Laser Skin Resurfacing with Microlaser Peel in Minnesota

Posted on April 16, 2013 by shucosmetic

There are various types of cosmetic lasers for various types of skin problems. If mild wrinkles, scars, keratosis, sun damage (brown or age spots), or pigment irregularities are your main problems, a microlaser peel with Shu Cosmetic Surgery might be for you! A microlaser peel removes a thin layer of damaged skin to improve texture and provide a more youthful appearance. It provides superior results because it can be administered with great precision of depth. The procedure is tailored to your specific skin conditions and desired outcomes.

The microlaser peel’s beam is scanned over a treatment area to remove a very thin layer of skin. Removing the top layer eliminates some of the damaged cells that can give skin a tired, aged look. As the skin heals, fresh cells grow and resurface the treated area. The result is healthier-looking skin, often with reduced wrinkles and improved color evenness. Patients in MN often say that it looks like their skin went from looking tired to vibrant. Almost any skin areas can be treated. Popular treatment areas are the face, neck, chest, and hands.

Treatment results will vary from person to person but improved skin texture and tone can be obtained in just one treatment. The number of treatments needed may vary depending on your initial skin condition and your specific needs and expectations. Numbing cream is applied to the treatment area before the procedure to provide comfort. Afterwards, the skin will be cleaned and eyes protected with safety shields. The physician assistant or laser technician will position the laser hand piece above the skin and will hold it in place as the computer-guided scanner moves the laser beam around the treatment area. Depending on the size of the area being treated, the procedure usually lasts 15-30 minutes.

Immediately after a microlaser peel treatment the skin will have a “frosty” appearance. This is the dehydrated skin that will peel away within the next few days following the treatment. There will be some skin redness with a sunburn sensation as well as mild swelling after the treatment for a few days. This usually lasts anywhere from 3-4 days after a treatment. You should notice obvious improvement in tone, texture, and color evenness once the skin heals after a few days. The collagen that regenerates helps firm the skin over the course of 6 months following a microlaser peel treatment. If you are interested in a microlaser peel or for a complimentary consultation contact Shu Cosmetic Surgery in Edina, MN!

Benefits of Chemical Peels in Minnesota

Posted on April 11, 2013 by shucosmetic

Non-surgical skin resurfacing options for aging skin continues to expand in Minnesota. These skin rejuvenation methods including microdermabrasion, chemical peels, non-invasive laser treatment and skin care products may be used alone or in combination, which provide satisfactory improvement.

A chemical peel is an exfoliation technique used to rejuvenate aging skin. In a chemical peel, a chemical solution is applied to the skin. Over the next few days, depending on how deeply the chemical penetrated the skin, the skin peels off. The new, regenerated skin is healthier and more youthful than the old skin.

Chemical peels are divided according to the depth of penetration into three groups:
• Light peels (superficial): Glycolic, salicylic etc…
• Medium depth: TCA
• Deep peels: Phenol.

Chemical peels are performed on the face, neck, or hands. They can be used to:
• Soften fine lines and wrinkles
• Improve skin texture
• Reduce scarring
• Decrease age spots and sun spots
• Remove pre-cancerous actinic keratoses
• Help skin care products to penetrate
• Build collagen
• Give skin a youthful appearance

People in the Minneapolis and St. Paul areas often combine chemical peels with other injection procedures such as wrinkle reduction medication and fillers to create global rejuvenation effect. A chemical peel is also commonly used after facelifts, brow lifts, and eyelid lifts.

Microdermabrasion in Minneapolis

Posted on April 7, 2013 by shucosmetic

Microdermabrasion is one of the easiest non-surgical cosmetic procedures you can get in Minnesota. It is essentially powerful mechanical exfoliation by removing the uppermost layer of dead skin cells from the face and neck with diamond-tips. By using the diamond tip with fine surface, even people with sensitive skin can get a treatment from a skilled esthetician in Minneapolis. It takes about 30 minutes and there’s no down-time after treatment. For the best results, it is generally recommended get a series of 6 treatments about 10 to 14 days apart. You should avoid vigorous exercise and the sun after the microdermabrasion treatment. It is important to use a sunscreen, even in a cloudy day.

Microdermabrasion is an effective anti-aging treatment with multiple benefits.

• Softens fine lines and wrinkles
• Improves skin texture
• Reduces scarring and pore size
• Decreases age spots and sun spots.
• Help skin care products to penetrate
• Build collagen
• Improve local circulation
• Gives skin its youthful appearance

Do not get Microdermabrasion if you have:

• Extremely sensitive skin
• Diabetes
• Rosacea
• Active acne
• Skin infections or trauma
• Keloid scarring
• Skin Sunburn
• Taking blood thinners
• Had face injection within 3 days

The Elements of Facial Aging in Minnesota

Posted on March 27, 2013 by shucosmetic

The appearance of the face and neck typically changes with age. Loss of tissue volume and skin elasticity gives the face a flabby or drooping appearance. Although everyone in Minnesota gets older, and there’s no stopping it, it doesn’t mean we have to look older, more tired or less attractive. This blog helps you to understand facial aging mechanism and process that make you look older than you’d like and help what can be done to make you more attractive.

Your face and neck age because of changes in the following factors:

Volume changes: people in the Minneapolis and St Paul areas typically lose the fat volume in the forehead, temporal areas, and cheeks. In the meantime, excessive fat accumulation happens in the eyelids, upper side of nasolabial grooves, and jowl and neck (submental) areas.

Skin Changes: The skin changes are noticed much earlier than any other changes. These skin changes happen due to aging, genetics, skin nutrition and sun damage. Skin loses elasticity over the time and becomes dry, thin and wrinkled. In addition, the skin’s normal turnover process gets slower as we age, the ability of self-rejuvenation of the skin cells decreased. Moreover, repeated contraction of facial expression muscles over the years leads to the formation of permanent folds where become inscribed in the skin.

Other tissue changes: Just like skin and fat changes, other facial tissues such as muscle, fascia and ligaments change. These tissues can lose strength and elasticity and cause looseness of facial tissues.

Gravity effect: Over time, gravity, aided by a loss of elasticity in the skin and tissues, can displace the tissues of the face. For example, the brow and eyelids sag, creating a tired or old appearance. Hanging skin and fat in the jowl areas create the square shape instead youthful V shape.

These aging changes combine to transform your face from an attractive and youthful one into a tired and aged appearance. However, our full lines of anti-aging services in Shu Cosmetic Surgery can either improve or reverse these effects by targeting each aging element.

Chemical peels in Minneapolis

Posted on March 26, 2013 by shucosmetic

Chemical peels, also known as derma-peels, have been around for thousands of years. Cleopatra was known to do the first chemical peels by bathing in milk which contains lactic acid. Women in Minneapolis use chemical peels to soften skin, improve blemishes, brown spots, acne scars, wrinkles and fine lines that appear with age.

African American women or black women in Minnesota are known to age very well due to the amounts of melanin in their skin which gives them natural sun protection. Yet years of sun exposure without sunscreen will cause facial skin to turn many shades darker than the skin on the neck and chest. This is a sign of sun damage which can also lead to skin cancer.

The use of chemical peels can help by lifting away layers of skin. Peels are done as a series of 4-6 treatments and over time, softer, smoother, lighter skin is revealed. During and after the peel treatments, an SPF factor of 30 or more must continually be used to protect the skin and prevent the sun’s UV rays from doing its damage all over again.

There are chemical peels that are good for all skin types and some should not be used on darker skin. Darker skins can either hyper-pigment and turn darker or hypo-pigment which causes it to turn very light in color. Your esthetician or clinician can determine the best chemical peel for you and can do a spot treatment to see how your skin will react.

Sonya Stelmachuk – Esthetician in Shu Cosmetic Surgery, Edina, MN

Gentle Way to Rejuvenate Facial Skin – Microdermabrasion in Minneapolis

Posted on March 24, 2013 by shucosmetic

Although the laser skin rejuvenation has been becoming popular over the past years, non-invasive cosmetic procedure such as microdermabrasion still is among the most common treatments in skin rejuvenation because many people in Minnesota can’t afford to have downtime with some invasive cosmetic procedures or microdermabrasion is added between the laser treatments to keep looking skin young and healthy.

Microdermabrasion is the process of peeling off the outermost surface of the skin with very tiny rough grains of crystals or diamond tips. The tip also has a vacuum attached which helps to take away the dead skin cells. It is a gentle, painless, non-surgical cosmetic technique that aims to remove the topmost layer of the skin called the stratum corneum to create a rejuvenating effect and treat common skin problems such as acne scarring and mild discoloration, sun damage, and wrinkles. Microdermabrasion will stimulate circulation of blood to the cells which keeps skin healthy and gives it a nice glow. It also helps to stimulate the protein called collagen, which keeps our skin firm. Although other parts of the body such as the neck and chest can be treated with microdermabrasion, the face is the most common area to be treated.
The procedure can be administered to adults at any age. It can be done monthly on the regular basis or as frequently as 1-2 weeks depending on the skin’s sensitivity and tolerance.

No needles or anesthetics are needed. A typical microdermabrasion is done by cleaning off all make up and oils on the skin surface. Then an esthetician moves the handheld device across the skin slowly and repeatedly until enough outer skin is exfoliated from the surface.

Microdermabrasion is among the safest skin rejuvenation procedures. It has very minimal side effects including the skin’s sensitivity to sunlight and rare light bleeding due to fine broken blood vessels.

Skin Rejuvenation with Jessners Chemical Peel in Minneapolis

Posted on March 19, 2013 by shucosmetic

Jessners chemical peel is one of the most common chemical peels for skin rejuvenation in Minneapolis. A Jessners chemical peel is very effective in treating many different kinds of skin conditions. It is made up of 14% Salicylic acid and 14% Lactic acid with Resorcinol solvent. It delivers outstanding results and is able to treat acne, acne scars, hyper pigmentation, photo damage and aging skin. It is a good peel to be used on all skin types.

Your esthetician or clinician in the Minneapolis and St Paul areas will apply a solution to the skin with a consistency like water. It goes on very light and takes a few coats to fully cover the skin. It will have a mild stinging or burning sensation. This is temporary and will go away. The skin will start to turn white like frost. After the peel it will have a slight to moderate redness to the skin depending on the individual’s skin type. Shortly after the peel, the skin will start to feel tight. 24 hours later it will start to flake or peel off which can take 5-7 days. After the skin has peeled off, the skin will appear clearer and smoother.

While a Jessners peel gives great results, skin conditions are not corrected with one chemical peel. It is a progressive treatment which takes a series of peels. Usually a series of 6 treatments is required which can be done every 4 weeks. How many you need depends on the condition of your skin. It is suggested to get a Jessners peel every 3 months to maintain healthy and radiant looking skin. Using a medical skin care product line is also helpful to maintain beautiful skin in between treatments.

Sonya Stelmachuk – Esthetician in Shu Cosmetic Surgery, Edina, MN

Chemical Peels in Minneapolis

Posted on March 12, 2013 by shucosmetic

Chemical peel is one of the most common skin care procedures in Minnesota. It reduces fine wrinkles and improves many other skin conditions. In this treatment, a chemical solution is applied to the skin, causing the top layers of skin to peel off in a few days. The new skin is usually smoother and less wrinkled.

Chemical peels can be used to:

• Reduce wrinkles
• Improve mild acne scars
• Treat certain types of acne
• Reduce age spots, freckles, and melasma
• Treat the areas of sun damage
• Improve the overall skin texture

A series of 4-6 peels is recommended as results are seen over a period of time. During a chemical peel treatment, the skin is first cleansed then a prepping solution is applied to prepare the skin for the chemical peel solution. Next, the alpha hydroxy acid (AHA) and/or beta hydroxy acid (BHA) is applied to the face. The exfoliating agent is generally thin, almost water-like in its consistency, and is applied with a small brush, cotton pad or large cotton swab.

You will feel a warming sensation soon after the exfoliating agent is applied. Some people say they feel just a slight stinging; others describe it as more of a burning. It depends on the person’s skin. Everyone is different. Up to two passes of solution will be applied. Many estheticians in Minnesota use small, hand-held fans to gently cool the skin during the peel.

After your peel, your skin can look like it’s sunburned. This redness can fade in just a few hours time or last up to five days, depending on the strength of the peeling agent used. Using make-up to cover any redness after a peel is fine.

After a chemical peel , skin is temporarily more sensitive to the sun, so wear sunscreen every day. It is important that you use the skin care recommended to you to prepare for your peel ahead of time and to maintain your results after. Following the instructions that your esthetician gives you will help you to get the best results.