After a difficult few months, Kristina Rihanoff reveals how a series of treatments have transformed her skin and given her self-esteem a boost
Sour screens as a dazzling blonde bombshell back in 2008, when she wowed us on the Strictly dance floor. But while Kristina Rihanoff still looks every inch as glamorous, she tells Closer that late last year, she began to feel low about her appearance.
“Looking at my old pictures on Strictly Come Dancing made me feel a little down,” she admits. “When I look back, I feel a bit insecure – I know we’re 10 years on and that I can’t really compare myself, but ageing can be difficult to accept. It wasn’t that I want to look like I did in my 30s, but I do want to look good for my age.”
Kristina turned 46 in September, and readily admits that her hormones have been “playing up”. During the perimenopause, we lose around 30 per cent of our oestrogen, which accelerates the ageing process and often leads to sagging skin – something she felt she’d started to experience.
INSECURITIES
“Last year, blood tests showed my cortisol levels were all over the place, which I was told is a common symptom of the perimenopause,” says Kristina, who has daughter Mila, seven, with rugby hunk Ben Cohen. “I still sleep OK, but I can quite clearly see the change in my face. It came to a point when I didn’t want to put makeup on my eyes, because the skin above my eyelids looked like it was sagging.
“I also felt conscious of my teeth, because I started grinding them at night in lockdown, due to stress. Grinding them affected their edges and I felt they looked uneven, which contributed to my insecurities.”
Reluctant to resort to fillers or surgery, Kristina decided to opt for “a little makeover” instead. On a friend’s recommendation, she reached out to The Door W4, a London-based health, wellness and aesthetics space, where Dr Julia Coelho suggested a step-by-step treatment plan.
YOUTHFUL
Kristina kicked things off in January, with AgeJET Plasma Therapy, a new anti-ageing treatment that involves having heat delivered deep into the skin. It creates micro-injuries, which triggers the body’s healing process and stimulates collagen production.
“I had three sessions, with three or four weeks in between,” she says. “After each one the top layer of skin peeled off gradually, but it wasn’t painful and I could soon see that it had really resurfaced and tightened my skin. It also lifted my upper eye area – I no longer get irritated by my sagging eyelids, because they don’t look as droopy! I now enjoy putting on make-up again.”
Kristina then had two sessions of Profhilo, a celebrity favourite that’s billed as the key to a plump, radiant c
