When you live in New England, you appreciate the different seasons. Winter is either too short or too long, depending upon your love of skiing and snowboarding. Summer is glorious with no traffic, except to the Cape. Spring comes with the promise of summer but lasts just a minute. And fall, well, nothing beats New England Fall with perfect days, cooling nights, and magical colors in the trees.
Each season also brings the best skin treatment.
Most of us have several issues we would like to address with our skin. There are fine lines, deeper wrinkles, and grooves, discolored and dark spots, and small scars from acne or injury. Everyone wants to keep their skin smooth, elastic, and tight.
There are treatments to improve each of these skin attributes, and each has a best season.
Dark spots, hyperpigmentation, and age spots – these annoying brown and grey patches are going to be best treated when you are not getting as much sun. Think of the shorter days of winter and late fall as the right time for IPL (intense pulsed light – photofacial) to bleach out these pigmented areas. (Sunscreen is still recommended afterwards!) As IPL treatments are gentle and non-ablative, down time is minimal, if any. You mostly look a bit pink for a day or so following treatment. Some of the treated brown spots may appear darker for a few days until they fade away because of the treatment.
Loosening skin may require surgery (like a facelift or neck lift), but, when less significant or for maintenance, treatments that put energy into the lower skin, like Morpheus 8 (powerful radiofrequency microneedling) can be done even in the brighter sun of summer. The energy goes deeper into the skin so you are going to be less sun sensitive. Recovery is quick so you can be back at your favorite activities quickly. The Morpheus fractionated RF energy is scientifically proven to reduce wrinkles and rebuild collagen, elastin and fat. It is minimally invasive, using a matrix of micro pins to renew deeper layers of the skin with almost no patient downtime. For the face, we mostly go as deep as 1-3mm. The microneedling with RF energy heats the deep layers of the skin in a controlled way to revitalize the collagen. Morpheus will, hence, improve skin complexion and texture for a more radiant and youthful appearance.
Fine lines and wrinkles will improve with each of the above treatments, and we typically recommend a series of treatments ranging between 3-6 sessions. If your skin requires more aggressive laser treatments we recommend CO2, Erbium laser resurfacing, or Fraxel™. If you are already planning on extended down time following a facelift or neck lift we certainly recommend that you think about adding CO2 laser to your treatment which can be done right in the operating room. That way you are asleep for your treatment and recovery is part of your overall healing. If you are planning on these treatments remember that your skin will be more sun sensitive during healing. If you are getting these laser treatments, think of these for the winter or early spring when your tan is long gone, and you are not spending any time in the sun.
And, for deeper grooves and wrinkles Botox, Xeomin, and facial fillers can be done all year. If you are not sure about the difference between fillers and Botox and what’s right for you, look at our Botox and Filler webpages to learn more, and see lots of before and after pictures.
Confidence is always in season, and it’s always a good time to look your best.
