Alice tries NeoGen Plasma treatment

Going for a treatment because someone very famous had it done is not something I’d usually recommend, but I have to say that ever since Shirley Ballas popped up in all the papers this year looking amazing, and attributing her clearer, fresher skin and much tauter jawline to a course of NeoGen Plasma treatment, I’ve been hugely curious to try it.

What can NeoGen Plasma treatment do?

Making a slackening jawline look nice and firm and ‘snatched’ is no mean feat, especially in a patient who’s over 55 (we lose collagen from our skin as we age, and the less collagen we have in our skin, the less of a response we can get from a collagen-stimulating treatment). And this skin-tightening, pigment-clearing procedure had clearly done the trick for Ms Ballas, so I was intrigued when NeoGen asked me to nip up to Leeds, make the video that you can watch below and have the procedure done by their key opinion leader, Dr Raj Thethi.

Explaining ‘plasma’ energy

The first thing I wanted to know was: what exactly is plasma? Dr Thethi explained that the plasma in NeoGen is not the blood plasma used in platelet-rich plasma (PRP) treatment, where blood is taken from your arm and re-injected into your face.

NeoGen uses nitrogen plasma, created by passing radiofrequency energy through pure nitrogen gas, which turns it into plasma, which is a potent energy source, which is finely tuneable, meaning that your practitioner can use it as lightly or as heavily as they see fit for your skin.

How NeoGen Plasma works

The nitrogen plasma is directed at the face by a hand-held device and each zap of energy delivers heat into the skin, in order to create a bit of controlled trauma to the collagen  – it’s the wound-healing response to this trauma that creates new, fresh collagen that makes skin stronger and smoother. On the way through the skin, the plasma does kill off the surface layer of the skin (or, as Dr Thethi puts it in the video, it creates ‘a non-viable layer of skin’) but it does this without removing the outer layer of skin (unlike an ablative laser treatment, which burns its way through the skin from the top, in order to prompt collagen renewal). That ‘non-viable’ layer of skin will gradually peel off over the next week, revealing clearer skin beneath, and over the next three months, the tightening effects of the collagen remodelling should make themselves clear.

What’s NeoGen Plasma good for?

The main uses of NeoGen are for tightening skin that is starting to slacken, for removing excess pigmentation in the skin, and improving the texture of the skin (it’s good for acne scarring) so that skin looks smoother, clearer and firmer, as the treatment promotes new elastin (the protein that keeps skin springy) and hyaluronic acid (which keeps it hydrated) as well as collagen.

Treatment can be gentle – or intense.

There are several ways of having this treatment. You can either – like Shirley Ballas – have a course of multiple low-intensity treatments spread out over a few months, which, in the end, will stack up to significant major results. Low-intensity treatment means no discomfort during treatment and very little downtime afterwards. Or, you can have a medium-intensity treatment, which a couple of my friends have tried, which means you need numbing cream beforehand, and a good four days afterwards where your face moves from red to brown scorched stripes, before the skin peels off, during which time people will stare at you in alarm in the street. You then might want another of these procedures a couple of months later, as a follow-up. The video shows the recovery journey of a patient who tried a medium-depth

Or, you could do what I did and have the maximum amount of treatment possible in one go – in my case, a medium-intensity first pass followed up with a high-intensity second pass in troublespots – in my case, the barcode lip lines around my mouth, and crepey skin around my eyes. This is one of the few treatments that can be used directly across the eyelids without the need for protective corneal shields.

What does medium/high-intensity NeoGen Plasma treatment feel like?

As you might imagine, it’s not comfortable having that much energy directed into your skin. Super-strong numbing cream was enough to get me through the first pass, but for the high-intensity bits, I needed a few strategically placed shots of local anaesthetic, and it still felt prickly. The recovery wasn’t fun either, though at least my scorched and swollen skin didn’t hurt – it just looked terrible. I knew what I was in for, and had planned to spend the next five days hiding indoors smothered in Aquaphor cream, to keep the skin moist while it healed until all the spiderweb skeins of dead skin had detached themselves. Unless, like me, your face is on a tight schedule, I would strongly recommend splitting the treatment into less intense sessions – it’s both kinder to you and the people around you, and less traumatic for your face.

What are my results from NeoGen Plasma like?

Actually, really good. Today, it’s seven weeks since the treatment and, as you can see on the Visia image in the video above, my skin is doing really well. My pores are smaller, the skin surface is smoother, and my pigmentation is more even, so overall it is rating nine years younger than my actual age, which is a reduction of a good five years from the last image I had done in April. As for the skin tightening – I need to be patient. It takes three months or so for the collagen remodelling to show its full effect, so I’m waiting on September for that.

Depending on factors like the experience of the practitioner and the location of the clinic, and the extent and intensity of the treatment, and whether you need a practitioner who can administer local anaesthetic, NeoGen Plasma treatment costs from £800-£3,000 per session.

This video and this article are sponsored by NeoGen

To find a NeoGen Clinic near you and to read more about NeoGen Plasma click here.