Laser Cocktail – A Customized Treatment – A Blend of Laser Ingredients to give you delicious results!
A laser “cocktail” is your personalized combination of treatments to help you achieve the best looking skin possible. At Charlotte Skin and Laser we routinely combine different non-invasive laser, light or energy treatments in the same session to achieve more out of each session.
There is no doubt that five or six sessions of Fraxel will do remarkable things for your skin in terms of wrinkles, texture, and brown spots. When we combine a Fraxel treatment with other treatments, amazing results are achieved in fewer treatments – 2 or 4 treatments typically – and we achieve more in certain areas like redness.
So what do we combine? We will typically combine lasers or light treatments that target specific issues in your skin with a fractional laser treatment like Fraxel, Clear & Brilliant, or Viva. If there is a lot of discoloration in the form of freckles or larger brown spots, then we will often combine a brown spot treatment – like GentleLase or the Q switched laser – with one of the fractional treatments. If there is a lot of redness, broken blood vessels, trouble with flushing, or just some background mild redness, then these issues are best targeted with Vbeam or IPL (intense pulsed light). IPL targets red and brown colors so is frequently combined with a fractional treatment.
Fine lines around the eyes? One of our favorite treatments for mild crepiness and loose skin around the eyes is the non-invasive radiofrequency (RF) treatment Pelleve. The small tip of Pelleve enables us to better treat the skin close to the eye. For tightening facial and neck areas we use a different non-invasive radiofrequency device called Exilis that treats a larger area. These RF devices that tighten skin can also be part of your renewal “cocktail” and can be combined with fractional or other treatments.
Your treatment will proceed like this: Your skin will be examined by our very experienced staff and your lifestyle and goals reviewed so that the best combination can be planned for you. Photos will be taken and then the selected non-fractional treatments of your combination will be done – Vbeam, IPL, GentleLase, Pelleve, and/or Exilis. All of these are done first as they do not require topical numbing. When these are complete, topical numbing will be applied and left on for a time period of 30-60 minutes while you wait in our lounge. Then the numbing is removed and the selected fractional treatment is done – Fraxel 1927, Fraxel 1550, Fraxel Clear & Brilliant, or Viva.
For your skin to respond best to these treatments, we will advise both a routine anti-aging skin care plan as well as products chosen specifically to help your skin respond to the treatments. Vitamin C serums are anti-oxidants and recommended as part of the basic anti-aging skin plan. Vitamin C is also a necessary cofactor for the production of collagen so it is beneficial to have Vitamin C in your skin from topical application during any treatment series. The fractional, IPL and RF treatments all stimulate cells in your skin called fibroblasts to start producing collagen. These fibroblasts will not produce collagen in adult years without a stimulus thus these stimulating treatments are an important part of any anti-aging plan. During your treatments, we will recommend one or more growth factor serums to help stimulate the fibroblasts and promote skin and collagen renewal. Skin bleaching or brightening products may be recommended to maximize results with discoloration.
Lastly dermal filler injections (like Juvederm and Restylane) and neuromuscular relaxers (Botox, Xeomin or Dysport) can be an essential part of your anti-aging program but are typically done on a different day than the laser or energy skin treatments. An exception is Sculptra and deeply placed filler like Juvederm Voluma or Restylane Lyft – these can be done at the same time as your laser cocktail if desired. We often recommend Sculptra with the laser combinations as Sculptra is mixed with lidocaine thus makes the area injected numb for a short time.
How many treatments? That will depend on the amount of sun damage and wrinkles and on whether this is your first series or if you have maintained routinely and just need to continue maintenance. Our staff can advise you. Our goal is achieve the most we can with just 2-3 treatments, but certainly more can be achieved – especially with texture and wrinkles – with more treatments.
