Collagen Stimulating Treatments Near Portland
Achieve Skin That’s Actually Younger: Collagen Stimulating Treatments near Portland
It happens to some earlier than others, but aging skin comes for us all. If you’re in your 30s or 40s, you’ve probably noticed your skin feels thinner now. Maybe your eyes seem more hooded than when you were younger. Or all of that plumpness in your cheekbones seems to have fallen into your jowls—whatever signs of aging you notice, you can blame the same culprit:
A lack of collagen.
One of the biggest buzzwords in the biz, collagen is essential for plump and youthful skin. At West Linn Aesthetics, our goal is to offer the best collagen stimulating treatments near Portland. It’s important for us to educate our patients on why the treatments work, how they work, and which ones will benefit them the most.
Are you ready to improve your skincare knowledge and take your anti-aging game to the next level? Keep reading for our expert insights.
Turn up the volume on your skin care
Volume-loss leads to sagging skin and is a major indicator of aging. We have various ways to approach reversing volume-loss. Patients who want a quick fix for lost volume can get great results with filler. Those who want something more “intrinsic” might opt for one (or several!) of our collagen stimulating treatments.
When you visit us for treatment, we go beyond the basics and help you understand how to maintain and enhance your results with the right skincare products and routines. We are all about being transparent regarding our treatments, how they work, and what you can expect. Part of our dedication to education is reflected in our hour-long consultations—you’ll want to take notes!
How we stimulate collagen
There is a lot we can do to restore lost collagen and “trick” your skin into producing more collagen like it did when it was younger. The type of treatments that affect collagen are ones that penetrate through to the dermis.
To successfully wake your collagen up, we’ve got to be a little rough with it. Have you ever noticed a newly healed cut or scrape looks so fresh and bright against the rest of your skin? That’s because it is! Healing skin is healthy skin, so we apply targeted energies to create “microwounds” within your skin to trigger that healing process.
That means we’ve got several great choices to ensure any patient who wants to stimulate collagen has options. The top collagen stimulating treatments near Portland include:
Collagen, the end-all-be-all of youthful skin
Collagen is the most abundant essential protein in our bodies. It acts as vital scaffolding to our skin, giving it shape and sturdiness. Collagen is a main component of connective tissues that make up tendons, ligaments, bones, and muscles, too.
Where does collagen go?
You can’t avoid getting older, and as we age, production of collagen slows and existing collagen weakens, breaking down until it simply can’t do its job.
By now most people know that exposure to sunlight, smoke, sugar, and other environmental factors leads to aging. But, if you lived your whole life in a box with zero exposure to anything else, you would still undergo what we call “intrinsic aging.”
Everything breaks down over time—rocks, metals, boundaries about keeping the door open in long term relationships—your skin is no exception! Once you turn 20, your collagen production slows down by about 1% per year.
After menopause women experience a big drop in the synthesis of collagen and by age 60, production is considerably less than at age 20. As collagen production slows, skin’s structural integrity declines and it grows thinner and looser.
Understanding the anatomy of your skin
Skin is an amazing organ that protects everything that’s going on inside of your body. It’s part of the “integumentary system” along with your nails, hair, and things like your sweat and salivary glands.
We classify 3 layers of skin: The hypodermis, the dermis, and the epidermis.
The hypodermis is the bottom, fatty layer of skin. It’s important for cushioning your muscles and bones from injury. Your nerves and blood vessels move through the hypodermis to connect to the rest of the body, plus it regulates your body temperature.
As the middle layer of skin, the dermis accounts for about 90% of your skin’s thickness.The dermis contains the all-important collagen. The dermis holds the nerves that let you experience the world through touch and physical sensation. It supplies essential nutrients to the epidermis, keeps your skin from absorbing too much water, and works with your hypodermis to regulate your body temperature.
The epidermis is the outermost protective layer of your skin. It constantly makes new skin cells, since you shed about 40,000 old skin cells every day, and helps you fight off infections. The epidermis holds your melanin, which gives your skin its color.
The right treatments to wake up your collagen
Now that we know where the collagen is, we know how to achieve that boost in collagen that keeps your skin looking young and healthy. The treatment must penetrate past the epidermis and reach the dermis, where the collagen lives, to trigger the exact right type of healing.
HALO laser resurfacing
Laser resurfacing is a go-to collagen stimulating treatment. At West Linn Aesthetics, we love the HALO laser facial. HALO combines the benefits of non-ablative and ablative light wavelengths, delivering dramatic results without the lengthy healing time associated with other resurfacing lasers. HALO offers significant improvement to skin tone and texture, shrinks enlarged pores, improves the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles, and reverses sun damage.
Microneedling
Microneedling utilizes a series of extremely tiny needles to stimulate the production of collagen with little to no downtime. These microneedles create small channels in the skin to enhance the production of collagen and new skin cells with minimal damage to your epidermis.
Chemical peels
Medical-grade chemical peels Our chemical peels near Portland treat skin conditions and imperfections like acne, sun damage, poor skin tone, enlarged pores, blotchy skin, and fine lines and wrinkles. Our aesthetician offers 3 types of SkinMedica® Medical Peels not available to traditional spas, using stronger concentrations and prescription-strength ingredients to penetrate through the epidermis and stir up your collagen.
Forever Young BBL
BBL stands for broadband light, an innovative light-based technology to treat common skin concerns. Forever Young BBL is customizable and based on each patient’s unique skin and desired results. Because the specific wavelengths of light interact with your skin at a DNA level, treatment is a noninvasive way to effectively turn back the clock.
Yes, you will have downtime
It’s one of the biggest questions on our patients’ minds and it’s a topic a lot of medical spas try to avoid entirely—downtime. With plastic surgery, you expect a good deal of downtime as you heal from the surgical procedure.
The good news is that our collagen stimulating treatments near Portland are totally different from plastic surgery and downtime won’t interrupt your life nearly as much as surgery. That said, for a treatment to effectively stimulate your collagen production, you absolutely will have some social downtime.
We call it “social downtime” because you won’t be laid up or in pain, it’s just that your skin might look a little scary for a few days. Just like those healing scrapes and cuts, your skin will probably swell. It might flake and have a sandpapery texture for several days.
It’s not pretty, and we’re not going to pretend it is. That’s why we’re here to help manage those after-effects so your fresh, plump, collagen-filled skin can make its way to the surface and leave you with a younger, glowing complexion.
Is topical collagen enough to help?
Most beauty creams that claim to increase collagen levels in your body don’t actually work. Collagen molecules are too large to penetrate the protective barrier of the epidermis, rendering them ineffective. Since these creams aren’t medications, they don’t have to prove they actually work as advertised.
The last thing we want you to do is throw away your hard-earned money on treatments or products that won’t achieve your goals, so we’re happy to help with product recommendations!
On your own, the best way to preserve your collagen is to eat a healthy diet, keep yourself hydrated, avoid smoking, and protect yourself from the sun! When it comes to keeping your skin youthful and vibrant, understanding how the skin and body work gives you a distinct advantage.
Visit us for collagen stimulating treatments near Portland
When you come to West Linn Aesthetics, you can expect to be greeted by friendly and knowledgeable staff. We are proud to be your go-to for winter skin care tips in West Linn. As Diamond-level Allergan injectors, our experts deliver the high-quality aesthetic care you deserve, with friendly service personalized to your unique needs and goals.
With our convenient medical spa near Portland, we treat patients from across the Portland metropolitan area and beyond, offering the most popular med spa treatments such as Botox, dermal fillers, facials, peels, hair removal, plus medical-grade skincare products and more.
If you’re ready to get started, book a complimentary skin consultation! Our consultations include taking pictures and going over treatment options for your particular skin concerns. We will write out your quote and give you a folder with brochures on the procedures we recommend. We can’t wait to meet you, and help you on your journey to your best you!
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