The red carpet is evolving, and so are the rules of cosmetic care.

While some public figures are increasingly open about cosmetic procedures, many actors still favor discretion and staying naturally expressive on camera.

As the stars get ready for the 77th Primetime Emmy Awards — to honor the best of television, on Sept. 14 at the Peacock Theater in Downtown Los Angeles — the latest routines have become a mix of strategic treatments, subtle enhancements and wellness practices, with preparation starting months in advance.

“Good cosmetic care, whether it’s non-surgical or surgical, should be largely undetectable,” contends Dr. Julius Few. “That should be the goal.”

For more than two decades, the L.A.- and Chicago-based plastic surgeon has rejected the extremes and pioneered what he calls “quiet plastic surgery.”

“The worst thing anybody can do is make somebody look like they’ve been fundamentally altered, especially if you’re famous,” he goes on. “And eyes are really like fingerprints. If you change the shape, you’ve changed the person.”

For award show prep, Few boils it down to three targets: skin, volume and sag. On skin, he utilizes Sciton’s Halo laser and Forever Young BBL for fine lines, pore size, discoloration and sun damage.

“These are workhorse technologies for me,” he explains. “They’re gentle but effective. You can do them with as little as two or three weeks of lead time.”

For volume, it’s baby Botox. “Highly effective and important. If you know what you’re doing, it’s seamless,” he says. “And the last category requires the most planning, which is the lifting.”

It’s either surgical or nonsurgical — for the latter, he offers the Silhouette thread lift. “Four weeks before the award show is the sweet spot,” he says of timing.

A step ahead, Few sees the future of aesthetics as being centered on prevention: “The state of the art, in my mind, is capturing issues before they fully manifest.”

For Vanessa Lee of The Things We Do — an innovator in aesthetics and creator of “Facial Balancing” — that same philosophy is at the root of her practice, which aims to harmonize and improve facial features for a more symmetrical look.

Like Few, Lee counts a roster of A-list clients and tailors personalized techniques to each individual’s needs.

“We became known as the practice that would say ‘no’ to you,” Lee says of The Things We Do, which made $3.2 million in its first year and has since expanded with more locations, while securing a strategic, majority acquisition by Age/Well Aesthetics Partners earlier this year. (Lee maintains substantial ownership while staying hands-on.) “We gained the reputation of, ‘They’re going to tell you exactly what serves you and what doesn’t serve you.’”

Treatments for a red carpet are carefully timed; she uses PicoSure Pro to remove brown spots, for skin firming and skin laxity, along with baby threads and micro-infusions.

“Layering things like PRFM,” she explains of platelet-rich fibrin matrix, a procedure involving plasma needling. “PRFM is that biostimulator [derived] from your own blood, where it’s the next generation of PRP [platelet-rich plasma]. We take this growth factor and we thicken it and inject it into thinning areas or concave areas. And then the baby threads are meant to contract the skin by collagen building. So, if you have an area, let’s say underneath the chin or the neck, where the skin is thinning, I can place in a thin mesh of threads to create a pattern for you where your collagen starts to thicken and it’s activated, and then your skin contracts and tightens up.” (Results from baby threads last between a year to two years.)

Many of her tools and techniques come from South Korea, which she regularly visits and brings in providers to teach her team methods they’ve been perfecting for more than a decade, she says. “That’s why our results are so different and so natural.”

Preemptive strategies reduce or eliminate the need for surgery, says Few. “Where I’m at right now, it’s taking somebody who presents typically in their 30s with the understanding that I have a set of strategies that will likely eradicate the need of surgery for them…We’re doing very comprehensive things around prevention and an A to Z, wellness-meets-beauty.”

Wellness continues to shape every facet of beauty. In L.A., lymphatic drainage for the face and body is a weekly ritual — and a go-to for celebrities before an event.

Flavia Lanini’s technique at the Flavia Lanini Beauty Institute stands apart. Coming from Brazil — a nurse aesthetician specialized in the lymphatic system — she works on relaxing the fascia, a thin, tough layer of connective tissue that can become tight or misaligned due to stress, injury or poor posture, to fully stimulate the lymphatic system. Her regulars include Jennifer Aniston and Dakota Johnson, as well as music artists like Dua Lipa and Sabrina Carpenter.

“It includes specialized pressure, firmer than classic lymphatic massage but gentler than deep tissue, and never painful,” she says.

Before an event, prep can start weeks earlier and involves her detox treatment, which encompasses a massage and an ultrasound machine; the body is then covered in clay and special creams while wrapped in plastic, before a 20-minute sauna session. The results include visible weight loss and body sculpting.

The focus on body rejuvenation reflects the wider philosophy at Surya Spa, where wellness and beauty are deeply intertwined. “Beauty comes from within,” says Ayurvedic doctor, chef and herbalist Martha Soffer.

She first opened Surya Spa in the Pacific Palisades with her husband Roger, chief executive officer of the business, before relocating to the Santa Monica Proper Hotel in 2020. Along the way, she’s attracted a who’s who of Hollywood names, including Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Hudson and Julia Roberts.

“When your body is detoxified and nourished, your skin naturally glows,” she says of her beauty philosophy. “But if you’re eating foods that create congestion, your skin shows that, too. That’s why we recommend Panchakarma at the change of every season. It helps clean us out and opens the physical space for energy and radiance to flow.”

Panchakarma is an Ayurvedic detoxification and rejuvenation therapy from India that’s designed to balance the body, mind and spirit. (Soffer also provides a guided at-home option, a five-day cleanse kit for $125.)

For a red carpet appearance like the Emmys, she offers Surya’s Glow Treatment, which “moves stagnation out of the body, especially through the lymphatic and circulatory systems,” she explains. “When those systems flow, the skin looks clear, vibrant and full of life.”

It’s best done in a series of treatment, she adds, for a few days leading up to the event, with the last session the morning of. “That brings the real Surya glow.”