‘Bloom into timeless beauty’

The fountain of youth is no longer elusive. It’s not exclusive anymore in the mythical land of Bimini, as one legend says; the fountain of youth is not a spring but a machine. And one’s date with one’s forever-young self can be paved by Thermage FLX.

The machine was recently introduced in the Philippines by the aesthetics group Belo Medical via a launch that also unveiled the clinic’s newest ambassador, Anne Curtis Smith.

“The Filipino skin, unlike the American or Caucasian skin, easily sags. As you age, what happens is, because of the pull of gravity, because we have less elasticity, less collagen, the whole face starts to fall. Filipino skin just really sags; muscle, skin, fat, everything goes down,” says Dr. Vicki Belo, medical director of the Belo clinics.

“If you do a facelift, unfortunately, you will see a little scar after the procedure. A non-surgical machine is needed. We came up with a machine that delivers all the promises. Thermage FLX is a revolutionary machine because it is much comfortable to use. It works well around the forehead area. Before, the skin in the forehead couldn’t be lifted. The skin in the forehead is thinner. But with the accurate technology, with Thermage FLX, it really works on the forehead, also around the eye area.”

Solta Medical’s Chris Cachuela and Belo Medical Group medical director Dr. Vicki Belo.

Vicki suggests that if one doesn’t want to do a blepharoplasty or eyelift, one can use the machine for the eyes. As one ages, she explains, the gravity in the forehead starts to fall, and the eye area will feel heavy, too.

Beautiful Anne tells Allure, “I’m not the type to try anything on my face. I am just simply afraid when a treatment will involve my face. Dr. Belo knows that fact because I started being a Belo baby since I was 16 or 17, the time when I was dealing with pimples and acnes.”

“So, when she spoke to me about the new treatment, she explained it’s fast, it’s almost painless and she said I should try it. I’m not getting any younger. I’m now 34 and with how much I workout and all the running that I do, it’s important that I maintain the collagen in my face. Because as you grow older, you lose the collagen, as she told me, so I decided to give it a try. And I loved it,” Anne adds.

“The effect is actually immediate. I saw a lift. Half-way through the treatment — Dr. Belo did the treatment herself — she made me face a mirror and you could see half of my face, underneath my eye, by the cheek, there was a lift right away. And then she continued on to the other side. The effect is actually very instant. And then she told me that in a few more months, I’ll see more results.”

Anne says the treatment only lasted 30 minutes. And she will be back after six months for another treatment. This time, not only for her face but also for her body.

Dr. Vicki Belo performs the Thermage FLX procedure on Anne.

“The pain is actually very tolerable and with this machine, there’s actually like a cooling system, like a cooling effect. So while you’re getting the treatment, it makes it painless because all you feel is the coldness on your face,” she says.

Vicki quips, “Tightness is youngness. It only takes 30 minutes to achieve that with the newest machine, no downtime, no swelling, no bruising. As you get older, it’s not only your face that sags. Your arms sag, your butt sags, everything sags.”

She says in jest that long before she and Dr. Hayden Kho Jr. got married, she told her husband that he could not do anything to look younger. “You see, we are 23 years apart. But now, okay, he gets a dispensation from me. He can now avail himself of the treatment with the new machine,” she says laughing, adding that Belo Medical is the first clinic in the country to have the Thermage FLX, with eight machines in different clinics nationwide.

The newest machine that gives instant tightening and lifting is the fourth-generation version of the non-invasive, non-surgical Thermage technology, according to Chris Cachuela of Solta Medical, the distributor of Thermage in the country. The initiated will remember that in 2002,  ThermaCool TC was introduced, followed by Thermage NXT in 2007 and Thermage CPT in 2009. Ten years later, the technology has been improved and Thermage FLX was born to further combat the pull of gravity on one’s skin.

For 16 years, Cachuela says, Thermage has been one of the major players in defying age. The technology is available in 80 countries and is performed on nearly two million individuals. He adds that the popular aesthetic treatment uses a patented radio frequency technology to create a uniform heating effect in the deep layers of the skin. This contracts existing collagen and stimulates more production, resulting in reduced fine lines and wrinkles, tighter skin on the face, jawline and neck, and a more contoured face — all with little to no downtime for the patient.

“The new machine has the distinct advantage of AccuREP, a more optimized system that delivers pulses accurately and as strong as the last one, and automatically measures and precisely tunes the amount of energy delivered to the patient and treatment area.

“The new machine also works 25 percent faster, dramatically shortening treatment time to 30 minutes. This improvement has been made possible by increasing the size of the tips that are used to treat the patient. These tips are now 33 percent larger, enabling a more extensive surface area to be targeted. The new Thermage FLX machine also comes with a smaller tip for targeting the periorbital area, and a much bigger tip that can help tighten the arms,” Cachuela says.

He adds that the machine is also lightweight, ergonomic and environment-friendly because its cryogen level is almost nil.

“I will not do any treatment or procedure that I have not tried on myself. With Thermage FXL, you bloom into timeless beauty,” Vicki concludes. *

(E-mail me at bumbaki@yahoo.com. I’m also on Twitter @bum_tenorio and Instagram @bumtenorio. Have a blessed Sunday!)