When it comes to revitalizing our skin after years of committing various beauty sins—most notably, laying poolside sans sunblock for years—there are just a few treatments that experts agree indisputably work to tackle sun damage, wrinkles, and more. That said, one of our favorite results-driven treatments, lasers, also happens to be one of the more controversial ones.
For years, lasers have been associated with a lengthy downtime and a limited potential patient base (many lasers aren’t recommended for people with darker skin tones!). But now, there’s a laser that was created with inclusivity and comfortability in mind. Enter: Moxi.
Moxi, which is under the parent company of Sciton, is coined as a “gentle-yet-powerful fractionated laser,” by the brand. “Moxi laser treatments are capable of improving many concerns patients might have with the appearance of their skin, from pigment irregularities to texture issues, and even some fine lines,” says Orlando, FL plastic surgeon Armando Soto, MD.
While Moxi’s ability to treat a variety of skin issues at once is enough to convince us to book an appointment ASAP, there are plenty of other reasons to love this treatment, too. Below, Dr. Soto reveals all the reasons he recommends this treatment for all his patients.
1. The treatment itself only takes 15 minutes at most.
Depending on your goals and skin type, Moxi treatments typically take between eight and 12 minutes. “One of the best things about the Moxi is that the treatments are generally very quick, both to perform and to recover from,” says Dr. Soto. “I can treat the face and neck in about 15 minutes!”
For the actual appointment, Dr. Soto usually has his patients arrive 30 minutes early to complete paperwork, photography, and to apply the numbing cream (for deeper treatments only—most people don’t need numbing cream). The skin is then cleansed and the treatment is performed using settings tailored to the patient’s needs and goals. “During the treatment, our patients report feeling a sensation of minor, prickly warmth which has been very well tolerated by all,” says Dr. Soto. “A light application of cooling gel helps speed healing and minimizes uncontrolled responses to the heat produced by the laser.”
2. Results are visible as early as a week post-treatment.
“Most of my patients have seen benefits as early as one to two weeks post-procedure, with the improvement increasing over the next month or so,” says Dr. Soto. “The number of treatments required will depend on my patients’ goals and concerns.” For example, younger patients wanting a refreshed appearance may only need one treatment, while patients with darker skin tones who are suffering from melasma may require a series of three to six treatments.
3. There’s no significant downtime.
While many lasers have a lengthy recovery period, that’s not the case with Moxi. “Downtime is very short,” says Dr. Soto. “Even with more aggressive treatments, patients are back in makeup and their routine skin care within three days.”
4. It can even help with hard-to-treat skin issues like melasma.
Melasma is notoriously hard to treat, which is why experts get excited whenever a treatment comes along that’s actually effective on melasma patients. “These are some of the patients I have found most gratifying to treat,” says Dr. Soto. “When combined with a thoughtful medical skin-care program, we have achieved excellent suppression of melasma in even very dark-skinned patients.”
5. It’s safe on all skin tones and skin types.
In the past, those with melanin-rich skin often had to be super careful when choosing the laser they could use, otherwise they risked burns, damage or hyperpigmentation. However, with Moxi, this isn’t an issue.
The reason? Well, in order to understand why this works well for everyone, it’s important to know why lasers can be damaging on darker skin tones in the first place. According to Dr. Soto, the light energy produced by lasers can be very stimulating to melanocytes, the cells that produce pigment or color in our skin, causing them to potentially overproduce. The risks of laser treatments are then dependent on our ability to control this absorption in a targeted area without excessive absorption in surrounding tissue.
“So, the more melanin a patient has in their skin, the greater the risks associated with most laser treatments,” explains Dr. Soto. Since the Moxi laserhas three different modes of treating, it allows the doctor to create a customized treatment for each patient. “The Moxi laser allows for safe treatment of skin types that I never would have previously considered as candidates for a laser using any tool we had before,” confirms Dr. Soto.
