Thank you for your question.
You submitted a photo and you're asking if the Vampire Facial is safe for black skin.
Well, I think that I can certainly help you with this.
I'm a Board-certified cosmetic surgeon and Fellowship-trained oculofacial plastic surgeon.
Treatment of ethnic skin has been a very significant part of my practice—I wrote articles years
ago on ethnic considerations in eyelid surgery, and so I can certainly give you perspective
on this.
I have been a member of the Vampire Facelift network for many years now and I have been
pretty prominent in that respect when media has come to me regarding this treatment.
So let's start by defining the difference between the Vampire Facelift and the Vampire
Facial.
This has been a source of a lot of confusion so I just want to clear the definitions first.
Vampire Facelift is the use of combination of one syringe of hyaluronic acid filler,
such as Restylane and Juvederm, placed strategically to help accentuate certain parts the face,
such as the outer part of the brow, the cheek bone, and the outer corner of the mouth.
Now that is done in combination with platelet-rich plasma which is derived from your own blood
and has this remarkable characteristic of being able to stimulate collagen and stimulate
blood supply.
It's basically doing what it does naturally whenever you get a cut, which results in a
little scab and creates was called the wound-healing response and that requires restoring the integrity
of the area of tissue that is traumatized.
So it means building collagen and stimulating blood supply.
So when a patient has this treatment they love the combination of the immediacy of the
volume correction with the global improvement in skin quality, in particular the skin glow
that comes from the benefit of the PRP.
So it's really a great combination.
Now, a couple of years after the development of the Vampire Facelift, the application of
PRP with a device called a micro-needling device became coined the Vampire Facial.
And this is based on the idea that you can take a micro-needling device, which is based
on the same technology that derma rollers are, which is to create little tiny openings
in the skin and then to use platelet-rich plasma to basically apply over this area and
get the skin rejuvenation result.
So when you ask if it's safe for darker skin and you expressed in your question concerns
about hyper and hypo pigmentation, I would say first ask yourself what do you want to
achieve and if we're dealing with some surface irregularities and some small areas of pigmentation,
you may not want to take that risk because darker skin, and it's not just black skin,
but anybody with significant melanin, I would say anyone with olive skin or darker, is always
at risk for hyper or hypo pigmentation.
There has to be a justification for the use of a device that disrupts integrity the skin.
In my practice, for most of my patients, and a lot of patients with darker skin, what we
do is we do the Vampire Facelift or we just do PRP injection under the skin.
We have many patients who have all kinds of issues with pigmentation and interestingly,
because they're not good candidates for laser, we actually use PRP and we have found that
it helps areas of hyperpigmentation resulting from sun damage, from chronic sun exposure
from the past.
So if that's what you're looking for, then you're probably better off getting PRP injection
with or without the Vampire name, but I would caution you, because you are at risk of hyper
or hypo pigmentation, if I'm going to consider doing the Vampire Facial or do a combination
of micro-needling with the PRP treatment, I do test areas.
I test a small area that's a little bit away from the center of the face if I can do it
and see what how the skin responds.
Plus, with micro-needling is various depth and that is customized based on the type of
issue that we're dealing with.
So again, if it’s a global complexion and improvement, I say PRP injections on the skin
is ideal.
If it is something more specific then it requires, I would say, some testing before moving forward
with the treatment.
So I hope that was helpful I wish the best of luck thank you question.