Laser skincare from Puerto Plata, Sosua to Cabarete. Repair sun damage & freckles, anti-aging, make skin look younger

List of Laser Services:

The Essence Med-Spa in Puerto Plata offers much more than just laser skincare. Examples are Botox, Plasma/vitamin injections and other advanced skincare services. This Website was designed to provide detailed information on using lasers for skincare.

List of laser skincare services that we can offer, please scroll down to view All

Important comments about skin color. People with white to tan/light brown colored skin can match with any of the following laser services.

People who's skin is dark brown or black are not good candidates for services that affect color such as sun-spots, freckles, acne marks etc.  The reason is when lasers clear dark color such as freckles they can also clear the natural dark/black color in skin leaving white spots.

For people with dark brown to black skin laser services are limited to collagen stimulation to make skin look more full and young. And, black carbon laser facial cleans skin more than normal facials and tightens pores.

Fade and remove freckles, sun and age spots:  Our lasers target the color in sun or age damaged skin, freckles and sun-spots. The color is called Melanin. The lasers cause the skin cells that contain melanin/spots to break up. The melanin cells slowly rise to the skin surface where spots & freckles dry and flake off.

As the spots, freckles age/sun damage rise to surface, dry and flake off new clear skin has replaced the old sun-damaged skin.

Melasma? The laser is used to target skin cells deeper and below the Melasma. The plan is to cause these skin cells to slow production of the color/melanin that causes Melasma. This requires multiple appointments and between each appointment a high quality lightening cream is suggested.

The best ingredient for lightening cream is hydroquinone 4% and this can be found in the Dominican Republic, sometimes prescribed by doctors and is sold at various pharmacies.

To help you understand, Melasma is caused by skin cells that over-produce melanin/color. The laser can affect these skin cells and cause them to slow at creating the melanin which also reduces the Melasma.

The laser works on the Melasma from below while the lightening cream works on the surface.

When used alone, lightening creams offer limited results but when combined with a laser the result can be faded and less noticeable Melasma.

The process can be 2 appointments per month for 3 months. Then stop and observe skin reaction. The lightening cream must be used every day. At 3 months the plan changes to scheduling laser appointments once every 2 or 3 months to keep Melasma under control while using the correct skin lightening cream 2 to 3 times per week. On the off days for lightening cream, use quality vitamin C serum such as La Roche.

The goal is to reduce melasma so is less noticeable. It is not possible to 100% permanently clear all melasma. Your expectations should be to reduce appearance of melasma so is less noticeable.

Fade and clear spider veins: Important! Spider veins are small red or blue veins on a nose, cheek, sometimes legs. If a woman had a baby or a person suffered an injury that caused significant vein damage, these large veins are called Vericose.

A laser can be used to clear smaller spider veins yet does not work on larger vericose veins.  Vericose veins require surgery and injections.

Our IPL and Pico Lasers can fade/clear smaller red/dark colored spider veins!

Treat Acne by using IPL laser to kill bacteria. And, use IPL-Picolaser combination to clear red or dark acne marks.

Additionally, make acne scars less noticeable by increasing collagen. Collagen causes skin to be more full which spreads out acne scars making them less noticeable.

When the laser is combined with micro-needling such as our Dermapen, this combination can increase collagen in the skin. Increasing collagen causes skin to be more full and young looking which also spreads out acne scars making them less noticeable.

This is not limited to acne, increasing collagen can make skin on a face look more full and younger regardless of acne.

Eating too much food that is fried or cooked in oil contributes to acne. Consuming too much sugar in drinks, fruit juice, beer, candy and snacks also contributes to acne.

Females often experience acne during menstruation due to changes in hormones.

Getting laser treatment for acne once per month along with improved diet, drink mostly water and get a deep cleaning carbon laser facials can help reduce the cause of acne, bring under control and maintain with once per month appointments. 

Cause facial skin to create more collagen which can enable skin to be more full, healthy and younger looking:  This is important. You could get a chemical peel or ablation laser. These BURN the skin off your face or body. The result is red/burned looking face that can be painful and requires many months of healing.

The result can be cleared scars and young looking skin. However, this is expensive, painful and most people do not want to go out on public for months after chemical peels or ablation laser.

A different plan can be to combine using our Pico laser with micro-needling to cause your skin to increase making collagen. Increased collagen makes your skin look younger, more full and this spreads out acne scars and fine lines or small wrinkle so they are less noticeable.

And, when Botox is combined with collagen stimulation facial skin can look younger and more firm.

The 1064 Pico laser targets deeper layers of skin that stimulates collagen production while the micro-needling Dermapen affects the skin surface. The combination affects both deeper and surface skin to maximize collagen stimulation.  

Botox can also help cause facial skin to look more firm and younger.  All of these ideas combined creates the best result.

This is not painful and does not require much healing. However, this plan for improved skin appearance does require a once per month or once every 2 months treatment to maintain same as getting your hair re-colored every few months.

An example is if you increase your collagen today and your facial skin looks improved, this lasts for 1 or 2 months and then goes back to normal. To maintain higher levels of collagen ongoing appointments are needed to maintain.

Black Carbon Mask Laser Facial ( Hollywood Laser Facial)  The black carbon cream mask dries and attaches to dirt and oils in your skin. When the laser is used on the black carbon on your face, the carbon is dissolved and evaporated by the laser. As this happens the carbon extracts more oil and dirt from your skin than is possible with a normal facial mask.

This laser facial service causes skin to be more clean than a normal facial. And tightens pores to shrink and be smaller.

Remove and clear or fade Eyebrow tattoos: Same as clearing sun-spots, the laser works to clear tattoos on eyebrows. 

Hair Removal: The IPL laser causes hair follicles to die so hair does not grow back, or takes a long time and comes back thin and easier to clear.  

Imagine a 1 inch spot of skin with 100 hair follicles. The laser cannot kill all 100 in the first appointment. It can take 3 to as many as 8 appointments to kill 80% of the 100 hair follicles in this example. Why 3 to 8 appointments? Because all people have different skin and hair. If a person has very fine hair the laser can work faster than a person with dark thick hair.

WARNING: A serious problem with many medical and beauty spas in the DR is they buy low quality laser equipment from China. Their prices are low because the equipment is low quality. This low quality laser equipment lacks the power and technology that is required to actually produce the correct results. This is why many women in DR who try lower cost laser skincare spas complain and cancel.

Our Lasers are expensive and the highest quality, same as used in luxury skincare services in New York or Miami..

Do skin lasers hurt?  Pico lasers cause a slight sting or itch sensation. And, we use numbing cream to desensitize skin. The IPL can feel like a hot rubber band is snapped on your skin. To be clear, the IPL does cause some minor pain but to put things into perspective the IPL is not nearly as painful as getting a tattoo. We also use numbing cream with the IPL.

Numbing cream helps reduce discomfort.

Important for people living in the Dominican Republic compared to people who visit for long or short stays

A - There are certain skin issues that can be improved in one appointment. Examples are the black carbon laser facial or clearing specific sun-spots or freckles. However, most laser skincare requires multiple appointments because the lasers work in steps, like step 1, step 2, step 3.

A person visiting the Dominican Republic can benefit from our lower cost (compared to USA, Canada, Europe) and improve these types of skin issues while visiting the DR.

Let's use clearing a tattoo as an example as this lesson applies to most laser skincare.

At the first appointment the laser fades the tattoo. 4 weeks may be required for the skin to absorb the faded skin cells and before the skin is ready for the next appointment.

This process may require 2 to 4 appointments spread out over several months to clear the tattoo and be finished. You can apply this same scenario to clearing sun damaged skin, the process is similar.

If a person lives in the Dominican Republic or spends months of time in this country it is possible to plan laser skincare over time.

If you travel to Dominican Republic for trips several times each year, you can plan these ongoing appointments during each of your visits to the Dominican Republic and benefit from the lower cost.

The difference between medical/surgical use of lasers with cosmetic and anti-aging use of lasers

Medical/Surgical lasering: Imagine a person has serious acne scars on face and shoulders. The only way to remove these scars is to burn off layers of skin. As the new skin grows it replaces the old skin and the scars are gone.

This is called Ablation lasering. The ablation laser literally burns and vaporizes layers of skin. The result is a red burned looking face or body part. This is expensive, painful and requires many months of healing. The end result can be clear skin without the scars. But this is intense.

This is similar to a chemical peel and should be done at a hospital and with a cosmetic surgeon.

Also, there are different levels of deep laser skin repair or chemical peels. Some are relatively light where the skin can heal and look normal in 2 weeks. However, to remove deep lines or wrinkles or scars an intense laser repair or significant chemical peel are required. These intense skin treatments damage skin and it can take 3 to 4 months of healing for skin to look normal again.

We do not offer these intense medical procedures but is good for you to understand what these are.

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Our focus is anti-aging, clearing sun damage, looking younger and/or improve certain skin conditions such as acne marks, spider veins and other age, sun or skin issues.

If you go in the sun and tan it is best to stop and let the tan clear/fade and then start laser treatment. Staying out of the sun allows your tan to fade which enables the laser to more clearly target the coloration of skin damage. After laser treatment cover up when in the sun and use 50+ sunblock.

If you get laser skincare and clear your skin what happens if you continue going in sun? Here is the honest answer.

If a laser is used to clear your skin and you continue to go back in the sun the cleared spots may not come back, but new spots may develop over time.

It is possible to clear sun damaged skin and continue to enjoy time in the sun by coming back for laser appointments a few times per year for more skin clearing as part of yearly ongoing maintenance.

An example is always using 50 SPF sun block and come back twice per year for skin laser maintenance to treat and clear any new sun damage early.

This is how you can enjoy improved skin while still spending time in the sun.

The pictures below shows how a Pico-Laser targets color in the skin to dissolve it. The 2nd picture shows how a plasma spark device works on freckles. Picture 3 shows how an IPL targets hair follicles for hair removal.