The Vampire Facial (but better!)

If you're into skin, then you've most likely heard of the 'Vampire facial'. Its the scary looking one that you need to be a tad morbid to get excited over! Well the Vampire facial has come along way with technology and science, bringing us the revamped vampire facial, now known as 'Factor 4'.  I have been treated with two courses of Factor 4 now in the past three years and the change in my skin and reduction in acne scarring has been phenomenal. As a skin obsessed Cosmetic Nurse, I am always looking for new advanced technology to see how far we can improve the skins integrity and slow down the signs of ageing.

My biggest advice to anyone considering cosmetic work, is to think about your skin integrity first! Glowing healthy skin is always flattering at any age. You can inject, plump and antiwrinkle until the cows come home, but if your skin is dull, lifeless and impaired, then people will be drawn to this first.

Before I tell you about this treatment I need to explain a few things.

Growth factors: These are protein molecules made by the body; their functions are to regulate cell division & cell survival (Therefore they are pretty important to us!). As we age our bodies ability to produce growth factors decrease resulting in the lack of rejuvenation of cells. From a skin perspective this then results in fine lines and wrinkles or a poor healing response resulting in scarring and tissue damage.

For the treatment, a sample of your own blood is taken. After 6–9 hours of incubation, we remove the red blood cells from the plasma. The end-product is your own personalised anti-ageing treatment serum. This serum is a highly-concentrated formulation of your own growth factors and cytokines.

The serum is then micro needled into the skin. I'm sure by now we have all seen the Kim K ‘vampire facial’? Well essentially that's how you will look (not like Kim K, I'm just referring to the blood part! Factor 4 is good, but it's not that good). The microneedles we use to inject in the plasma, induce a natural wound healing response which stimulate the release of growth factors and the deposition of new collagen and elastin to heal the skin. By applying your Factor4 serum over the skin whilst needling, we can achieve four times the growth factors helping your skin heal, and rejuvenate.

The treatment is recommended once per year and a course of four treatments weekly over one month.

This course of treatments helps with:

• Scarring

• Sun-Weathered skin

• Dark Circles under your eyes

• Fine lines

• Crepey-looking or Saggy Skin

• Stretch Marks

• Tightening and improving elasticity

• Dull complexions

• Large open pores

And the best part of all is that it is completely autologous, meaning we are not injecting anything synthetic into the skin! It's all you baby!