Microcurrent Facials: Do they work?

From Elle magazine:

What is microcurrent?

          Microcurrent treatments use low levels of microcurrent electricity—1/1,000,000 of an amp (a light bulb runs on less than one ampere)—to stimulate the muscles of the face and neck.

How does it work?  
         On a muscular level, the microcurrent acts like a personal trainer to tone and shorten muscle fibers. On a dermal level, as Peter Pugliese, the skin physiologist, notes, there is serious anti-aging action going on. Pugliese has spent more than five years analyzing microcurrent’s effect on fibroblasts by biopsying skin before and in between microcurrent treatments, and has found a statistically significant increase not only in the production of collagen and elastin, the skin’s main structural proteins, which degrade with age, but in that of glycosaminoglycans, or “GAGs,” the viscous material in which the proteins are embedded. “When you see a nice plump cheek like a baby’s and you pinch it and it feels very good and snappy,” he says, “that’s GAGs.”
Does it really work? 
        And, according to dermatologist Nicholas Perricone, the long-term benefits are more than skin-deep: If you have a microstimulation machine, “you don’t have to have perfect genes,” Perricone says. “When I first started working with celebrities, I assumed they were genetically gifted and had perfect symmetry.” But now he knows that symmetry can be made: “Not only can we use electrostim to increase our muscle mass, we can accentuate one side of the face by working it harder than the other to give a more symmetrical appearance.”
       Electric facials are on the menu everywhere from Perricone’s New York flagship spa to Four Seasons hotels to Elizabeth Arden’s Red Door salons. Professional-grade microcurrent machines emit a positive and a negative current via two wands, probes, or sponges. When the probes are placed a few inches apart on the face, a circuit of current travels from one point to the other and “stimulates” the tissue in between, Perricone says.
How does it feel?
          The current is subsensory, which means all one feels is the gliding of the rods and perhaps a slight tingle. Customers often fall asleep midfacial.

Celebrity treatment.. available to you!
          Regular microcurrent sessions were rumored to be Princess Di’s beauty secret. Depending on where the probes are placed, (microcurrent) can smooth a furrowed area by stretching the muscle or add lift by shortening the muscle.
      “If you lift from the cheekbones toward the hairline, it will make your eyes more almond shaped,” says makeup artist Kristin Hilton, who travels between New York and L.A. to work on clients including Uma Thurman and Milla Jovovich. “You can even create an arch in the eyebrows.” ..I’m a skeptical person,” Hilton says. “For me to like something like this is unusual. But I use it for five minutes on each side, pulling upward. Everything’s tighter. You look more awake. People know something’s different, but they don’t know what. Usually they say, ‘Did you get your hair cut?’”

Want to learn more?
Read the full Elle article here

Skin Chic's talented estheticians offer microcurrent treatments: Call us at 406-541-8464 for details.