Ask Alice

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Cosmelan and its sister treatment Dermamelan are extremely effective professional programmes for treating all types of pigmentation, including stubborn melasma. Melasma can be particularly tricky to treat because it is hormonally driven, which means it can come back time and again. When it comes to melasma, treatment is more a question of managing it rather than fixing it. Cosmelan has been shown to give long-term clearance and can be repeated if necessary. It can be a slow and frustrating business, though. Find an expert practitioner and get them to assess you carefully before you get going on this. 

Read more about pigmentation issues and melasma

Yes, there is a version that can be used in the face to boost your own collagen to add fullness.

Yes absolutely, I am sure we can work something out! If you email [email protected], she will be able to help with this.

Hi, by ‘fibroblast treatment’ do you mean something like the so-called ‘plasma pens’? I am not a fan of these, they are not likely to delivery decent results and the chance of scarring from burns is high. I’ve tried Sunekos (which is like an injectable moisturiser or skin booster, but works in a rather different way) but I didn’t see noticeable results even after four sessions

It is really rare to become resistant to toxins but it’s not impossible. Do any of your practitioners have any suggestions about this?

Hi – I haven’t tried it so can’t comment but yes it is expensive!

Hi, I only had the one treatment (I was advised I’d need at least three to see proper results, at my age) so… I didn’t see much change in terms of tightening except in the texture of the skin, which was lovely – noticeably smoother and fresher. I’ve since tried a different brand of RF needling and I will post about that soon.

Nnnngh, I never quite know what to say about facial yoga. I love the idea of it – of keeping your muscles pliable and strong through careful exercise. Do they work? I don’t know. You’d need to commit and try it for a while to be able to judge for yourself, and do it diligently. The one face-exercise system I’m really curious about and am going to try is facial pilates by Carme Ferre – the app is called FaceToned – as I know that she really knows her stuff for face as well as body.

I’d have another chat with Dr Nestor, or one of his previous patients, about the treatment and how they found it. He’s a fab practitioner, it is a very quick treatment and really not that painful. Profhilo is a great product and where it scores over the other ‘injectable moisturisers’ that do the same thing is that it only needs 5 injections on each side of the face to put it in place.  But I do hear what you are saying – there are loads of treatments that will hydrate the skin – but nothing that will give you the same sort of skin-regeneration from the inside out.

If top docs are saying ‘No’… you need to listen to that. There are no-needle lip plumper treatments like Perk, which is an attachment to the Hydrafacial magazine, which exfoliates and super-hydrates the lips which gives a plumping effect. It doesn’t last long but that, plus clever makeup, may be your best bet for now,. .

Some of my friends have seen results with this device; I’m about to try out a new home use RF device called Orlaya which looks like it has much more potential as it is much more powerful than the other brands of home-use RF – so I’ll let you know how I get on with that in a month or two.

Dr Tatiana Lapa is practicing at her clinic in Devonshire Place, London. You can find out more information about her and her clinic here.

Absolutely, it was Michael Van Clarke.

Good question. They are absolutely correct in telling you that blindness is a potential, though extremely rare, complication from injectable fillers. This can happen if filler is injected into a blood vessel and travels up through the face to block the optic nerve. It is good to know that they are advising you about all potential complications, however rare, because often popular treatments like filler are done very casually as if they were beauty treatments, when they are medical cosmetic procedures. Precise stats are hard to come by. Because of the lack of regulation around injectable fillers, anyone can perform the treatment and there is no compulsion for them to register complications though complications as bad as potential blindness are usually referred to top practitioners in the hope that they can sort them out.