26 Jul AquaGold Described as “All Over Botox”
AquaGold is nothing like Botox, but The Daily Mirror sat down with one recent AquaGold user who described the outcome as just that. AquaGold is a form of microneedling available at RefinedMD, and it’s a treatment that Kate Spicer swears by as the go-to “tweakment.” She dubs it the “all-over Botox that won’t freeze your face.” It’s a zero-downtime hybrid treatment that keeps going viral (like when Kim Kardashian famously said she had it done right before the Met Gala). As for Spicer, at 50 years old she was looking for something more natural to achieve a youthful glow. Three years ago she stopped using Botox, but is well aware she’s in an era of her life where her friends—both women and men—“are having the odd tweak or ten.” She surprised herself when she stuck to her self-imposed Botox ban, but then couldn’t resist when she heard about AquaGold.
AquaGold combines the power of microneedling with ingredients that are delivered deep below the skin’s surface. Although the pins are tiny, they can make space for many things, but two of the most popular options are Botox and fillers. As you can imagine, especially if you’ve had microneedling before, getting microneedled with Botox or fillers is very different than “getting Botox” or “getting fillers.” The ingredients are much more spread out and not targeting key muscles of spaces. AquaGold uses a handheld device with 20 pins, each a unique vial, and all equipped to deliver your chosen ingredient evenly across the treatment site.
The Gold Standard
AquaGold is also called a medical facial device, originally designed to deliver minute amounts of Botox to the intra-dermal skin layers. When Spicer first heard about it, she wasn’t sure if she should give it a try. She stopped Botox because, for her, she believed it was giving her a false idea about what she really looked like. Still, she admits that “when used expertly, injecting the botulinum toxin into the face can lift and tighten it, removing not only wrinkles but that kind of world-weary sag that time gives a person.” She gets that Botox can balance the face, creating contours and sculpting that isn’t achievable otherwise.
“Getting old is hard,” she says. Facing your wrinkles and sags can be a challenge. Since she split with her boyfriend and was re-introduced to just how invisible women can feel as they age, Spicer wanted to feel confident in her skin again. That’s what brought her to AquaGold—a combination of microneedling for collagen induction (that works from the inside out) and her trusty Botox (but in a new way). “Yes, AquaGold really is different to conventional Botox,” she says. It’s not exactly a needle that’s delivering the neuromodulator, but a hair-thin pin plated in 24k gold.
The “New” Botox
Just like with regular microneedling, the pins are so small that they don’t actually hurt. Instead, it feels more like exfoliation. You can even get AquaGold right up to the area around the eyes, which isn’t possible with some more traditional microneedling options. It can feel ticklish in some places, but according to Spicer definitely isn’t painful. The pins are called “micro-channel technology” and they don’t technically inject Botox or fillers, but rather let the serum in nearby vials flow down and around them—and right into the punctured skin.
Although Botox and fillers are two of the most common ingredients to have flowing during AquaGold, there are many other options such as medical-grade skin care products. During your consultation or right before your appointment, your provider will talk to you about your skin health, conditions, and goals. You’ll work together to choose the ingredients, which means every AquaGold appointment can be customized just for you. The pins go 0.6 mm into the skin, which is a sliver of what is required for traditional Botox injections. This shallow insertion is known as “MesoBotox.”
AquaGold is typically performed once every 6 – 12 months. Are you ready to try it out for yourself? Contact RefinedMD by calling the office or, for the quickest response, fill out the contact form right now.