Boring? Maybe. But These Tweaks Get The Job Done

In a tweakments world frothing with exosomes, salmon sperm and high-tech brand new “regenerative” treatments, it’s easy to overlook the ‘boring tweaks’ – aka procedures that have been steadily improving skin for decades. They don’t trend on social, but every clinic knows their value in delivering what most of us actually want, namely clearer, smoother, great-looking skin. Also, compared to many tweaks out there, these are a relative bargain. Here are our top three.

1. Clinical Microneedling

Microneedling has been around forever, but has found itself in the background since its more glamorous big cousin, radiofrequency microneedling popped into our awareness a few years back. Plain clinical microneedling involves a motorised device tipped with very fine needles that oscillate at speed to create thousands of micro-injuries in the skin and might sound a bit basic. But these tiny injuries trigger the body’s repair response, a wound-healing cascade in the skin that slowly but surely creates more collagen, improves skin texture and makes skin firmer over time.

If you do enough of it, it can soften the look of acne scars and make skin pigmentation more even. Does it hurt? Not much, but I prefer to have numbing cream first. Microneedling also enhances the absorption of whatever you put on your skin afterwards. You can absolutely add on a few bells and whistles and have, say, exosomes needled into your skin – but you don’t have to. Even on its own, done well and preferably as a course of four or six treatments, once a month, microneedling will do your skin a power of good.

2. Intense Pulsed Light (IPL)

IPL also tends to suffer from an image problem. It sounds less glamorous than a laser and as a technology, it has been around for so long that it’s hardly cutting-edge. That’s a bit unfair, as IPL is one of the most useful and versatile treatments we have for tackling redness and brown pigmentation in the skin. It works by delivering broad-spectrum light that targets brown pigment or blood vessels, helping to break them down so the body can clear them away. In practical terms, that means it can help fade age spots and sun damage, to make skin tone look more even.

You know the kind of “weathered” look we can get as mottled pigmentation builds up over the years? It’s really good with that, too, and for calming the sort of red noses that are unfairly seen as the mark of a heavy drinker. Plus. it is immensely helpful for reducing the redness and flushing that you get with rosacea. Does it hurt? Each pulse of scattered light stings a bit, so, yes, but not too much. The usual analogy is that it’s like a flick from a taut elastic band, and in all the years I’ve been having it done, I haven’t thought up a better one than that.

3. Skin Peels

Chemical peels feel – potentially – dramatic, and a bit old-school. For anyone in late middle age, the phrase tends to conjure up the memory of Samantha, in Sex and the City, the time she had “a little something done”, that left her face scalded-red. That episode aired way back in 2002, but it’s hard to erase from our collective memory. But I digress. There are strong peels that can leave you looking like that, and they have their place, though most modern skin peels are gentler. Peels use carefully selected acids to exfoliate the upper layers of the skin and stimulate renewal. Depending on the formulation and strength, they can be used to target everything from dullness to breakouts to pigmentation (or blackheads!

One of my favourite-ever tweaks was a swift wipe-down of my t-zone with 30% salicylic acid  – yes, by a seasoned professional – which cleared all my blackheads in seconds (the acid dissolved the oxidised sebum and drew it out of the pores, which looked vanishingly small and clear for several weeks). Peels usually sting though they don’t need to be painful, and they don’t have to involve dramatic peeling. A good practitioner will customise them to whatever will benefit you most, and keep a close eye on your skin while the peel is doing its job.  Many clinics offer peels as a course of treatments, to nudge skin gently in the right direction with minimal downtime.

Find out more about the best tweakments for all your skin goals, via our dedicated concerns pages.