Results of my BBL/Halo Treatment

Back in October, I visited Dr Maryam Zamani for a single session of a combined Sciton BBL/Halo treatment. One month later, I couldn’t wait to see my results – and yes, I was really impressed.

This treatment combines broadband light (a stronger version of intense pulsed light or IPL) with the Halo laser which can deliver both fractional and ablative blasts of light. The idea is that the BBL clears redness and pigmentation from age spots, then the Halo follows up with some thorough skin-resurfacing which tightens and rejuvenates the skin.

The video shows Ellie Wright, an aesthetician at Dr Zamani’s clinic, talking me through the results of the treatment, which were measured using a Visia device. This compares my skin to other women of my age and skin type on its huge database. So in each instance below, the first figure is how my skin rated compared to everyone else before treatment; the second figure is how it rated afterwards.

Skin texture: from 39% to 76%

What these figures mean is that before treatment, my skin texture was better than 39% of people on the Visia database (ie not that brilliant). Afterwards, that rating has shot up to 76 per cent.

UV spots: from 48% to 91%

There’s another huge improvement here. UV spots are the underlying damage in the skin and it’s a bit terrifying to look at on screen. As Ellie explains, this is usually damage from previous decades – especially if we didn’t used to be so good at wearing SPF when we were younger (er, that’s me).  So this is an incredible result.

My scan showed the result of me laying in the skin in my teens, 20s and 30s really. It’s only been then since I’ve really been keeping an eye on it. If only I had known when I was young. Start now with sunscreen!

Brown spots:  91% to 92%

As the UV damage comes more to the surface, it appears more on the skin as brown spots. There wasn’t much difference here – but then I was rating 91% to start with. As you know, I have a lot of treatments and my skin is in quite good nick.

With my scan, it goes to show with brown spots and UV spots that sometimes you don’t always see the damage on the surface on the skin because it’s lurking underneath.

This can let you know that hopefully later in life if you keep up with your SPF, keep looking after your skin, keep doing these treatments, in the future, you hopefully won’t get any sun damage come through to the surface.

Red areas: 65% to 79%

These are little broken capillaries on the skin, however, because we are still in the healing process, this is only giving us a rough estimate of the results.    I think in another month’s time it will be a truer reflection once my skin has healed. If I had severe broken capillaries beforehand, you would’ve been able to see more of a difference but that wasn’t a key problem for me.

The things like the mark above my eyebrow have pretty much gone. These were the particular spots that Dr Zamani actually ablated, I think, which are still healing up. Even the areas around my left cheek which showed a build-up of capillaries has now settled down. There has been a definite improvement in the red areas of my face.

I plan to come back to Dr Zamani for more, I keep seeing these sort of overgrown pores thinking, ‘Now I know what can actually get rid of them!’

Porphyrins: 54% to 82%

Porphyrins can be the result of a build-up of bacteria in the skin or oils which can mean we need a little bit more exfoliation. When we have open pores, that then leads to blocked pores so it’s kind of treating pores first then the porphyrins also benefit.  The Visia/Halo treatment isn’t specifically for this, but still it’s given them a good blasting. My scan showed a huge improvement. My pores are tightening up. So, fewer oils can actually live in those pores.

Pores: 35% to 49%

Frankly, I’ll take any improvement in pores!

If you’re interested in finding out more about this treatment, click here to watch the Tweak of Week I did about it. If you want to find a practitioner near you that can do this treatment, check out our practitioner page here.