Being in your 30s has its perks, but it’s often when you notice your skin start to change. I’ve struggled with an uneven skin tone for years, especially rosacea on my cheeks. And recently, sun spots and fine lines have cropped up around my eyes and lips.
With my normal skin-care routine and occasional facials no longer cutting it, I turned to “laser layering.” For those unfamiliar with this new skin-care trend, it involves receiving multiple laser treatments in one session, which helps reduce downtime and overall cost. The process is customized to your skin concerns and can target everything from discoloration and sun spots to fine lines and wrinkles.
There are quite a few places to get this type of treatment where I live in Phoenix, Arizona. I chose Med44 in the Arcadia neighborhood. Owner Holly Mueller, RN, lives by an “aging is beautiful” philosophy and strives for natural results at any age. I booked an appointment for a Friday afternoon.
When I arrived, Mueller sat with me and asked about my skin and what I’d like to treat: my sun spots, rosacea, and overall dullness. After we finalized my treatment plan, she applied a numbing gel to my face and neck, which I left on for 30 minutes before washing off.
My Laser Layering Lineup
After assessing the current state of my skin and my goals, my medical aesthetician, Kayla Rudduck, prescribed a combination of BroadBand Light, Vivace, Moxi, and a chemical peel.
We started with BroadBand Light (BBL), which helps target pigmentation (which isn’t for all skin tones and poses risks for dark skin tones). She first spot-treated the areas with more dark spots, including the sun spots around my eyes, then went across my whole face and neck. The targeted treatment areas hurt a little, like someone was snapping a rubber band on my skin, but the overall treatment felt more manageable.
The next step was Vivace radio frequency microneedling, which emits heat through multiple skin layers to stimulate collagen and help treat fine lines and wrinkles. This step hurt the most – it felt like sharp pin pricks all over my face.
The final laser was the Moxi laser, which heats the underlying layers of skin to help with cell turnover and collagen production. This was the least painful of all three and felt like “an angry cat licking my face,” as Rudduck described it.
At the end of my two-hour session, Rudduck dabbed a chemical peel on some areas of my face to help lift any extra dirt and dead skin that didn’t completely come out with the lasers.
Laser Layering Before and After
My Laser Layering Results
Immediately after treatment, my face was fairly red, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I did feel a bit warm, though. During the entire treatment, an employee blew cold air on my face, and they gave me ice packs to take home. By late evening, I was pleasantly surprised to find that my face wasn’t hurting and I didn’t feel the need to take any ibuprofen or ice my face more.
Eight days post-treatment, my skin was primarily healed, except a couple of spots on my nose and neck. For the healed areas, however, I noticed a healthy glow that I hadn’t seen in a long time.
It took about three weeks for my skin to fully heal, and I could not be happier with my results. Instead of recovering from three separate treatments, I was one and done. Not only was my skin glowing, but the overall texture was much more even and less bumpy – like I had a blur filter on IRL. The sun spots around my eyes were less noticeable, and the redness in my cheeks subsided a bit. While this isn’t the most painless or affordable treatment, I would definitely do it again.
Cost of Laser Layering
My three laser treatments and spot-treated chemical peel cost $3,175. The price of laser layering will vary broadly depending on which and how many services you receive.
Cassie Brucci is a freelance writer based in Phoenix, Arizona. She primarily covers all things food, travel, and beauty for multiple local and national publications. As a desert dweller, Cassie is obsessed with finding the best treatments and products for keeping skin moisturized and glowy.
