www.regentsparkaesthetics.co.uk

Ok, let’s start with a really easy one!

Pigmentation on the face is spoken about a lot, but what about the décolleté, backs of hands and forearms? These areas are exposed to the sun almost as much as the face, but we are much less astute at applying daily spf on these areas. I’ve used spf 50 on my face almost every day since the age of 27 (I’m now 42) and I’ve always wiped the excess onto the backs of my hands, but my décolleté went quite forgotten about – and it shows, with little freckles and slight pigmentation marks slowly starting to rear their ageing heads.

Lumecca laser is the quickest, most tolerable, and easiest way to tackle pigmentation – it is a form of IPL laser, which, in the past, I have always found to be incredibly painful, but Lumecca is very different. It is the most powerful IPL on the market but barely uncomfortable at all – there is a flash of light and the feeling of a slight snap of an elastic band on the skin – I was chatting the whole way through the treatment with no discomfort. My therapist, Natasha, was fantastic – assessing the skin each step of the way – she told me to expect darkening of the pigmentation spots, and she warned me if there were any vascular lesions lurking below the surface, they might show themselves as purple marks on the skin (turns out, I had 1 lurking in the middle of my chest!) , this is expected to last for a few days before the dark marks flake off (DO NOT EXFOLIATE THEM off! Let them fall off when they are ready) and the vascular lesions fade away. After roughly 2 weeks, your skin will be looking much more even, and by week 3 you can have another treatment if necessary. My dark bits took longer than most to fade and fall off, nearly 3 full weeks, but this didn’t cause any disturbance to my daily life – you can wash and dress as normal, – I just steered clear of the fake tan during this period. Anyway, if it had of caused any disruption to my day-to-day life, it was SO worth it; I cannot believe how such a quick, painless and easy treatment can make such a drastic difference! After just 1 treatment, I’d say my décolleté is 80% more even and 100% more glowing. Natasha said that with Lumecca, you will usually only need 1-3 sessions. A smooth, glowing décolleté is a definite youth reviver – just remember, when you are showing it off in the warmer months, to apply your spf!

Lumecca from £200

www.halcyonaesthetics.co.uk

This one is a bit more peculiar, but bear with me;

Temple filler, seriously, stay with me on this one. This is not a ‘Love Island, change your face shape’ situation, but as you age, you lose a lot of fat in the face, and you start to lose that youthful V-shape. Hollowing of the temples can not only being ageing, but it can also make the female face look more masculine. From the before and after pictures I’ve seen – this is THE most subtle looking of tweakments. In the right hands of course. The only issue with temple filler, is due to the large surface area, you often need quite a lot of filler – meaning £££. On the plus side, as a relatively inactive area, the filler can last particularly well. The most important part of this treatment is to choose the right practitioner; ONLY go to a doctor (this is my rule for all filler treatments but particularly when large amounts of filler are administered) and preferably a doctor highly experienced in filler treatments. When it comes to experience and skill, you could not ask for more from Dr OBT at the Halcyon Clinic, what he doesn’t know about filler, isn’t worth knowing. He attends seminars with the doctor said to do the Kardashian ‘work’ and has safety and subtlety at the core of every treatment he performs. Besides all that, he has a reputation for being the gentlest ‘injector’ you could ever wish for, making uncomfortable treatments, ridiculously bearable!

Temple Filler from £400

www.drmaryamzamani.com

Now, this is the pricier one of the pack, but my goodness it’s good!!

The BBL MOXI at MZ Skin is OUTSTANDING for total face rejuvenation. I have been a big fan of MZ Skin for a while now – for me, Dr Maryam has perfected the balance of working in harmony with nature whilst slowing the hands of time, but I wasn’t prepared for what this treatment can do. MOXI alone, resurfaces the skin, promotes cell turnover, smooths fine lines and reduces pigmentation – a perfect starter to anyone wanting to delve into advanced laser treatments as it is totally bearable (anaesthetic cream is applied first), it’s over in a matter of minutes and the downtime is minimal (more on that later). But, at MZ Skin, they cleverly combine MOXI with BBL for those outstanding results. BBL is broadband light laser which tightens the skin and treats unwanted pigmentation. When the BBL catches areas of pigmentation, it momentarily darkens them, making it easier for the MOXI laser to pick them up and boost the treatment even further. Immediately after the treatment, the skin is understandably warm and red looking, this calmed down within the hour for me and I didn’t find it uncomfortable at all. Then, within a couple of days, the resurfacing starts to reveal itself and my skin-picking, self-control has never been tested more. First let me say – I am a recovering face-picker who suffers the odd lapse (it’s the skin equivalent of nail-biting, and often affects perfectionists (which somehow makes it sound a little less disgusting), the medical term is dermatillomania if you were wondering..). Secondly, let me say DO NOT PICK or RUB AT YOUR SKIN WHILE IT’S HEALING!! My therapist Ellie said my skin would feel like sandpaper, and that’s exactly what it did feel like for nearly a week! But while my skin-picking was so intensely tested, my willpower was overly rewarded; as I said at the start, the results are simply outstanding. My skin is lifted , brighter and more even, and while it is noticeably all of those things, I just look ‘well’ rather than ‘done’ in any way. If this treatment is in your price range, I cannot recommend it more highly – honestly, the lifting of my face blew me away – it’s worth Every. Single. Penny.

BBL MOXI from £1250

www.pulselightclinic.co.uk

And back to more familiar treatments….

Laser Hair Removal, it’s a bit of a given that rogue hairs tend to crop up in unusual areas as we grow older – random chin hair anyone??!! But there are 2 other arguments for laser hair removal that rarely seem to be spoken about; the first is that laser needs to pick up on some amount of pigment in the hair in order to zap it. Technology has come on a long way, making fine (dark) blonde hair much easier to laser than it was even 10 years ago but, grey hair is still a coarse, non-pigmented impossibility, even for the best of lasers, so my advice – zap the hairs before they turn grey! The second argument is the fact that skin gets drier and more slack as we get older – and simply put, if you do prefer to remove your body hair, shaving can make the skin even drier, and waxing can add to the slackening of the skin (especially if it is not supported properly). Laser hair removal not only saves you time and effort, but in the long term, it leaves your skin softer and smoother.

I had my fine, dark blonde leg hairs removed at Pulse Light Clinic and it worked an absolute treat – it wasn’t painful, and each session took less than half an hour. Pulse Light Clinic, as the name might suggest, are experts in all things laser (and beyond). Laser is not a ‘one type fits all’ kind of treatment, and a variation of laser wavelengths are quite often necessary in order to remove all the different types of hair on our bodies, because we do tend to have a mix of colours and densities, and Pulse Light Clinic have all your hairs covered. Pulse Light Clinic are also perfectly strict with who and when they do their treatments on – expect to do regular patch tests with them to ensure they work at the best setting for best results.

Full-leg laser from £104.63 per session (course and 0% finance available)

www.urbanretreat.co.uk

And try unusual again…

Colonic Irrigation, yes, I put my vulnerable self forward to answer all the questions you might want to know; you’re not welcome. It terms of embarrassment, I have to say, this was surprisingly ok; I mean there was some element of self-consciousness but way less than I’d prepared myself for. I think my ease was almost entirely due to my practitioner, Kara-Mia Vernon; her experience, bed-side manner, and to be frank, her bluntness about what we were doing, made the whole treatment as comfortable as can be. A question which is often asked with regards to Colonic is “is it painful” well the simple answer is, no, not at all. It is, however, uncomfortable, in the same way you feel when you really need to go to the toilet. My stomach also felt very tender as Kara-Mia was massaging it – but this may be personal to me as I hold a lot of my tension in my stomach, and I found it very hard to let go (literally).

The reason I have included Colonic in this feature is because as we get older, life gets busier, and stress is more prevalent, we can find ourselves getting into bad toilet habits and create a sluggish digestive system – this can result in dull skin, low energy and uncomfortable bloating. For newcomers to Colonic, Kara-Mia recommends 2 treatments a few days apart, as you often won’t get the best results from the first treatment alone (sometimes because, like me, you find it hard to relax into the treatment, and often, because there can be a build-up of waste to ease into releasing itself). A few days after my treatments, my energy was noticeably up, and my eyes looked brighter (like pre-motherhood bright!). Your appendix works hard to replace the good bacteria after a colonic, but I also take a daily probiotic anyway, and your toilet habits tend to become more ‘productive’ and more regular.

Colonic is quite a divided subject – with some people swearing by it and others poo-pooing it (sorry), personally, it is not something that I would wish to rely upon long-term, but more of a reset for the gut – reminding the gut how to function and for me to listen to my body better; I am a huge advocate of paying close attention to your gut health – a healthy gut is the gateway to overall health.

Consultation & Colonic with Kara-Mia £140 (80 minutes)

Colonic 60/90 minutes – £120/£165

www.innodermclinics.co.uk

Speaking of the stomach – middle-age spread anyone??? Step-forth

Evolve X, this treatment is incredible; it tightens tones and trims the body with 1 magical machine.

The tightening is of course referring to the skin, toning is for the muscles, and last, fat reduction ‘trims’ the area. That ‘area’ isn’t only the midriff – Evolve X can also treat the buttocks, legs and arms (and quite spectacularly so too!). I opted for the stomach; my stomach tone is ok, and of course this is something I am relatively in control of in terms of exercise, but what I have little to no control over, is the post-pregnancy slackened skin. Again, this isn’t something I’m particularly self-conscious of, but my kids do make fun of my belly-button, which they refer to as an upside-down smiley face (cheers kids, stretch me, then ridicule me…). The treatment set-up is very straight forward, but I really must stress; make sure your aesthetician understands anatomy and physiology well – it will make a huge difference to your results. My aesthetician is more than qualified – Dr Nataliya Tyurdo not only comes from a medical background, but she also adores her work – if anyone is going to get you your desired Evolve X results, it’s Dr Nataliya! She seems to instinctively know how much time to spend on each different treatment mode, and of course knows exactly where the best placement for the treatment pads are, but she also has the perfect balance of kindness and encouragement to make you increase the treatment intensity! And when I say ‘intensity’ – Evolve X claims to be the equivalent of 3000 sit-ups in one session! Based on the muscle aches I had the following day; I can confidently say that I whole-heartedly back those claims! The treatment isn’t necessarily ‘comfortable’ but it certainly isn’t painful either – and it’s much easier (and perhaps more targeted) than slogging it out at the gym. I wasn’t expecting to see any difference after having just 1 treatment, after all, Evolve X understandably recommends 5-6 sessions to achieve results, but I was astounded to see that my ‘upside-down smiley face belly-button’ had become more of an upside-down smirk within 24 hours!! I’m usually more of an advocate for effort and exercise, but there are plenty of reasons why people can’t exercise, and with these results, Evolve X has really won me over.

Evolve X from £299 per session

Dr Nataliya Tyurdo @ www.innodermclinics.co.uk