Ask Alice

Get in touch with the clinic – they are the ones to answer this not me! Even if it isn’t Covid they may prefer you not to bring your cold into the clinic.

Hi, I had a straightforward clinical treatment to create damage in the skin in order to make the skin regenerate/ tighten etc which worked well (you can read about it here). An  ‘open channel’ Tixel treatment uses the Tixel on a very light setting to push serums or treatment products more deeply into the skin – but no, you don’t get the heat/ burning/ skin regeneration from that.

Hi, yes, laser – in the right hands- might well be able to help these lines by tightening the skin. There is always a potential risk of hyperpigmentation if laser is used inappropriately, so make sure you’re in good hands. There’s more info on laser skin resurfacing here and there’s a Tweak of the Week video about one of the Sciton lasers here If laser treatemnt is done really close to the eye, you’ll need to wear a kind of metal contact lens to protect your eyes during the treatment.

It kinda all depends on your double chin, though I’d say Accent Prime might be your best bet – or perhaps CoolSculpting (fat-freezing)? Or Exilis and Ultracel QPlus though that’s going to get quite expensive. Hydrafacial is a deep-cleansing mechanical facial so won’t do anything for a double chin. Filler might help only by strengthening the line of the jaw to hide what’s underneath, but it’s not going to get rid of fat or tighten the skin. Take a look at my double chins page on the site – all the treatments I’d suggest are on here.

Eek, I really wouldn’t. If it’s some random form of at-home fat-freezing that sounds horrific. Will it work? I very much doubt it. Is it dangerous? If you give yourself ice-burns from it. PS CoolSculpting is a high tech brand of equipment, they don’t sell at-home kits!

Hi Suzanne, I understand your concern but I can assure you people do not just pay their way onto the site. I only invite doctors/ derms/ surgeons/ nurses whose work I know, or ones who are members of BCAM, or who are key opinion leaders for leading brands of aesthetic technology, to list on the site. If they choose to list, they are charged a small administrative fee. I get approached the whole time by practitioners whose work I don’t know – I ask them to get themselves recommended to me by two people I do know, then I’ll consider them for the site. That’s why this is a short list of practitioners, out of the thousands who are out there and yes these are all people who I know, from my years in the business, do good work and that’s why I trust them. I don’t – like many businesses in this area – get paid on referral, either. Also, there are lots of well-known names who should be listed on my site but aren’t yet, because I have yet to persuade them to join. Hope that reassures you.

Yes you can – but go carefully. Retin-A is prescription strength and STRONG. If you have been using it on your face, you’ll know that you need to start with tiny amounts, maybe mixed in with moisturiser, and only increasing the dose once your skin has learned to tolerate it.

There are fewer oil glands in neck-skin (one reason why it’s always drier than the face) and any retinoid, particularly Retin-A, will hit it hard, so you need to go extra cautiously. I’d suggest mixing a very small amount of the product in with a moisturiser, any moisturiser, so that it is spread very very thinly. Once that has absorbed, stick some more moisturiser on top. Twice a week at first, and see how you go before increasing either the amount or the frequency.

And if your neck just hates it (goes red, dry, itchy) with even minimal amounts, get an over-the-counter retinol or retinoid that isn’t so strong, and go gently with that.

PS have you asked whoever prescribed you the Retin-A about this? I have a lot of experience with skincare but I am not a doctor.

Read more about retinol and retinoids

Hi and goodness no, I’m not against nurses doing cosmetic injections, as long as they have lots of training and experience with relevant aesthetic products and techniques.

When I say that aesthetic practitioners should have a medical background – that’s a basic starting point. Whether these practitioners are nurses or doctors, surgeons or dentists,  what really matters is how much training they’ve done and how much experience they have notched up, putting that training into practice. Can they recognise and handle the complications that can occur with cosmetic procedures? If they inject filler into a blood vessel for example, and block it (which can lead to tissue necrosis, where the surrounding skin tissue dies, if not swiftly treated) will they spot what they’ve done? And do they have a prescribing qualification, in order to be able to obtain the prescription injectable product needed to dissolve that blockage? These are all things to think about and factor in.

I don’t want, say, my GP (who has a medical background) offering me injections of fillers etc unless or until she has really learned the art and science of medical aesthetics.  If you look through the practitioners section on the website you’ll see there are nurses, doctors, dentists and surgeons on there.

NB – There’s also a handful of top laser practitioners listed on the site here who don’t have a medical background, but who have years of experience so they are extremely good at what they do., which is why they’re on the list.

No, we sell everything individually, as well as the bundles. Try this link, it will take you to where the products are listed one by one. Browse all products in the shop

I think that negative feedback is so unfair. Let me explain.

I was sent by one of the papers to be the first person to get a toxins treatment at Superdrug  – and the only reason I didn’t get the treatment was because they (quite rightly) turned me down because, working through the very detailed questionnaire that you have to fill in before treatment, they discovered I’d had a toxin treatment only two months before and they correctly insist there should be a three-month minimum gap between appointments.

It maddens me that the feedback is so negative because Superdrug has done everything very correctly. They have partnered with the leading brand of botulinum toxin and fillers, they are only employing practitioners who are well trained in cosmetic injectables and have a good deal of experience, they check everyone’s birth-date and won’t treat under 25s and they insist on an initial consultation and a cooling-off period before they will treat anyone.

… all of which puts them streets ahead of all the non-medical and barely-trained people who are already offering injectable treatments in back rooms on the high street at other chemists, beauty salons and hairdressers.

People complain – wow, shocker – that this is bringing toxins to a high street chemist. They forget that Boots introduced toxins to its treatment offerings in leading branches back in 2002 (it was ahead of its time, wasn’t all that popular, and was dropped).

What these people don’t see is that toxins is already on their high streets, though it’s not usually offered in an upfront, clear, medically-based sort of way,

Here’s a link to the blog post I wrote about it at the time

Yes, and it’s not positive (I’ve been trying it for months with zero results). I’m currently gathering some opinions from professionals in the area before I do a bigger post about it.

Hi I’m sure there are many great ones but with apologies my practitioner-network is UK only for the time being.

Hi, it sounds like you are taking great care of your skin. I’d always suggest a consistent skincare regime with active ingredients like vitamin C serum in the morning to brighten and strengthen the skin, plus a hydrating sunscreen, and retinol or another kind of retinoid at night to stimulate collagen boosting and improve skin texture.

CoolSculpting aka fat freezing or crylipolysis can be really helpful for shrinking fat below the jaw – you need an expert practitioner to assess your face and jawline and see if you would be a good candidate for this. They also need to explain the potential complications of the procedure, which is something lots of people are asking about since Linda Evangelista has talked about how CoolSculpting went wrong for her.

When it comes to finding a practitioner in your local area, have you taken a look at the practitioner finder on the site here?  These are all people whom I would trust with my face. You can put in your postcode and see who comes up.

Don’t know the Rio but I love the NuFace

Hi, there are a few treatments you could try to tighten the skin on the eyelids and around the eye area. None of these will give as quick, clean or definitive a result as eyelid surgery (blepharoplasty) but they could help.

• Ping, a radiofrequency skin-tightening protocol put together by Dr Sach Mohan, which is specifically designed for non-surgical skin tightening around the eye
• Laser skin tightening, with a fractional laser – practitioners including Dr Maryam Zamani can offer this with the Sciton laser, other practitioners will have their own favourites. You do need to wear intra-ocular shields for this procedure, which are like metal or plastic contact lenses slipped into the eye to protect it while the laser light works on the skin.
• Tixel, which is a device that generates plain heat energy (as opposed to light energy or radiofrequency energy) can also be used on the eyelids as well as around the eye. I had good results from just one treatment of this a few years ago.
• You could also try anti-wrinkle injections in the forehead, to raise your eyebrows a bit, which can make saggy eyelids look less saggy.