Advanced Facials
Advanced Facials have been popularized by celebrities… but even if you never read the tabloids at the Save-On Foods checkout, you may now be curious.
Advanced Facial are a Health Canada approved collagen stimulating therapy, ideal for treating ageing skin on the face, neck, eyes, hands and décolletage. It is commonly used in the treatment of hair loss – more below. Key: it uses the patient’s own platelets extracted from a small sample of their blood.
As we age, collagen and elastin become depleted in our skin causing lines, wrinkles and thin skin. Advanced Facials are designed to reverse this: improve the texture and tone of the skin, helping it become progressively thicker, tighter and suppler.
Advanced Facials improve texture and reduces fine lines. However, it is not a magic silver bullet – there simply aren’t any quick or cheap fixes to the march of time! So it is best with other anti-aging therapies (eg regular SPF, skin care products, laser treatments or Botox/dermal filler).
Process & How it Works
Advanced Facials start with taking a small sample of the patient’s blood with a syringe.
Next, the blood sample is spun in a medical centrifuge (about 10 minutes, onsite) to concentrate the plasma.
Finally, the patient’s own plasma is then infiltrated (injected and/or massaged) into the desired areas. Activation causes platelets to release essential growth factors and signaling proteins, which are responsible for the wound-healing process and skin rejuvenation.
Various Methods to Deliver Advanced Facials
There are several common methods of delivering the plasma into the treatment area:
- A medical energy radio-frequency (RF) device, like Fractora, micro-punctures the skin. Fractora+Advanced Facials promises the most results (in terms of collagen growth).
- Microneedling: a pen-sized medical device (eg Eclipse MicroPen Elite) delivers a series of micro-needle punctures.
- Syringe: a very fine-gauge needle is used to inject the serum.
Advanced Facials take approximately 30 to 60 minutes to perform.
Downtime & Risk
First off, Advanced Facials should be performed by a doctor or qualified nurse in an accredited medical facility.
Advanced Facials are not new – it has been used effectively for years in the treatment of burns, orthopaedics, ophthalmology and physiotherapy to accelerate wound healing. It is considered quite safe: a very low risk of any complication.
What makes Advanced Facials enticing for many is that it doesn’t use anything foreign or artificial – there is virtually no risk of an allergic reaction – making it a rather safe choice.
There is a chance of some redness, swelling or bruising with Fractora (possibly a few days), but much less so with Microneedling (any effects subside in hours typically).
Value
Patients typically pay $500 to $1000 per treatment (depending on the clinic and/or areas treated and/or amount of serum used). Typically at least two treatments are recommended, and a treatment regime of three treatments is commonly recommended for optimum results (more possibly for hair, see below). Treatments are separated by approximately a month each. More treatments are often needed for scar treatment or hair growth stimulation. As stated, each patient needs a personal consult.
Advanced Facials Conclusion
Advanced Facials are an increasingly popular treatment. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to brighten up your face – or to stimulate hair growth – and you can do this pretty quickly via an Advanced Facial, with few side effects and a short recovery time.
