Skin Rejuvenation

When fighting pigmentation, a retinol treatment is fantastic. ZO Skin Health by Dr Zein Obagi has some hero products specifically designed to treat pigmentation. These include Brightalive which is a retinol free product and Skin Brightener which has retinol in 0.25%, 0.5% and 1% retinol. Once you skin has been fully prepared, we would recommend using the ZO Skin Health Hydroquinone based products such as Melamin, Melamix and Tretinoin.

HydraFacials are a wonderful complimentary treatment when treating pigmentation as these treatments include a peel which helps to prepare for a laser treatment and also reduce mild pigmentation. Hydrafacials will also enhance results from laser treatments.

3 Step peel is fantastic at treating pigmentation. This has a fair amount of downtime (3-5 days) whereby your skin is very dry and tight before completely peeling off.

Controlled Depth Peel is a deeper peel for treating deeper pigmentation. This does involve a longer down time (7 – 10 days) and there will be quite a lot of peeling of the skin.

• Immediately after treatment there will be redness and swelling of the treatment area and this feels like mild sunburn.
• Applying cool packs to the skin for the first few hours after treatment will help reduce discomfort.
• Application of Aloe Vera gel is helpful.
• Use SPF 50 and avoid sun exposure. This is essential to avoid the risk of hyperpigmentation or darker pigmentation.
• Avoid picking and scratching the treated area to reduce the risk of pigmentation.
• Avoid hot baths, exercise, and heat treatments and treat the skin gently especially for the first 24 hours after treatment.

The pigmented area is exposed to short pulses of visible light, which breaks down the melanin that is responsible for the pigmentation in the skin. Then, your body absorbs the pigment, hence reducing the dark patches on the skin.

Similarly, when we expose the vascular lesion, with higher concentrations of heamoglobin, to short pulses of visible light, the temperature raises in the area. This results in damage and breakdown of the vessels which the body absorbs them, making them less visible or destroying them completely.

Most people with pigmentation will be suitable for treatment. You will need to attend for an assessment to check if you are suitable for treatment.

Most patients need a course of 6 treatments every 4 weeks to achieve the desired results.

The treatment is not painful and at most you may notice slight discomfort.

Depending upon your skin type (and the lesion in question), there is redness and swelling in the treated area for up to 2-3 days after treatment. However, we can significantly reduce this and enhance the healing by having Dermalux LED Light Therapy immediately after the laser treatment.

The treated area may also appear darker for 5-7 days after treatment but this will clear shortly afterwards. This is normal since your body breaks down and absorbs the melanin.