Airbrush with Botox: Micro Botox injections can diminish oily skin and shrink pores
There is a truly amazing technique using Botox as a treatment for treating oily and acne prone skin. If I hadn’t seen the treatment and results with my own eyes, I am not sure I would believe it!
We all know that Botox is used cosmetically for diminishing lines and wrinkles. When used for that purpose, Botox is injected into the muscle to inhibit certain nerves from firing, resulting in a more relaxed, smoother appearance to treatment area.
Botox can also be injected shallowly into the skin (intradermally) to produce numerous and miraculous effects, including leaving your skin with a beautiful, smooth, almost matte-like finish, as if you just clciked "airbrush" in your photo editor.
Botox, when placed intradermally:
Significantly diminishes oil production
Reverses the inflammatory process that causes acne and rosacea
Helps smooth the texture of the skin
Diminishes the appearance of acne scars
Reduces large pores
While some oil is important to maintaining healthy skin by keeping it soft and hydrated, some people do have excess oil production, and greasy skin. Overly large pores can also make skin texture look rough. Intradermal Botox, placed only in the specific areas of the face where the sebaceous glands are, helps control and reduce the amount of oil produced, as well as shrink pore size.
I’ll be honest, when I heard about this treatment I wanted to know exactly how it worked…and I geeked out on reading the science behind it, and the initial study done by a physician in Chicago, Dr. Shah. I’ve put a link to the study at the end of this blog for any other nerds like me out there.
So, here’s the Reader’s Digest version of how this treatment works:
How does Botox reduce oil production? Botox, when injected intradermally, works to inhibit the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which affects oil production. Dr. Shah, who piloted the researched in this area, demonstrated in a study that intradermal Botox reduced oil production by about 30% in 4 weeks in people with oily skin.
How does Botox shrink pores? The intradermal Botox targets the muscles which control pore size: the erector pili muscle. When these muscles are effected, pores actually decrease in size. When the pores reduce in size, the surface area of the skin is reduced and the skin is tightened, creating a lifting effect.
The effects are not permanent, but generally last about 4-6 months. Permanently shrinking sebaceous glands is probably not a good idea anyway since as we age and experience hormonal changes, oil for the skin can become beneficial at that point, rather than troublesome.
Another added bonus of this treatment? It leaves you with smoother, drier (but not too dry) skin, and an appearance of almost a matte finish to your skin: looking like you have make-up on when you actually don’t! Our owner, Stacey Francois, had the procedure done and I saw a difference in her skin texture after just one day, although the effects of Botox generally take about 5 days to set in. We will post before and after pictures of her treatment on our site soon.
Here’s a link to Dr. Shah’s study.
