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SkinPen, RF microneedling and resurfacing are three different appointments
Microneedling, RF microneedling and laser resurfacing get talked about as one category and booked as one another's substitutes. They are three appointments with three recovery calendars and three prices, and the difference is visible before anyone walks in.
Three appointments get talked about as one thing. Microneedling, radiofrequency microneedling and laser resurfacing get grouped together on every med spa menu in Boca, mine included, and they get booked as substitutes for one another.
They are not substitutes. They are three appointments with three recovery calendars and three prices, and the difference is decidable before anybody walks in.
What is the difference between microneedling and RF microneedling?
One is needles. The other is needles delivering radiofrequency energy, and the consent forms are not the same length for a reason.
SkinPen is a sterile, controlled needling appointment at a depth chosen for the area. Topical numbing beforehand, redness for a day or two afterward for most people, and generally a series of three sessions about four weeks apart rather than one visit. The add-ons, VAMP or PRP, are chosen on the day rather than sold as a bundle.
The RF appointment is screened differently. The contraindication list is longer, the consent is longer, and it names categories of harm reported to the FDA in this device category: burns, scarring, fat loss, disfigurement, nerve damage, that do not apply to needling on its own. Morpheus8 Burst is quoted for the neck on its own, and the face moves with how much of it is being treated. QuantumRF is the most expensive thing I offer, quoted per area at the consultation.
What I will not do here is tell anybody what either device does to tissue. QuantumRF is cleared under K240780 and K251254 for "coagulation/contraction of soft tissue or hemostasis," and the phrases that appear in most advertising for this class of device do not appear in that clearance. The assessment, the appointment and the calendar are mine to describe. The rest is not.
Where does resurfacing sit?
Erbium YAG is a different category again: a resurfacing appointment rather than a needling one, generally a single visit rather than a series, quoted for the face or for face and neck.
It carries the longest visible recovery of the three, generally about a week to ten days, and the strictest sun avoidance after it. That makes it the one most sensitive to the month it is booked in. In this county that generally means it is a late-summer decision or a January one, and almost never an April one.
How is the choice actually made?
By the calendar first and the skin second, in that order, which is the opposite of how it is usually asked about.
The recovery window is the first filter rather than the last. What the next eight weeks contain (travel, an event, a stretch of sun) rules out one or two of the three before anything else is discussed. Then skin type and history. Then what has already been done and when. Only then which appointment, and by that point the list is usually down to one, or to none until October.
Somebody with a wedding in five weeks is not having any of the three, and saying that in the first ten minutes is more useful than saying it after a deposit.
What the three cost
- SkinPen, with VAMP or PRP as add-ons chosen on the day. Generally three sessions about four weeks apart.
- Morpheus8 Burst, neck quoted on its own, face by how much is treated.
- QuantumRF, quoted per area.
- Erbium YAG, face or face and neck together.
All of those are quoted the same fixed way, which is the point. I carry all three, so there is no version of this conversation in which I need somebody to pick the most expensive one.
Which one gets declined most often?
RF, and usually because of how the request arrives rather than anything about the person. When somebody books a device by name after reading about it, and the description of what they want to be different does not match what that appointment involves, the booking gets changed. Sometimes to SkinPen. Sometimes to nothing this month.
The other regular redirects:
- Anyone whose actual concern is pigment left by years of sun. That is generally an IPL conversation in October rather than a device conversation now.
- Anyone with an implanted electronic device. For RF that is a decline rather than a delay.
- Anyone with an event inside about six weeks, for any of the three.
- A current tan, for any of the three. That is the most common reason an appointment moves in the summer.
- Anyone whose real question is about volume rather than surface. That is a different appointment on a different page, and sometimes the answer there is also no.
How much calendar does each one take?
SkinPen takes roughly three months of intermittent short recoveries. The RF appointment takes a longer single recovery and a longer screening before it. Erbium takes the most concentrated stretch of the three and the most sun discipline afterward. None of that is about which is more powerful. It is about which one fits, and what it fits into is a real calendar with real travel in it. More detail on the categories sits on the skin page, and how I work through the decision is on how I decide.
The useful question is not which of the three names carries the most weight online. It is which recovery calendar fits the next eight weeks, and which one somebody would still choose if all three cost the same. Asked in that order the choice usually makes itself, and it is frequently the simplest one.
Questions people ask about this
Is RF microneedling just microneedling with something added?
They are booked, screened and consented differently, and they are quoted separately at the consultation, because they are different appointments with different screening. The screening for the RF appointment is longer and the contraindication list is longer, which is the practical difference before anything else.
How is the right one chosen?
At the consultation, and generally in the order of calendar first, skin type second, history third. In a fair number of cases the answer is none of the three this month, which is a real answer rather than a way of deferring.
Can two of them be done close together?
Generally not, and not to fit a date. Each has its own recovery window, and stacking them inside a few weeks is how a plan that was reasonable becomes one that is not.
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Counting backwards from October: how a laser course gets scheduled in a Boca summer
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