Body Sculpting Explained
Body Sculpting
Body sculpting treatments are non-invasive. Ever wish you could fix the “trouble spots” on your face and body, those areas where the skin seems to sag or the fat to settle (and that no serum or diet and exercise routine can touch)? You don’t want surgery. You’d just like a magic wand, please.
As impossible as it sounds, there really is a device that can do just that—reduce tissue volume and tighten skin to sculpt your face and body, without surgery (or even discomfort). Meet the Venus Legacy, which uses a patented combination of pulsed magnetic and multi-polar radio frequency energy waves to reduce fat deposits, tighten lax skin and stimulate collagen in a process that delivers both immediate and long-lasting results.
When applied to the skin, the Legacy’s energy waves heat the tissue and perform a few different tasks, depending on their frequency: those that hit the fat cells create a thermal reaction that forces the free fatty acids to leave the cells, thus reducing their volume and giving you skinnier arms (or legs) and a smoother, more contoured shape. Others waves hit the collagen fibers, causing them to immediately contract and tighten the skin.
At the same time, the increased temperature stimulates the body’s natural healing response, which creates smoother, more youthful skin over the long term. On your face, the Legacy can tighten lax skin around the cheekbones, soften laugh lines and wrinkles around the mouth, reduce “jowly” volume and tighten skin along the jawline, and reduce fluid-filled “bags” and fine lines around the eyes. On your body, the Venus can reduce tissue volume and contour fat pockets on the upper arms and back (to battle the dreaded “bra bulge”), contour and tighten your abdomen and reduce cellulite on your legs and buttocks. It’s also great for improving the appearance of stretch marks, wherever they might be.
The Legacy system is not a weightloss method: It’s not designed to help you shed pounds or be a substitute for a healthy eating and exercise strategy. Likewise, a series of Venus facial treatments isn’t a stand-in for a facelift. The Venus Legacy is best suited for someone who’s basically happy in the skin she (or he) is in but wants to make a few tweaks to areas that have gotten a little droopy (or flabby) over the years.
The Legacy is light-years ahead of the other options for body sculpting—including the Velashape and CoolSculpting devices—for a few reasons:
• It addresses both skin laxity and fat deposits. The other treatments treat only one or the other.
• It’s safe and effective for almost any area of the body, including the upper arms and the face and neck.
• It’s painless (really). The Velashape device can get uncomfortably hot (unbelievably quickly), which can make treatments decidedly unpleasant. In a CoolSculpting session, a section of skin is pulled into a cup-like device, then held there for a full hour while it’s chilled to about 41 degrees F. In contrast, the Legacy machine delivers a very mild heating and kneading action (many patients have compared a treatment to a hot stone massage).
• It’s quick. A Legacy treatment typically lasts between 30 and 40 minutes and can easily be done over a lunch break.
There’s also no need for painkillers, numbing creams or other agents, and there’s zero down time. A typical Legacy treatment will cost about $400 per area (that might be the face, the neck, the abdomen or buttocks, for example). Most experts recommend a series of eight to 10 treatments, spaced about a week apart. Be sure to ask about specials and package deals, which can save you hundreds of dollars on body sculpting packages.