Welcome to The Holistic Skin Guru, where what's on the surface is just as important as what's underneath. I'm your host, Aamena. Let's dive deep into the world of holistic skincare. Hi guys and welcome to our podcast. Today we're going to be talking about HIFU, my favorite topic. So if you've not heard about HIFU, where have you been living? HIFU is everywhere in the beauty industry and we've got so many people who are for it and against it. And so what is HIFU? Well, HIFU is High Intense Frequency Ultrasound. It is a treatment that is delivered via a machine into the skin, into the subcutaneous tissue in order to give you a skin lift or skin tightening. And it's also known as a non-invasive facelift. Does HIFU work? Well, the simple answer is yes. and I'm going to go into detail as to what you should be looking out for and how you can find good operators and also make informed decisions for yourself. So who are the people that need HIFU? Anybody who has maybe lost a lot of weight in their facial area and has some skin laxity and they're trying to fix that. Or anybody over the age of 50, 55, 60, depending on how well they've looked after their skin, who's showing some signs of skin laxity. So What we're trying to do with HIFU is we're trying to tighten the skin and that's what HIFU is designed to do. It's designed to lift the skin and tighten it. Okay, so that's the first thing. The second thing is because HIFU is so sought after, at the moment it is very, very competitive. And so we're finding that there are a lot of people coming to us telling us that they had it or they had a family member or a friend that had the treatment and it didn't work. So I'm here to tell you that HIFU is a science. It has to work. Because what it's doing in the skin is actually stimulating the subcutaneous tissue to make collagen for up to six months. Surgeons actually love this treatment because when they want to put someone through some surgery and that person has a very thin type of skin, it's very difficult for them to work with that. So when a person has HIFU, it can actually strengthen their skin and help them when they're doing their surgery. So HIFU is not something that you should just make a very uninformed decision about. Please understand what you're coming in for, understand the treatment and the aftercare because if you go away and you don't look after your skin and then you come back to us and tell us that it didn't work, It's literally your fault because having HIFU is like going to boot camp and then not looking after your skin after HIFU is like going to boot camp and then eating McDonald's. or eating junk food. You would never do that. You would go on to a very healthy diet. You would start looking after your food consumption in such a way that complements the exercise regime that you've just taken on so you can see some results. And HIFU is exactly the same. We've given you boot camp for your face. And now you need to go away and start doing the work because you have your face 24 seven. And so when we do a high food treatment in our salon, we really hold your hand and we walk you through the aftercare and really help you to understand what your part of the deal is. Because after we've done the treatment and delivered a beautiful treatment to you, we know that it's going to start working. And all you're doing is enhancing that with your daily care. Okay, so one of the things that I really want you to think about are the myths surrounding HIFU. And one of the biggest things that people are talking about is the fact that it doesn't work. And like I said before, it is a science, and so it has to work, but it'll all come down to the skill level of the technician. So if you go to someone who doesn't know what they're doing, they haven't done many HIFUs, they're probably still learning, they need to be honest enough to tell you that and the price needs to reflect that. For people like us who do HIFU day in and day out, and we have been for the last three to four years, We actually know what we're doing and we are highly skilled and highly trained and we understand the technology to be able to deliver you a treatment that actually sees results. We will take before and after photos. You will get an off the bed result, most likely, and you'll be able to see that on day one. Then we ask you to come back a month later. Why do we do this? Because we need to hold your hand through this process. If we just let you go and we never see you after that, you can easily say that it didn't work because you have nothing to reference to. You can't see the slow progression of collagen production in your skin over six months and you forget what you started with. I can promise you every single client that comes into us and comes back religiously when they see their after photos after one month, two months, three months, they can actually see the improvement because we've got their day one photo to compare it against. So that's very, very important that you start thinking about a monthly skincare treatment in salon treatment as to complement your high food treatment as well as your home care so you get the best results for yourself. So what do you need to watch out for in the marketing? In HIFU we are seeing a lot of operators that are quite frankly flogging really really low prices to entice you to come in. I call this the panickers, they're panicking because they spent a lot of money on their machines, on their equipment and they don't know how to run a business effectively and so they have this knee-jerk reaction and the first thing they do is slash prices to try to entice people to come in. When this marketing starts to work and people start coming through the door, they quickly realize that they can't make money because they've reduced the costings so much, that's when they start to cut corners. So please look out for this. They will cut corners. If you've in and out in 15, 20 minutes, you have not been delivered the full treatment. If you have someone delivering the treatment and you've hardly felt anything, that means they've turned their calibrations down and you're not getting the full energy output. These are just some things to look for. If you see ads that say to you things like our HIFU machine is the best on the market, it's 11D, it's 7D, it's 9D, I just have to laugh because we all know in the industry that this is a manufacturing code relating to the number of hand pieces. Because you see with HIFU, we can not only do the face, we can actually treat the body. So we can do like, you know, sagging skin under your arms. If people have lost weight around their tummies, around their thighs, we can actually tighten the skin in those areas using HIFU. But the machines that we need for that need to have different hand pieces to deal with different parts of the body. And so the manufacturers have used these words or this coding to recognize what machines are doing what, but the energy output is the same for every single machine. So if anybody tells you 7D is better than 4D or 11D is better than 9D, they are just lying to you. And all they're trying to do is make their machine sound better when this is just a lie. So I hope this is giving you a more informed, educated understanding around HIFU so you can make the right decision for your skin. come in for a skin consultation, find out if it's right for you. Most women we're finding that are in their 40s don't need one every six months, that they can get away with it once a year, and they can maintain their skin elasticity for longer. And we're finding women that are over 60 will probably need to come in every six months, but it will also depend on the current state of your skin. And every person is different. I mean, I've seen 60 year olds who look after their skin and have amazing, amazing quality. skin quality and so those kind of clients don't need as many sessions. So please do come in, look for a qualified therapist who is trained in HIFU and understands the technology and understands how to give you the best treatment. And also look for a salon that is going to hold your hand through the process. We will definitely leave the links below for our treatment. If you choose to come to see us, we are in Brisbane, but if you're outside of Brisbane and you're watching this, please look for people who have been doing this treatment for many, many months or even years, because then you're gonna get a much higher quality treatment. And as usual, if you've loved this podcast, please give us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts and on Spotify, and we'll see you on the next podcast. If you like this podcast and you love our content, please leave us a review. We are happy to give you a 10% discount. If you would like to come in to experience our salon, just comment podcast in the booking online. The links are below and I'll see you on the next podcast.