Apparently anti-aging lasers are not the only tools in your aesthetic doctor’s beauty armoury. And apparently, everyone is gushing about a light treatment protocol that makes your skin look velvety and younger, even as you get older.
WHAT IS BROADBAND LIGHT?
Intense pulsed light (IPL) found its niche in skin rejuvenation more than 20 years ago. It is not a laser but a powerful light that treats the entire face. BBL is essentially an IPL system created by a company called Sciton, which many physicians consider the best IPL system around for the following reasons:
- It allows for wider treatment options (including a wavelength which emits blue light to kill acne-causing bacteria) and allows the physician to customize treatments (more than other IPL systems).
- The Sciton BBL’s Forever Young protocol has pretty much frozen people’s skin age in time. One study started performing full face treatments for people in the mid 40s approximately 4x per year for 9 years and found, to everyone’s surprise, that even though the patients had aged by 9 years at the end of the study, they actually looked younger than before they started treatments (a median of 2 years younger than before treatments started, to be exact!)
HOW BBL CHANGES YOUR SKIN
Fans of the BBL will often describe their skin as “fairer” or “creamier” with a “velvety” texture with a “dewy glow”. If you know how the BBL works, you will understand why people consistently describe the same improvements. The energy of light using variable wavelengths targets brown age spots, sun-damaged areas and also targets the redness from broken capilliaries. But how does skin actually become younger-looking?
A published study by Stanford University showed that BBL treatments modified our skin genes which have become older due to age and sun damage, making them behave as if they were younger again. Specifically, over a thousand genes appeared “rejuvenated” and worked at a rate resembling younger skin.
(Images from Sciton)
FULL BLOOM UNLOADS BBL MOLECULAR REJUVENATION
Obviously for the treatment to be effective, the right treatment program must be performed. The recommended treatment regime is a “loading” of the BBL’s technology onto the skin, using an initial series of 5 or 6 treatments every 4 weeks. After that, 2 treatments are recommended per year, spaced 6 months apart. SW1 Clinic’s Full Bloom Program consists of 6 sessions of BBL combined with other glow treatments such as Aquadermabrasion and Pearl Eclat.
ARE YOU A CANDIDATE FOR THE BBL?
The fairer the skin, the better the technology works. Darker skin individuals or those who are tanned have skin pigments which absorb some of the light energy which renders the treatment less effective and may even cause complications.
As you have now learnt, it is possible to beat the clock. Even if you have wrinkles already, science has already shown that there are ways to reverse them!