T ruly amazing is what I say. If you have scars , wrinkles and fine lines, and don’t want to go through invasive surgery like fraxel or misguidedly with normal laser and also don’t want to live with the agonizing reality of wrinkles, well this could well be your answer.
Whenever the word fraxel is mentioned, I remember a conversation/consultation that I had with a visiting American dermatologist/cosmetologist/creator/owner of a well known brand, who actually believes in home peels to rejuvenate one’s look and has his own “safe” product for it. He had just undergone his own treatment and was looking a little like an overcooked lobster although a very smooth one for a sixty something year old man. Anyway, long story short, the first thing he said to me when my turn came for the free consult in Metrojaya department store was, a shocked exclamation…”oh you poor woman…., pigmentation and pimple scars” and tears just came to my eyes.
He proceeded to recommend that I use his products but for the tissue scarring from acne and pigmentation, I should pay him a visit in LA (Los Angeles) where his clinic is so that he can do some fraxel and also the blue peel treatment (laser type) which he invented to get rid of them. Some quick research on the internet, tells me that fraxel is a very painful even though effective way to get rid of deep pimple scars and marks. It does smoothen the skin, because the whole procedure is to have multi faceted laser lights shoot through your dermis and sort of “minced” it up and then put it ” back”. Skin does look smooth after wards (saw some after pictures for the procedure) in the forum. At about RM3000 to RM5000, it is not a procedure readily available in Malaysia or rather not “recommended “ by plastic surgeons as they usually just recommend “laser” treatment that is more like peeling.
So when Clinique launched their New Repairwear Laser Focus Wrinkle and Photo Damage Corrector, I was curious how the whole complicated painful procedure will be translated into a 30ml bottle. Claiming to de-age one by reducing wrinkles, repair photo damage and strengthen skin to accelerate regeneration in a morning and night application for a period of 12 weeks, to achieve a 63% wrinkle reduced power of laser.
But,I have only good things to say about this product. I do not suffer from wrinkles on my face but I seriously have a pair of hands that ages me by at least two decades. But what has my hands got to do with anything? Well, I have been applying a dab on the back of both my hands every night and day diligently since the trial started. I figured that my face has a different problem from the photo aging which is pigmentation but not wrinkles unless you count some mild indentation on my eyebags as wrinkles. So in a moment of pure “genius” and after a well meaning friend asked me if I actually do manual labor with my hands; which I did. I figured if any part of my body needs some serious almost desperate care, because our hands tells a lot about our lives and age. Deep down, I always felt that I had “ugly hands” and nothing else seems to work, not normal hand creams. Crabtree and Evelyn’s Gardeners hand cream was the closest but still fell short…. So I decided to use the Laser Repairwear, same application procedure for my face and on my hands, although I did feel like it seemed a bit wasteful but my hands deserve it.
So with great scepticism and hope all at once, I started putting a dab on my own hands after application to my face. This application is to be followed suit with a moisturizer after wards. So, I would use the Clinique Youth Surge Night for night care and day care I will use my normal moisturizer. The same application is used on my hands.
The results-
What I have noticed is- for photo aging which I take it to mean, pigmentation reducing, I don’t see significant results. But, where fine lines from pimple scarring is concerned, a definite reduction. Scars look more plumped up and less obvious on the face which is due to the Poly Peptide Technology ( whey protein, retinyl palmitate-Vitamin A, Acetyl Hexapeptide-B ( bio peptide that replicates the natural process in collagen synthesis for visible repair). But the real clincher is on the hands. The back of the hands look more more refined. Lines that are deep on the wrists are reduced, and skin looks tightened. And after 6 weeks of application , and three quarters of the bottle gone, I must say, it works. I used it with Clinique’s Night Repair at night and daytime another brand for both my face and back of my hands and I also sunblock with SPF 50 on both face and hands
Face-
The pores on my face seemed more refined. The real test is the fine wrinkle near the corner of my mouth, which are really lines caused by open pores. The skin around the pores is definitely smoothen and plumped up. There are no more wrinkles , just some very fine lines when I smile….but not at all noticeable. The mild indents on my face did not seemed visibly reduced though.
Hands-
Amazing, the skin which was wrinkly and dry, appears more refined and plumped up! There is this incredible feeling like time stood still…they are not all gone and lasted about two weeks after I stopped, but when I went back and reused again, the earlier results were definitely still there. So I am back to using them again …and the hands do look better.
General Remarks-
The bottle looks a bit plastic, ( it is really a plastic bottle) but I can’t help but wonder if a glass bottle would not make it more clinical. The plastic bottle makes it feel a bit like an unreal procedure. But nonetheless, it is lighter and easier for maintenance which tells of the essence of this product. It is a help and an external help that just took a highly complex and painful procedure into your beauty cabinet and very easily applicable with actual efficacy.
At RM200 a bottle, it is available at all Clinique counters.
