Our poor necks. We spend years slathering on expensive creams and sunblock on our faces but not until we actually start to see signs of aging, do we even consider that maybe our neck needed love too. By then, the skin has loosened and sagged and we’ve got discolouration too. Sure, we get it, our necks give away our age but what can we do about it now? Of course, some necks will really only get desired results from a surgical neck-lift but these are some issues we can deal with without surgery.
Neck Pigmentation
Let’s start with pigmentation. There are lightening creams that will help but combining a cream with an energy device such as IPL (Intense Pulsed Light) will really ramp up your results. It is not a laser but a multi-wavelength treatment that turns broad spectrum light into heat and that heat stimulates collagen, darkens brown spots and brings them to the surface to slough off in about 10 days. It’s always best to purchase a series of these treatments, because if you are happy in 2 or 3 treatments, a yearly treatment will help maintain your results and deal with any new pigmentation or broken capillaries that have shown up. IPL needs to be done once any tan you might have acquired has faded. It targets colour in the skin so it has the risk, on darker skin types and tans, of causing pigmentation by heating up the melanin too much and creating inflammation.
Neck Redness-Poikiloderma
Pigmentation can often be mixed with a permanent redness that’s called Poikiloderma of Civatte. The cause is unknown but sun damage is a prominent factor as well as hormone changes, genetics and years of spraying on perfume and then going in the sun. Most perfumes contain a high percentage of alcohol making skin more susceptible to burning which can result in hyper-pigmentation. You are more likely to have this reaction if you have fair skin and live in a sunny location. Because IPL targets colour it also heats and coagulates the blood in broken capillaries which reduces redness, Rosacea and Poikiloderma of Civatte.
*Here is a study on how IPL improves the appearance of Poikiloderma of Civatte
Neck wrinkles
The skin texture also improves with IPL but if you need skin tightening, let’s look at the Thermage CPT and INFINI Microneedling RF. Both of these modalities use RF (Radio Frequency) to promote skin tightening. Thermage uses RF which sends heat deep into the skin. This heating causes the cells that make new collagen to be very active as well as it changes the way the collagen sits in the skin that makes the skin firmer or tighter. You don’t have to worry about having a tan or a darker skin type as RF is “colour blind.” We recommend Thermage as a once a year treatment.
INFINI MIcroneedling combines the benefits of microneedling with Radio Frequency.
Microneedling is the process of creating thousands of microscopic wounds in the skin to notify your own collagen to come to that injury site and begin the healing process. The INFINI puts these effective skin tightening processes into one machine. Your technician can control the treatment depth and energy levels so you can have a treatment comfort level you can handle with good results.
