Mirror Mirror with Amy Chang

What are you really paying for when a facelift costs $300,000 instead of $30,000? And does a higher price actually mean a better result? Dr. Kian Karimi joins Amy Chang to unpack the cost of facial rejuvenation, from the surgeon’s fee to anesthesia, facility charges, recovery support, and potential revisions. He explains how the scope of a surgical plan changes the price and why an expensive proce...

After 16 years of beauty treatments and visits to more than 25 clinics, Amy Chang knew what she wanted from an aesthetic appointment: time to ask questions, thoughtful recommendations, and a plan that didn’t involve doing everything at once. In this special episode of Mirror Mirror, Amy switches seats and shares the story behind Matera, the medical aesthetics clinic she founded in Santa Monica. Sh...

Veneers can change more than your smile. But what makes them look natural and what should you understand before permanently changing your teeth? Amy Chang sits down with her own cosmetic dentist, Dr. Jon Marashi, DDS, a Los Angeles cosmetic dentist and porcelain veneer specialist, for a candid conversation about veneer regret, natural-looking smiles, and the decisions that matter before permanentl...

Waking up at 3 a.m., struggling with brain fog, or noticing changes in your skin and hair? What should you ask when you no longer feel like yourself? Amy Chang sits down with Dr. Taz Bhatia, integrative medicine physician and author of The Hormone Shift, for a candid conversation about perimenopause, women’s health, and the experience of feeling dismissed when something feels wrong. Dr. Taz shares...

What happens when you’re praised for your beauty but still don’t feel good enough? Nazanin Mandi joins Amy Chang for a candid conversation about body dysmorphia, life after her divorce from Miguel, and rebuilding an identity she felt she had lost. Scouted as a model at 10, Nazanin shares how an early comment about her body stayed with her and how insecurity later affected her work, confidence, and...

How does “just a little filler” turn into a look you never intended and why can it be difficult to notice the change? Amy Chang sits down with Dr. Evan Rieder, a dermatologist and psychiatrist, to explore perception drift: how our surroundings, social feeds, and cosmetic experiences can shift what looks normal or beautiful to us. They discuss the pressure of pretty privilege, why the satisfaction...

Looking your best doesn’t have to mean looking younger. What changes in your skin as you age and what changes when you stop believing your best years are behind you? In this special Mirror Mirror conversation with Shiseido, Amy Chang explores aging well from two perspectives: skincare science and personal reinvention. First, Dr. Nathalie Broussard, PharmD and Shiseido’s Director of Scientific Comm...

What does the SPF number on your sunscreen actually tell you and how is it tested? Amy Chang sits down with Ava Matthews, co-founder of Ultra Violette, to explore sunscreen labels, mineral versus chemical filters, and why sunscreen formulas differ around the world. Ava shares her perspective on the CHOICE sunscreen testing controversy, Ultra Violette’s product recall, and the changes the brand mad...

Filler, Botox, Sculptra, PRP, PDGF and exosomes are everywhere, but how do these treatments differ, and what should you understand before trying one? In this episode, Amy Chang sits down with board-certified facial plastic and reconstructive surgeon Dr. John Frederick to unpack the rapidly changing world of aesthetic medicine. They discuss why filler can remain in the face longer than patients exp...

Social media gives us endless fashion inspiration, so why is it making personal style harder to find? Fashion trend forecaster Mandy Lee, known online as @oldloserinbrooklyn, joins Amy Chang to unpack why fear of looking wrong, being “cringe,” or changing in public can keep us from developing a style that actually feels like our own. Mandy explains why people online increasingly dress alike, even...

Why are people in Los Angeles, New York, Paris and London starting to look more alike and what does Instagram have to do with it? Puck fashion correspondent Lauren Sherman joins Amy Chang to decode the hidden beauty and style codes of the world’s most influential cities. Lauren explains why cities still have recognizable beauty codes in an algorithmic world, how online aesthetic tribes are replaci...

Why has skincare become harder to understand when we have more information than ever? Charlotte Palermino, co-founder and Chief Brand Officer of Dieux Skin, joins Amy Chang to unpack how fear, outrage and insecurity shape what beauty companies sell—and what consumers buy. From sunscreen conspiracy theories and “clean beauty” to ingredient-rating apps, luxury pricing, retinoids, K-beauty and kids a...

Ten hours of filming can become seconds of television. For Crystal Kung Minkoff, that meant even close friends watching The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills were left asking: “Who am I watching? This is not you.”Crystal opens up about becoming RHOBH’s first Asian American Housewife and what she learned about the gap between who you are, what gets filmed, and the version of you audiences ultimately...

Tradwives promise simplicity. Dating apps promise effortless love. Media scholar Dr. Sarah Banet-Weiser explains why both can turn identity into a product—and what Love Island, swipe culture and AI relationships reveal about modern womanhood. In this episode of Mirror Mirror, Amy Chang and Dr. Sarah Banet-Weiser unpack how media becomes a “script” for real life. They examine why repeated images st...

Dorothy Wang had the access, the doctors and the budget, but she still said no. In this candid conversation with Amy Chang, Dorothy discusses the pressure she felt during Rich Kids of Beverly Hills and Bling Empire, what happened when she no longer looked like the version of herself audiences expected, and why she eventually stopped trying to perfect every feature. Dorothy opens up about living wi...

Five years ago I made a few TikToks where I leaned hard into self-deprecating humor — playing into every stereotype I thought my audience already had about me. Vain. Superficial. Not that smart. They went viral. Millions of views. So I did it again. And again. For four years. It worked. I built a large audience on it. And I was exhausted from shrinking myself into a box that had almost nothing to...

Christine Chu had so much hair she had standing salon appointments to thin it out. Her ponytails were too thick to manage. Hair loss was never on her radar.  1 Then in the fall, her hair started shedding like autumn leaves. By November, it was coming out in clumps. By December, bald spots. By New Year's — almost entirely gone. She was filming Bling Empire, Dancing With the Stars, and RuPaul&#3...

Most clinics draw 10cc of blood, spin off 5cc, and call it PRP. According to Dr. Ben Talei, that's not PRP. It's plasma. Plasma, without a concentrated yield of platelets and signaling factors, doesn't do much for hair loss. The entire PRP industry, he says, is largely built on protocols borrowed from studies that weren't actually measuring what the industry claims to be selling. T...

Three weeks before the 2025 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show, Jasmine Tookes got a call: they wanted her to open it. She was nine months pregnant. Her doctor said no. She begged him anyway. She flew from LA to New York with a private doctor monitoring her vitals the entire flight. She walked the runway in four-inch heels, praying her water wouldn't break under the lights — and became one of the most...

After my first pregnancy, I followed Taiwanese postpartum confinement practices for 40 days — herbs, cooked meals, no leaving the house, a night nurse living with us. My milk came in immediately. I stopped bleeding in three weeks. I felt held. After my second pregnancy, I had none of that. COVID meant no in-person support, no family, no village. I took no maternity leave. Six months later, I got s...

Marianne Fonseca has been a model for 20 years. She's lived in Brazil, China, Europe, and the US. She's getting married in six days. And this week, she's flying to Costa Rica for stem cells before the ceremony. She also founded Gente Beauty — a Brazilian body care brand built around at-home lymphatic drainage — when nobody in the US had heard of lymphatic drainage and investors didn't understand w...

I gained 70 pounds with each of my pregnancies. After two kids, I assumed the soft tissue around my abdomen and lower back was just what came with being a mom. After one session with Rebecca Faria, the pioneer of Brazilian lymphatic drainage in the US, those "pockets of fat" were gone — and a six-pack I had never seen on my own body appeared overnight. It wasn't fat. It was lymphatic fluid I had b...

The beauty industry spent $32 billion on influencer marketing in 2025 and 80% of brands increased their influencer spend last year. Priscilla Tsai, the founder of Coco Kind, went the other direction. In this week's Mirror Mirror, I sit down with Priscilla Tsai— who's been building Coco Kind for 11 years — to talk about the unconventional moves that have actually worked. We get into why she stopped...

This week on Mirror Mirror, I'm joined by Camille Moore — brand strategist, founder of Third Eye Insights, and consultant to some of the largest beauty brands in the world — for the unfiltered breakdown of how beauty marketing actually works in 2026, who's winning, who's quietly dying, and how consumers can decode the difference. Pat McGrath Labs is reportedly up for sale to avoid bankruptcy. Rhod...

What actually happens when plastic surgery or cosmetic treatments go wrong? In this episode of Mirror Mirror, Amy Chang sits down with renowned plastic surgeon Dr. Terry Dubrow for an honest conversation about the side of aesthetic medicine most people do not want to talk about: complications. From filler emergencies and vascular occlusion to revision surgery, med spa red flags, surgical regret, a...