shaman as they cater to the wealthy.
Forever young? Perhaps.
But let’s not forget: to be human is to change, to decay, to die beautifully.
Not just to glow… but to glow with meaning. We want confidence and not just high definition disembodiment.
Having said that, sign me up, Regeneron.
Meanwhile, I’ll find my copy of the Picture of Dorian Gray.
Tomorrow Can’t Wait,
