No Difference. Did Not Work

Hit the big 40 and getting jowels and a little double chin. Thought Accent would help but it made NO difference at all.

Quite a lot of time and money wasted. 6 trips to the doctor at intervals of 2 weeks. Not ultra painful but a bit sore - the hotter it feels the more it is supposedly melting the fat. My treatments were for the jowels, jaw line and under chin. I am slim and my skin is in reasonably good shape. But this area - heredity, I guess - was ageing faster than the rest of me and bothered me.

The doctor assured me it "always works".  First comes about 25 minutes of the the very hot fat melting roller. Up and down many times over the areas to be treated.  Like I said not outright painful, but it needs to be hot to work so it was certainly uncomfortable. Baby oil applied first so that the roller head glides smoothly.

Then comes about 10 minutes of the "collagen tightening" head. This is more comfortable - still lots of movement over the face.

In principal Accent is a brilliant idea. Unlike TITAN or Thermage which only claim to tighten by building more collagen, Accent has two modes, one of which is supposed to melt fat (!) and the other which is the tightening bit.  In practice, for me, it was simply not strong enough and made no difference. I  don't mean that I have a huge double chin - but that it was not effective.

The clinic was over an hour's drive away and I could not drive myself so always had to arrange for someone to take me. Plus the time out from other activities/life. Plus, of course, the substantial cost. I mean, for $1500 I could have nice holiday in the carribean.

When I  told the doctor there  was  no change, she said  to wait longer. I understand that both the fat melting and the  collagen stimulation take  time and to allow up to 4 months to see full effect.  Well, even  after four months there was NO EFFECT AT ALL. In fact, simply with the passage of time -  it is now 8 months since the first treatment - my face has aged further.

Disheartening. Cross-making.

My first foray in to the world of cosmetic procedures (I am a  filler and botox virgin) and I'm rather returning to my previous view that most of these things are a bit of rip-off. I mean, when I go to buy a television I expect to come home with a television. If I find that the box  is empty the shop will certainly compensate me and either refund the money or deliver an actual television.

How can it be you pay $1500, make six long trips, follow all the instructions and get precisely NOTHING. Don't the company - Alma lasers market Accent - or the doctor's clinic kind of have an obligation to provide you with a real thing?  Can they just take your money and say we guarantee to run a hot roller head over your face for several minutes, but other than that we guarantee nothing?

I have no idea whether there exists real data on how effective Accent really is for the face? Maybe this one doctor knows that only 1 in 3 of her clients has real success. But what does she care really? I don't mean that  she is a scam-monkey, but in the end the whole cosmetics industry trades on maybes and sort-ofs and empty promises.

As I say, makes me wary of the whole deal. I reckon face lifts do really work - but they're a huge drama. And retin-a really works. And beyond that there is a lot of hot air mixed in with half truth. I think I rather want to take matters in to my own hands. There are some excellent web sites that sell simple, inexpensive active cosmetic  ingredients  - e.g. idebenone (prevage), sea kelp bioferment (creme de la mer), retin-a serum and more. I  will  buy a good, cheap base cream and add these miracle  cures to it. For under $30 I will have an outstanding face cream.

That may not be enough, but there are also at  home  glycolic acid peels which I find powerful and excellent. And they cost less than $30 for a course of 30 - which lasts me several years.  And I have started some the great facial exercise programmes. Am seeing some signs of change.

Ultimately, these all combined, may not show dramatic results. But I will have saved thousands of  dollars and I reckon they are still more effective (and risk free) than many of the expensive and invasive alterantive. If the latter worked, I'd be  prepared to pay. But Accent is, frankly, just not a  real thing at all .

Good luck to you all.