Have you given your face a close once-over lately? See any sun spots, rosacea, moderate acne scars, brown spots or broken capillaries? Unfortunately we all seem to have one or some of these on our face and they only multiply as we age, unless you have been diligent about sunscreen since day one. 

So how can one get rid of them? There are a ton of products that claim to lessen the appearance and it seems like those with hydroquinone are the most popular. But this is a controversial ingredient and can take months of applying it to skin to see any difference. Even then, most seem like a long shot.

If you really want to have sun spots, scars etc removed from your skin, there is an option at a medi spa called a FotoFacial (or some places call it a Photofacial). It uses Intense Pulsed Light (IPL), Infrared (IR), Laser and/or Radiofrequency (RF) energy to deeply penetrate the skin to constrict blood vessels to remove damage while stimulating collagen growth.

A good candidate for the IPL FotoFacial that I received is white untanned skin that still has some elasticity to it. This procedure also improves the skin’s overall texture like reducing pore size, minimizing wrinkles and fine lines. Unfortunately it won’t do a lot for someone with deep acne scars or deep wrinkles. 

I was recently invited to the Blue Medi Spa in Sherman Oaks, CA to try one out and what a cool looking place! Everything is blue and white and it feels so modern and they offer a huge menu of treatments like injectables like Botox and fillers, skin tightening, Ultherapy, facials, body contouring and much more. The place had a very pampering vibe to it, not like most medi spas I’ve been to.

 

How an IPL Fotofacial works – wearing protective eyewear, Blue Medi Spa’s Nurse Technician, Jane, applied a cooling gel to my whole face because the skin really get hot in the places she is treating with the laser. She worked on my face section-by-section, resting the laser on a spot she wanted to target and what I felt was akin to a rubber band snapping at my skin. It didn’t hurt but some areas were more sensitive than others, like my chest.

For my whole face to be completed, it took about 45 minutes and my upper chest took about 20 minutes.We forgot to take a before picture of my chest beforehand so I just posting my face pics here, which will give you a good idea. 

Afterward, I was given some ice packs to apply to my face and chest to cool them down. My face reacted pretty well and I didn’t have many red spots but my chest was a different story. As you can see from the pictures, it’s quite red and it stayed quite red for about 5 days and then calmed down. I’ve had a FotoFacial before quite a few years ago and my chest didn’t react this bad so not sure why it did this time. Maybe the laser power was up too high? I’m not sure but I’m glad it’s much better!

So now it’s been 3 weeks since I had it and I’m pretty much all healed and I think my skin looks perked up. I didn't seem to have any dark sunspots on my face, which is good, so I think the treatment seems to have evened out my skin tone. I think they usually recommend more than one treatment spaced a few weeks apart so really see if difference if you've never had one before. 

So what does this all cost you? It depends on where you get it done and how many sessions you need, but it seems to start at $199/per session per area. Think of the products you’ve bought, not to mention the time you’ve spent applying them to the areas you want to improve and then compare that to this cost and you might find this comes out ahead. Check out all their services @ bluespa.com and tell them Cybelesays.com sent you!

Disclosure: I received this treatment gratis for a review of the treatment.