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We all know the secret to healthier-looking skin is a good diet, sleep, lack of stress and cutting out the damaging effects of smoking and excessive alcohol.
However, with age skin naturally starts to lose the essential ingredients such as underlying fat and collagen that creates the sagging and wrinkling that many of us feel appear too early.
As a result, popular non-surgical answers to this problem have been brought onto the market and are amongst the most-popular cosmetic treatments.
Called dermal fillers, the procedures involve injections into layers of the skin to smooth out lines and unwanted signs of ageing. There are three different types of fillers, temporary which include collagen and Restylane®, semi-permanent including Sculptra® and Radiesse®, used for deep lines and cheeks and permanent, Artecol® and Ultrasoft®. Most practitioners would advise you to start with temporary fillers, then you can gauge whether or not you like the effect before going on to something more permanent.
Most frequent uses of the fillers is to fill out the lips, reducing crows feet, wrinkles around the lips, nose and mouth and lines on the cheeks and forehead. They can also plump out hollow cheeks, reshape the chin or nose tip and fill acne scars.
They use natural products that are already found in medicines or in the body itself and are among the least-dangerous forms of cosmetic alterations. Temporary fillers use a base of hyaluronic acid – which is an acid that occurs naturally in the body. In its natural state the effects of hyaluronic acid would last for about a week, so it is cross-linked so that the effects last longer. The products differ from each other by how the acid is cross-linked. Allergic reactions most often occur if your body doesn’t cope too well with the linking agents.
As with any cosmetic treatment, however, it’s important that people consult a qualified practitioner before deciding whether it is appropriate for you. For example, about three per cent of the population are allergic to bovine collagen, one of the more popular dermal fillers.
Before treatment begins the face is often numbed with a local anaesthetic cream or injection and then the fillers are administered under the skin, which can be mildly uncomfortable – especially with injections near the lip of nose.
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