i’ve happily been bouncing between 90%-100% clarity for almost 2 years now and it feels like a true victory. i still follow the acne-safe lifestyle and get frequent treatments to take care of my skin. my pigmentation is nearly completely gone, but the textural scarring in my cheeks & between my brows is severe and keeps me from being truly happy with my skin. we often refer clients to medical spas for more invasive procedures once they are clear, so i went in to a local one see what they would recommend for my textural scarring. i was initially thinking microneedling would be the route for me, but after their examination, the venus viva was strongly suggested.

VENUS VIVA (vs micro-needling)

venus viva is a skin resurfacing treatment with significantly less downtime than the commonly used CO2 lasers. it works by pressing tiny pins into the skin while the handset simultaneously delivers heat, creating micro-wounds (and stimulating the skin's collagen-producing healing response). it is similar to the popular micro-needling, but the tool is ‘smart’ in that it can detect areas in the skin that need more attention as well as penetrate deeper than micro-needling.

THE PROCEDURE + HEALING

i did 2 rounds of venus viva, 5 weeks apart. my first round was at the end of march, and the second one at the beginning of may. the treatment itself is very quick (15 mins) and very painful. i applied their BLT numbing cream 30 mins prior - which appears to be acne-safe whereas most numbing creams don’t disclose ingredients - but it was still really painful. luckily, like i said, it was very quick. she was essentially pressing a tool into my skin that had 160 pins to puncture the surface and the nano-fractional radio frequency caused a strong (painful) zapping sensation. when i left, my skin looked & felt like it was extremely sunburnt. i was advised to not put anything on my skin for 24-hours and to stay out of the sun.. so i hid out at home. after 24 hours, i was back at work wearing makeup. and honestly, you couldn’t even tell that i had a procedure done! if you looked really closely, you could see a distinct pattern of tiny dots on my face, which were teeny-tiny scabs that felt like sandpaper. the redness was gone within a few days, and by day 5-6 i felt like my skin was completely healed. did my textural scars magically go away? no. did i see a difference? not in my scars, but overall, my skin appeared more supple and refined. when i went back for my second round, my esthetician assured me that since the healing starts from the inside-out, it can take 3 months for the full results to show, post-procedure. round two was a bit different. she focused the tool specifically on my scarred areas, rather than evenly dispersing, which i was very happy about. again, the healing was fast and painless.

RESULTS..?

it’s been about 3 months since my last treatment and to be totally honest - the results are underwhelming. i don't see a major improvement in the textural scars, especially the deeper ones. i think the mild ones are less noticeable, but overall i think to see a true difference i would need a few more (costly) rounds. each session was about $800, and i expected much more visible results to justify the cost, so my search for textural scarring rejuvenation will continue for now.. please do share any information you may have if you've gotten successful results from the venus viva, or any other textural scarring treatment! we'd love to hear :)