“Over the last two decades I have seen literally thousands of men and women for skin tightening treatment, so I have a pretty good idea of what is required in the real world - not in chat forums and tiktok videos. Below are my recommendations for the number of skin tightening treatments typically required for a number of different cases and scenarios.”
Skin tightening
I suffer from skin laxity and wish to have treatment to improve my skin firmness and elasticity - how many sessions will be required?
Skin tightening treatments required for average to more serious skin laxity
Skin tightening treatments required for severe skin laxity
When more skin tightening treatments are needed
6 to 12 to 24 sessions to surgery
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I suffer from skin laxity and wish to have treatment to improve my skin firmness and elasticity - how many sessions will be required?
Obviously the answer to these question is not straightforward, as it depends on five key factors:
What skin tightening treatment you are having, e.g. radiofrequency, red light therapy, HIFU, RF microneedling, mesotherapy, massage, microcurrents, electrical muscle stimulation, acoustic wave therapy, acoustic wave therapy etc
How fast your body responds to treatment - some people respond very fast while in other cases results are slow, even with the exact same treatment. This is influenced by genetics, age, current hormonal status, current states of health and fitness etc.
How serious your skin laxity is - anywhere from mild to severe
What are your end goals / expectations - these can be anywhere from mild improvement to perfection
How much you aid the whole process with nutrition, sleep and exercise
The information below applies to both face and body - as collagen and collagen cells respond in the same way to treatment whether they are found on the face or body.
Below I am using ranges of 6-12 or 12-24 sessions as everyone is different (see point #2 above) and it is impossible to predict results with an exact number of sessions.
Skin tightening treatments required for average to more serious skin laxity
There are many skin tightening treatments available today: very few are effective and many are ineffective. Also some treatments are safe and some are unsafe. And finally, who provides the treatment is very important and can make the difference between effectiveness and waste or time or safety and skin damage.
With deep-acting, high-power radiofrequency, i.e. the strongest SAFE skin tightening treatment available today, provided by a well trained and experienced therapist, most people with average skin looseness will be satisfied with the results in 6-12 sessions.
As the body needs repeated stimulation to change, a minimum of 6 sessions is recommended. And for more slowly responding people, about 12 sessions are needed.
For people with more serious skin laxity, 12 sessions are definitely recommended and up to 24.
If this number of sessions sounds like a lot, remember that skin tightening is for your skin what resistance training is for your muscles: you need multiple sessions to build muscle and respectively you need multiple sessions to build skin.
Luckily, skin requires not quite as many skin tightening sessions as muscles require resistance training sessions but it still needs regular, repeated stimulation, especially if the starting point is very low.
Skin tightening treatments required for severe skin laxity
If skin laxity is very severe (skin hanging etc) and it would be calculated that it would probably require more than 24 sessions, then surgery is a much better option: thigh lift, tummy tuck, arm lift, face lift etc.
When more skin tightening treatments are needed
In addition to more treatments being needed due to severity more treatments will be needed for satisfactory results in the following cases:
When skin does not respond to treatment as fast as it should be. As mentioned above, factors such as genetics, current hormonal status, current states of health and fitness, age etc may require 50-100% more treatments, than mentioned above.
When the skin tightening treatment is simply not good enough, either due to poor choice of treatment, poor equipment or poor therapist training. Low power RF, superficial RF, ultrasound (in most cases), red light therapy, low-power HIFU, microneedling, massage, mesotherapy, electrical muscle stimulation, microcurrents, acoustic wave therapy etc are quite inefficient as skin tightening methods, meaning that 50-500% more sessions may be needed. On the other hand, extreme power HIFU and RF microneedling, which aim to heat skin to 60-90ºC, are inherently unsafe, so I do not even consider them as valid skin tightening options.
When expectations are very high or end goals are too perfectionistic. Again, in this case 50-100% more treatments may be needed - and given that perfection sometimes is not practically achievable, no amount of sessions will provide the required results.
When you do not take care of yourself with sleep, nutrition and exercise. Building collagen tissue does require adequate sleep and nutrients, especially protein and polyphenols, and at least some exercise. A lack of good self care will probably require 30-50% more sessions.
6 to 12 to 24 sessions to surgery
As we can see there are way to many variables to quote an exact number of sessions. However, for a good treatment, applied on a relatively healthy person, with not severe skin laxity and reasonable expectations and who takes care of themselves 6-12 sessions make sense: a minimum of 6 sessions for mild cases, 12 sessions for average cases and up to 24 for more serious cases.
Again, for severe cases, surgery makes more sense. This is because non-surgical treatments may prove to be a waste of time, while for average cases surgery is a really bad option, as the negatives of surgery outweigh the positives.
in all cases beware of people promising results in 1-4 painful / very expensive sessions: usually you will be disappointed or end up with skin injury.
Have a treatment in London with the cellulite experts
At LipoTherapeia we have specialised 100% in skin tightening and cellulite reduction for more than two decades and 20,000+ sessions.
This is all we study and practise every day and have researched and tried hands-on all the important skin tightening equipment and their manufacturers.
As strong, deep acting radiofrequency and deep-acting, high-power ultrasound cavitation are the technologies of choice for skin tightening and cellulite reduction, we have invested in the best RF/ultrasound technologies in the world.
(Of course, we keep looking for new technologies every day and if/when a better technology materialises we will be the first to provide it. However, we will never follow the latest ineffective gimmick, just because it’s good marketing to offer the latest hyped up - yet ineffective and/or unsafe treatment.)
Furthermore, over the last two decades we have developed advanced RF and cavitation treatment protocols in order to make the most of our technologies, for maximum results, naturally and safely.
And for even better, faster results, we now combine our RF/ultrasound treatments with high-power red/infrared light LED treatment.
Our radiofrequency/ultrasound/LED treatments are comfortable, pain-free, downtime-free, injection-free, 99.5%+ safe and always non-invasive.
(No unsafe and ineffective RF microneedling or HIFU and no safe but ineffective acoustic wave therapy, superficial RF (bipolar/tripolar/multipolar etc), low power RF/cavitation, electrical muscle stimulation, lymphatic massage, cupping, dry brushing and no ridiculous bum bum creams.)
Our focus is on honest, realistic, science-based treatment, combined with caring, professional service, with a smile.
We will be pleased to see you, assess your cellulite, skin laxity or fibrosis, listen to your story, discuss your case and offer you the best possible treatment.
The Cellulite School™: Get advanced training in cellulite reduction and skin tightening
Why train with The Cellulite School™?
We all know that training in cellulite reduction and skin tightening is as basic as it gets. It is typically a 4-6 hour training, involving only basic instruction from the manufacturer on how operators can use the machine; lots of myths, erroneous information and misconceptions; and some basic health and safety on how to use the machine.
There is no proper, real training in the science or cellulite, skin tightening, radiofrequency, ultrasound and all related technologies is non-existent - worldwide.
Do you want to deeply understand radiofrequency, ultrasound cavitation, LED phototherapy, cellulite and skin tightening?
Get proper training based on 25-year theory and practical application of cellulite reduction and valuable insights from 24,000+ sessions and 4,200+ clients.
Now you can get instant access to our expertise and save yourself literally thousands of pounds, dollars or euros of expensive mistakes and thousands of hours of study, research and practical application by attending one of our half-day, 1-day, 2-day or 3-day professional consultancy / training courses.
Deeply understand and get properly trained in the science of radiofrequency, ultrasound cavitation, LED phototherapy, cellulite and skin tightening and confidently offer your clients the safest, strongest and most effective treatment possible.
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