Summer is finally coming to a close. The weather is starting to cool off, which means more clothes and less time outside. While the beach trips, hiking excursions, and outdoor family time have left you with some fond memories, the summer sun can leave your skin with some not-so-nice physical reminders too.
Too much sun exposure can lead to skin discoloration (a.k.a. sun spots), affect the texture of your skin, and cause collagen loss that results in sagging. Fortunately, there is something that can be done. Three months of fun in the sun equals three treatments to reverse the effects, and Clarity Medical Aesthetics is here to help!
The Top 3 Effects of Too Much Sun
Sun Spots
Sun spots are areas of your skin that appear darker than the rest of your natural skin tone. Many people often confuse them with freckles, however, these are two different things. Sun spots are larger than freckles, and frequently occur on the hands and face, or anywhere that sees a significant amount of sun exposure, where the UV rays can cause damage. Sun spots usually occur as you age, but they can actually appear at any age. In fact, it is not all that uncommon to see sunspots in your 20s.
Crepey Skin Texture
Crepey skin refers to textural changes. Often a result of aging, the sun can speed up the appearance of thin, crinkly, tissue paper-like skin. The sun can play a role in a reduced production of collagen and elastin, which means your skin isn’t able to stretch and contract like it used to. Instead, it looks crinkled and fragile. These textural changes in your skin generally begin to appear in your 40s, but too much sun exposure cause them to develop earlier.
Collagen Loss
While collagen loss occurs naturally as we get older, the sun can speed up the process. This can lead to premature aging. Collagen gives structure to your skin, helping it to look full and youthful. When collagen production slows, your skin begins to sag, which leads to loose skin, lines, and wrinkles, jowls anyone???
The Top 3 Treatments to Reverse the Sins of Summer
IPL to lighten sun spots.
IPL, or Intense Pulse Light, is the gold standard for treating skin discoloration. While some tend to refer to this as a laser treatment, IPL is not actually a laser. It is a form of light therapy that penetrates deeper into the skin than a non-ablative laser can. IPL uses a broad spectrum of energy or wavelength that we can specifically filter to target red and brown skin discoloration. IPL can significantly lighten sun spots in as little as 3 treatments. The light targets the darkened skin pigment and destroys it, and the spots may or may not crust and eventually fall off as your body disposes of them naturally. After an IPL treatment, targeted areas will darken before they begin lighten and/or disappear from your skin.
A before and after of one of our IPL treatments for dark spots.
Fractora and/or chemical peels to improve crepey skin texture.
Fractora uses fractional radio frequency (RF) to resurface and rejuvenate your skin, which can greatly help to reduce the appearance of crepey skin. A handheld multi needle head device is used to perforate the surface of the skin while simultaneously delivering RF energy into the layers of the skin to heat it. Perforating the skin triggers your body’s own natural healing process, stimulating the growth of new cells to re-texturize your skin. The heat from the RF waves also helps to stimulate the production of collagen and elastin, which helps to plump your skin, smoothing out its crepey appearance.
Chemical peels are also beneficial for reducing that unwanted tissue paper-like appearance to your skin. A chemical peel is a specially formulated solution that is applied to your face. It helps to aids in exfoliating dead skin cells and rapidly regenerating new skin cells, which not only allows your skin to more effectively absorb your skin care products, but also to increase your body’s natural production of collagen and elastin. Peels are great to wipe the slate clean and can be used in conjunction with other treatments.
A before and after of one of our chemical peels to improve skin tone and texture.
Forma or Exilis RF treatments to tighten sagging skin.
Forma is a type of RF treatment that uses SMART RF technology. The technology constantly monitors the RF waves to ensure that your skin is heated to a consistent 41 to 43 degrees Celsius. This is the optimal temperature for triggering collagen remodeling, which aids in skin tightening.
Exilis is a treatment that uses mono-polar RF as well as ultrasound. With this combo, the RF waves are able to penetrate deep into the fat layer of the skin. At this depth, the RF waves are able to eliminate micro pockets of unwanted fat while also stimulating collagen and elastin remodeling for smoother, tighter, younger looking skin.
Sunshine might provide us with our daily dose of vitamin D, but too much sun can have some rather harmful effects on your skin. With the right treatments, we can help to reverse these effects, providing you with younger, smoother skin. No one treatment will be able to reverse all the signs of sun damage, though. The best, and only, way to reverse these signs is with combination treatment.
If your skin is suffering at the hands of too much sun exposure over the summer months, call Clarity Medical Aesthetics to schedule your free consultation today.
