Day 202 : Clear and Brilliant Treatment Session 3

Postponed my third Clear + Brilliant treatment a couple of times due to work and finally fulfilled the appointment today.  After the last two sessions, I can see that my complexion is growing visibly clearer and the open pores on my nose look less obvious. Sweet!

With a few more sessions, I may look under the legal age to consume alcohol soon.

My Benjamin Button process takes place at EHA Clinic by Dr Elias Tam. The clinic is located at Shaw Centre, #15-01. Call 6235 3325 for consultations and appointments.

Dr Tam’s certificates and merits are only overtaken by his friendliness and disarming demeanour. His open approach to letting me in on the science behind Clear + Brilliant and other aesthetic procedures have been enlightening and fascinating.

A waiting cum make-up room for female clients who want to freshen themselves after treatment before going back to office or shopping. Great innovations in aesthetic medicine have enabled fast-food style beauty with little or no down time.

Preparing for my treatment with nurse Vicki applying a layer of numbing cream on my face. More than just pretty, the nurses at EHA are very considerate and intuitive to client’s needs. After she applied the cream for me, she offered to put on a blanket for me in case I get cold while waiting the 30 minutes for the cream to take effect. She even dimmed the light so that I can sleep but when she saw I had a camwhore moment, she immediately turned the light back on before switching it down after I’m done.

Hello my skin’s best friend! Clear+Brilliant ultilises nonablative laser frequency to penetrate deeper into the skin’s basal layer to reawaken the ability of mature cells to manufacture collagen, thereby removing fine lines and wrinkles while encouraging the skin to behave younger.

Today’s treatment was much shorter than the previous sessions. Over the course of the treatments, Dr Tam had gradually increased the laser strength of Clear+Brilliant from low, medium to high. Don’t I look like Guang Gong? LOL. After treatment, my face was red for the night but it returned to normal the next day in time for me to attend Singapore Blog Awards 2012.

After any form of aesthetic treatment, sun protection is a must to block out UV radiation during the skin’s healing phase where it is hyper-sensitive and more vulnerable to sun damage.

At the end of the session, Dr Tam introduced his new sunscreen to me which uses a more advanced formula of titanium dioxide that has the ability to switch on and off when exposed to the sun. Sounds interesting. But how does it work?

All sunblocks come with a SPF factor which basically determines how long one you can stay under the sun after one application. A SPF15 sunscreen means you can stay under the sun 15 times longer than if you are not wearing one before sun damage sets in. A unit of SPF roughly translates to 20 minutes, so SPF15 means a protection of 15 X 20mins = 5 hours. The higher the SPF number doesn’t mean a sunscreen is stronger but that it provides longer protection.

With EHA’s Sun Shield 24hr, the formulation allows the protection to be turned on when it detects sun exposure and turns off under shade. And when sun exposure is detected again, it comes back on with a reset of the protection duration thereby providing an all-day shield. That’s kinda cool! So I parted with S$94.00 for a 30ml bottle of it.

Other than Sun Shield 24hr, I’ve also purchased a topical antiseptic lotion (S$22) to be applied after treatment to eradicate any possible infection and a serum containing hyaluronic acid (S$85 for 20 vials) for an extra boost in skin hydration as laser treatments tend to be drying. Well, beauty may not be just skin deep, but it sure requires a deep wallet!

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Clear+Brilliant Treatment Session 1

Clear+Brilliant Treatment Session 2

Day 163 : Clear and Brilliant Treatment Session 2

Fighting the signs of aging has found a new ally in the form of FDA-approved, European Conformity (CE Mark) recognised Clear + Brilliant factional laser treatment. I had my first Clear + Brilliant treatment about 2 weeks ago and am back to EHA Clinic today for session 2.

For best results, it is recommended that the first 3-4 treatments be done 2 weeks apart. Subsequently, a treatment session once every week is all it takes to maintain younger looking skin from the inside out. After the first treatment, I felt that my complexion felt more supple to the touch and lighter in colour. So I’m anticipating the further improvements this second session will do for me!

EHA Clinic has relocated to Shaw Centre, #15-01, since 11 June 2012. I’m one of the first ‘patients’ here for treatments! The clinic’s new, rather obscured home amongst offices provides privacy for clients who prefer discretion.

Reception area of the new clinic at Shaw Centre.

Other than facial treatments, EHA Clinic provides slimming treatments as well. I call this room The Deep Freezer. It is not because it is cold, but the fat-busting treatment housed here – CoolSculpting. The procedure deep freezes fat cells so that they can be metabolised and passed out of the body. Pretty amazing! Hope I’ll get to experience it to get rid of the stubborn lovehandles and lower belly fat that persist no matter how many thousands f sit-ups and crunches I do.

The new EHA Clinic has ample private facial treatment rooms.

I call this room The Laser Chamber because this is where the laser powerhouses are waiting to reveal the YOU in YOUth.

Safety googles for more aggressive laser treatments. Clear + Brilliant is gentler and is flexible enough to be used as a standalone treatment or as a complement to other treatments.

Here is the star – the Clear + Brilliant machine! I expected it to be a monstrous piece of machinery but it turned out to be a compact capsule goosenecked to the laser nozzle.

The laser nozzle is capped with this sterile personal tip that is discarded after each use. It is not shared between clients to eliminate contamination and infection.

Acting cute (?) while waiting for the numbing cream applied on my skin to take effect. One of the nurses tried Clear + Brilliant without the superficial numbing and she ended up ‘dancing’ on the treatment bed. So I decided not to be gungho and 乖乖 wait the 30 minutes it takes for the cream to have effect.

Under the good hands of Dr Elias Tam. He made sure every part of my face was covered and patiently gave extra attention to parts of my complexion showing more signs of sun damage. I think that’s literally my whole face since I was a teenage beach eel.

The Clear + Brilliant treatment was completed in about 15 minutes and it didn’t feel as comfortable as the first time although Dr Tam increased the laser’s strength. After being kissed by the red beam, a layer of antispetic cream was applied (the white stuff on my face).

The wonderful thing about the Clear + Brilliant treatment is that there is no down time. My face was a little red immediately following the treatment but it faded the next day.

Now that my skin cells have been woken up and activated to start regenerating itself to behave younger, let’s wait and see how my complexion will go from my current clear, to bright, to brilliant in the fortnight leading to my third treatment session. Stay tuned for the results!

Day 151 : Clear and Brilliant Laser Skin Treatment

Nine days ago, I turned 38. But that doesn’t mean I’m ready to give up the fight to stay forever 18 and abandon my complexion to look like my mother’s leather handbag. Well, 18 may be stretching it too much. So let’s just say I’m trying to look 19 for as long as possible.

Like most guys who are man enough to work hard at maintaining the health of our skin, I have a daily routine of cleanse, tone, moisturise.

But at 38, the lotions and potions are like Daniel Radcliffe moving from maverick wizard in Harry Porter to frightened attorney in The Woman in Black. The magic was lost. I slap on twice as much products only to have the signs of aging from sun exposure, late nights partying and stress catch up thrice as fast.

So in the attempt to look half my age again, or at least to trick the skin into behaving like a 19-year-old once more calls for reinforcements. And I decided to try out a relatively new laser facial treatment called Clear and Brilliant at EHA Clinic.

EHA Clinic was located at The Hereen, #05-05 but it’ll soon find a new home at Shaw Centre, #15-01 from 11 June 2012 onwards.

The aesthetics market has no lack of designer facials and laser treatments such as the popular Intense Pulse Light (IPL) and Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Laser. Is there a need for another? Apparently, yes.

Lasers are basically the essence of light. They are the highly concentrated and energised form of a single wavelength in the light spectrum. As such, different lasers have different degree of penetration into the skin, making it necessary to have an array of lasers to treat different skin conditions.

Before treatment. I’ve never had much problems with my skin and am thankful for being blessed with relatively good complexion. But I was told Clear and Brilliant can make good even better. We shall see if it’s really true…

While there are many different types of lasers, they can be classified into two categories – ablative and nonablative. Ablative lasers are used to vaporise the top layer of the skin or used for cutting. Nonablative lasers generally bypasses the top layer of skin to transfer heat to the deeper level to stimulate the rebuilding of collagen.

Clear and Brilliant uses a nonablative laser which means there’s no risk of injury to surface skin while activating collagen renewal in the deeper dermal layer.

Before the treatment began, a layer of numbing cream was applied to my face and I waited about 30 minutes to feel like my face doesn’t belong to me. A thing plastic sheet was placed over my face to keep the cream from drying out.

Alright, so much for the theory part of lasers. Now on with the treatment… How is it done and what does it feel like?

The Clear and Brilliant machine uses a sort of roller-head that rolls over the skin like a mini iron.

Giving me the treatment and lots of laughs was Dr Elias Tam, founder of EHA Clinic. The clinic specialises in aesthetic treatments and procedures. He was a really personal guy and made me feel at ease very quickly with his story about kelong fishing with his family. I’m also very grateful for his patience in explaining and helping me learn more about Clear and Brilliant.

I didn’t feel anything initially but after a while, there’s a sort of heated pricking sensation as the treatment progressed. The session lasted about 10 minutes and I would rate the discomfort as being mild. But you should know that I have a high tolerance for pain. No pain no gain right? Ha.

After the first Clear and Brilliant treatment. Although my face was red in the photo above, my artificial blush subsided quickly. I took this after photo about 15 minutes later and I can hardly notice any redness.

Perhaps it’s the lighting condition but I didn’t notice a very significant difference in my complexion. However, from the above photo, my skin does look clearer and more even in skin tone.

It takes between 3 – 4 treatment sessions to really see a big difference although many people would see a discernable difference in the first session. Maybe I have thick skin. Heh heh. My next appointment is two weeks later. I look forward to the day that my complexion can act as a mirror!