Microdermabrasion is a process of abrading or polishing the skin by mechanical exfoliation that uses a wand with a diamond encrusted tip attached to a machine that creates suction to pick up all of the abraded keratinized surface of your face. It was first used in Europe in the 1980’s and was introduced to North America in the late 1990’s. Its introduction led the revolution of device-driven, non-invasive cosmetic procedures.
Today, microdermabrasion remains one of the most popular services employed in both day spas and medical offices.
Kinds of Microdermabrasion
The two most common methods are crystal and diamond. The crystal method uses a wand which sprays fine crystal onto the skin, loosening and removing dead skin cells, while using vacuum suction to remove the used crystal and dead skin. This has been compared to a mild “sandblasting” of the skin.
The diamond method, the most popular, uses a variety of diamond tipped wands to abrade and resurface the skin, combined with suction to remove only the dead skin cells.
The degree of exfoliation depends on the number of passes, level of coarseness of the diamond wand, the pressure and suction used and the frequency of the treatments.
With microdermabrasion, the procedure is not painful, requires no anesthetic, little or no side effects, you can resume normal activities, apply makeup and moisturizer, takes about 30 minutes and you will see immediate results.
A series of treatments are needed and number
of treatments range from 3 to 6 sessions