There have been significant advances in facial skin care and the use of lasers for the purpose of skin rejuvenation. What seems to be getting a lot of attention these days is Fraxel or fractional non-ablative skin type of skin resurfacing. That's a mouthful isn't it? Once those words are understood it is becomes quite clear. So let's start with fractional. What that means here is that only a portion or fraction of the skin in the treatment area is receiving the laser in very thin slice like beams. This method penetrates quite deeply and leaves microscopic areas untouched while simultaneously penetrating the skin in these slices. The next word, non-ablative, is best understood by understanding ablative of course. Ablative means to surgically remove, so here we're talking about no removal of tissue. Basically then this procedure uses microscopic laser beams to make multiple shallow slices into the skin. The purpose then is to damage the skin to stimulate a healing response and therefore promote collagen formation resulting in plumper skin and less wrinkles.



Another type of laser facial skin care, or skin resurfacing is laser ablative resurfacing. Since we know ablative means to remove, what this procedure does is essentially remove the top layers of the skin, thus injuring the skin, with the result being replacement of these top layers with new skin. This type of skin care treatment probably sounds painful, and make no mistake it is, plus recovery time can be lengthy.

The next type of laser skin resurfacing would be a method using a little of both of the previously mentioned methods. This is called fractional ablative where microscopic slices of the top layers of the skin are removed. This method is used to cause less of the skin to be damaged making it less painful and shorten recovery times.