Skin Boosters

How do dermal fillers compare to more traditional anti-wrinkle treatments, and what does each do best? Well, that’s a long answer, but we aim to please. Read on.

Truly effective dermal filler treatments are relatively new, and as they settle in to their place in the modern skin care toolbox, there has been a bit of disruption. Dermal fillers have knocked other treatments aside as the ‘best’ solution to many common skin problems, but they have not changed the landscape of beauty entirely. Everything that was on the market 5 years ago still has a place, and a good aesthetician will know how to use every tool available to create a perfect treatment regime engineered for your skin alone.

That being said, let’s look at what dermal fillers do really well, and at the tasks that are still best left to other anti-wrinkle treatments.

How long do they last?

That can vary dramatically from person to person, and from treatment to treatment. However, Botox style anti-wrinkle injections typically remian effective for 4 to 6 months. Dermal filler injections tend to last at least 6 months, and can remain very effective for 9-12 months.

What hyaluronic acid dermal fillers do well:

• Reducing the facial skin volume loss that comes with aging, and restoring the plump resilience of youthful skin – Dermal fillers can restore the youthful appearance of skin by replenishing the mass and moisture lost due to aging.
• Improving the shape and contours of the face without surgery or permanent changes to the facial structure itself – dermal filler treatments can be used to add thickness to the skin even where it was not present before. This is a subtle change, but it can slowly, gradually re-sculpt the face in ways that can enhance your natural beauty dramatically. Better still, it does so without silicon or the addition of any un-natural chemicals. Hyaluronic acid is natural to your skin, and is entirely plant-based.
• Dermal fillers are particularly effective at rejuvenating the skin of the lower face, where the loss of volume and resiliency that comes with aging is the most pronounced, and where Botox-style injections are the least effective.

What Botox does well:

• Erasing or minimising fine wrinkles all over the face – Botox-style anti-wrinkle injections are wonderful at reducing the stress and stretching of the skin itself by calming the muscles underneath it. This not only relaxes the skin, making the smallest wrinkles all but disappear entirely, it prevents those wrinkles form growing ever deeper.
• Reducing the appearance of frown lines, crow’s feet, and wrinkles on the upper face – most of the animation of your face and your expression centres around the eyes. They eyes are the windows to the soul, after all, and we have evolved to show our mood and express our feelings with the parts of the face that surround them. Of course, this means the effects of that animation – wrinkles – appear around the upper face most dramatically over time. This is where Botox does its best work.