It’s Not a No-No – It’s Who You Know
There’s a popular myth within beauty circles that you can’t do skin resurfacing treatments in the summer. Well, this is not completely true. The fact is, you can do skin resurfacing if you go to the right people, doing the right resurfacing, using the right products that protect your skin … should it ever get out of the rain. At the Prager Clinic, we have the right people doing the right treatments with the right products. What we can’t do is influence the weather.
The Year Without Summer
Despite the recent blast of sun on UK shores, the summer has so far been an utterly miserable and unseasonably cold washout.
Of course, a lot of chatter about climate change always accompanies such abnormalities, even though they are actually nothing new.
Back in 1816, there was literally no summer at all when average global temperatures nose-dived by 0.4–0.7 °C (0.7–1 °F).
For Europe, this signalled the coldest summer on record between 1766 and 2000, and it brought with it crop failures and major food shortages across the Northern Hemisphere.
Evidence suggests that this climate abnormality was a volcanic winter event, caused by the massive 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in April in modern-day Indonesia. It was the largest eruption in at least 1,300 years, though its effect on the climate may have been exacerbated by the 1814 eruption of Mayon in the Philippines.
Eruptions really are quite problematic, especially regarding that other hot topic – carbon dioxide.
Here’s an interesting fact, back in the Triassic Period some 252 to 201 million years ago – also known as the age of the dinosaurs – it was much hotter and CO2 levels were five to 10 times higher than they are today.
Plant, marine and terrestrial life was able to thrive. Ferns grew to the size of trees. Go figure. When the first humans evolved to roam the planet, temperatures were still around 5°C to 10°C degrees higher than they are today. It would seem we are a tropical species, after all.
Now, while I would be hesitant to suggest skin resurfacing in the Triassic Period, we are clearly living in gentler times, and there is (almost) no reason on earth why you can’t do skin resurfacing in summer.
Newsflash: Sunshine is GOOD For You
The first thing to make clear is there are huge benefits that come with sunshine. However, for our purposes let’s focus on skin and the fact that sun exposure helps with conditions such as psoriasis, jaundice, and acne. And most of all creates more valuable Vitamin D in greater amounts than you can supplement with.
What is actually bad for you is UNPROTECTED sun exposure, and this will eventually:
· Destroy elastic and collagen fibres;
· Cause pre-cancerous lesions and cancerous skin lesions;
· Bring wrinkles, lines, sagging and leathery skin;
· Dilate small blood vessels under the skin;
· Cause dark spots, freckles and discolouration.
So, protection is key, but that doesn’t mean you should automatically reach for the sun cream; a product that tends to be a soup of chemical toxicity that works on the premise of SUN AVOIDANCE.
Chemical sunscreen sits on top of the skin, acting as a barrier for a set time against all the bad things that UV rays cause. Unfortunately, it also acts as a barrier for all the goodness that sunshine brings. If they work, that is.
In the latest Which? report released last week, three popular sunscreen products failed the consumer group’s annual safety test.
This is why, if you are serious about sun protection, you ought to invest in a top-quality Vitamin C serum.
In 2005, the godfather of skincare Dr Sheldon Pinnell and a number of his colleagues wrote a paper showing how ferulic acid enhanced the stability and effectiveness of vitamins C and E, doubling their sun protection. They also found it helped prevent skin cancer by protecting against UV-induced DNA damage. Their study showed that UV light caused skin cell death, and ferulic acid with vitamins C and E could prevent it.
Given the science, and the fact that I wanted a product free of microplastics, a few years ago I created my own sun protection – Urban Protect Antioxidant Serum with Vitamin C . I then complemented this serum with my Day Oil with Vitamin C and Pure Gold Flakes.
These two products work for me, and they work for my family, even in the intense Mediterranean sun where we live. And the fact is, I simply don’t trust any other products
Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying cast aside your preferred SPF, only the really toxic ones. My Urban Protect Moisturiser and Primer come with a sun protection factor of 10, which in my opinion is enough if applied properly with the added protection of a good vitamin C serum.
And finally, another reason why we are able to perform skin resurfacing treatments all year round is because we do not advocate the use of high concentration topical retinol. Those products strip the protective skin layer, sensitise the skin even more to UV, and have very little benefit in exchange.
Skin Resurfacing in Summer
So, back to skin resurfacing and the myth that it’s a summer no-no. To be fair, there are shades of truth to this. It all depends on where you go and how you prepare and protect your skin.
While it’s correct that skin resurfacing in summer carries a risk of increased pigmentation, this is not the case if you are a client of ours.
While most clinics rely heavily on IPL or laser for skin resurfacing programmes, at The Prager Clinic, we receive far better results with skin resurfacing treatments that don’t light sensitise the skin.
So how do we do it?
Skin resurfacing has always relied on a degree of controlled skin injury with a healing response that increases skin collagen levels. Simple. The big difference between the treatments on offer is how you choose to injure the skin.
At present, the industry is swamped with machine-based light, heat, or energy treatments. Some call that progress. In contrast, when I really set my mind to resurfacing for the 10 Years Younger episode, there were no such devices available. I only had a pair of hands, a few mechanical bits and bobs, and a large dose of knowledge. And guess what? It worked!
Furthermore, I didn’t have my own skincare products at that time, all of which now form an integral part of our facial treatments. This is why, back in the day, we had a lot more post-procedural reactions, such as redness and swelling. We simply didn’t have the quality products we needed to apply.
Today, our skin resurfacing is a very mild combination of most of the things we did in the past with added – and admittedly rather cutting edge – treatments like Hydrogen Deep Cleansing, Transdermal Meso Therapy, LED post-treatment, and other protocols tailored to meet individual needs and expectations.
As we also have a 15-year head start on this approach, we can boldly state that our procedures don’t require sun avoidance for longer than a week or two, especially when combined with a quality vitamin C and ferulic acid product offering four to eight times more protection against sun-causing cell damage.
As many of you will know, one of our most popular treatments is the Illuminator, a facial that offers incredible results with no downtime.
The Rejuvenator is a play on that theme; a skin resurfacing treatment that brings the same results as more aggressive procedures, with far less downtime and sun avoidance.
Using Visia pictures to record results, we see significant reductions in porphyrins, large open pores, far better skin texture, fewer wrinkles, and fewer red areas and sun spots.
When we do skin resurfacing, we don’t go deep because we don’t need to. Using repeat procedures and combination treatments, we get the results our patients want without compromising safety or skin integrity.
The Illuminator Facial: £599 per treatment (includes three Dr Prager Urban Protect skincare products).
The Rejuvenator Facial: £799 per treatment (includes three Dr Prager Urban Protect skincare products, and a course of three treatments is recommended for best results).