Part of a proactive beauty routine is enlisting professional help in your skincare routine. Two OrangeTwist offerings using light and laser to correct imperfections include Clear + Brilliant, a non-surgical gentle laser treatment, and Forever Young BBL, a non-invasive broad-band light delivered in pulses to the skin.

Forever Young BBL

Forever Young BBL is appropriate for most everyone and is especially effective for those with sun damage, redness, and discoloration on the face, neck , nd chest, as well as the shoulders, arms, and legs. It also treats vascular lesions such as cherry hemangiomas, those little-broken vessels on the face. BBL uses scattered, pulsating light that gently heats the upper layers of the skin, destroying fine vessels that cause redness, unwanted spots, and pigmentation. The healthy cells then regenerate without the imperfections.

To get ready for treatment, stay out of the sun in the days leading up to your appointment—the closer you are to your skin’s natural coloring, the better results you will get. Count on two Forever Young treatments per year for optimal results, and be sure to pair with SkinCeuticals such as ZO Skin Health serums and moisturizers, which are full of antioxidants, as well as medical-grade sunscreen, such as Alastin’s HydraTint Pro Mineral Broad Spectrum Sunscreen SPF 36.

Clear + Brilliant

Cece Gutierrez, RN, BSN, is an aesthetic nurse at the South Bay OrangeTwist location and an expert on Clear + Brilliant. She says it’s good for all skin types—especially for people who are looking to build collagen; improve texture; minimize the appearance of lines, pores, and wrinkles and lessen sun damage. Unlike the BBL light, the Clear + Brilliant laser delivers energy in a narrow beam. It works on the face, hands, arms, shoulders and anywhere else you see extensive sun damage.

“It also has that microscopic puncturing of the outer layer of skin that opens up the skin a little bit,” Gutierrez says. That helps build collagen as the skin repairs itself.

To get ready for treatment, Gutierrez says those with bumpy skin and uneven texture should prep by using retinol and hydroquinone—but not within a few days of the appointment. On the day of the treatment, your technician will numb the area first, but you still may feel the roller going over your skin, as well as a slight heat sensation toward the end of the procedure. The whole treatment lasts about 40 minutes.

Afterward, avoid the sun and wear a good sunscreen. “The skin’s going to be red, so kind of like a sunburn feel—you’re in the healing process.” She recommends gentle cleansers and soothing agents, such as the Alastin Regenerating Skin Nectar, which also offers a protective barrier for the skin. You also don’t want to go swimming for at least a week and avoid most makeup for a few days so that the skin has a chance to heal.

The other plus about Clear + Brilliant is that there’s not a lot of downtime for recovery. “You can go to work that same day and you’ll just be a little pink. And you’ll just feel a little hot, and that subsides. Then the next day doesn’t even hurt—you’re just a little red. Like a mild sunburn feel,” Gutierrez says.

To maintain the gorgeous glow, schedule treatments every four to six weeks, because the skin cells take about 30 days to regenerate.

“A lot of my clients have told me that they love the treatment. They notice the elasticity in their skin,” Gutierrez says.