Do Oxygen Facials Work? Results Exposed!

Although oxygen facial therapy is one of the newer anti-aging beauty treatments to hit the market, it has been rapidly growing in popularity due to the numerous celebrities who have had the treatment done.

Madonna and Gwyneth Paltrow for example, supposedly consider it to be one of their favorite skin care treatments, and even Kate Middleton, now the Duchess of Cambridge, reportedly underwent oxygen facial therapy for the Royal Wedding and we all know how beautiful she looked.

The basic idea behind this beauty treatment is to apply oxygen to the skin, sometimes with cosmeceutical skincare products, to rejuvenate its appearance and create a more radiant look.

It can be used on both men and women and promises to offer such benefits as firming up the skin, softening the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles, making expression lines less obvious and improving blood circulation to the skin to give your face more color to it.

For a non-invasive treatment these are quite some impressive benefits! But does having an oxygen facial actually work? Or is it just another fad beauty treatment that is going to quickly pass?

Why Apply Oxygen To The Face?

One of the major benefits of doing exercise is that it helps to oxygenate your body, which in turn, improves the health and appearance of your skin. Since the air you breathe is composed of 18% oxygen (O2), you also oxygenate your body with every breath you take.

Oxygen facials are designed to deliver oxygen to your skin in the form of a mist, mask, gel or facial cream, and work on the basis that if oxygen in the body is good for your skin, then applying oxygen to the surface of the skin is even better.

Some claim that if you want to remain looking young for as long as possible, then this type of treatment is necessary because oxygen levels in the facial tissues tend to naturally decline with age. So by helping to restore these O2 levels, you can help to improve the health of your skin and delay the signs of aging.

Most oxygen facial therapy treatments also use some kind of anti-aging serum when treating your face, as it is believed that oxygen can be used as a delivery mechanism to enhance the absorption of ingredients which are beneficial to the skin. In addition, oxygen itself can also be used to kill bacteria, and so it can be useful for helping to give the skin a clearer looking complexion or for treating skin disorders such as acne.

How Does An Oxygen Facial Work?

An oxygen facial is usually carried out with a small pen like device called an airbrush. When placed on the face the airbrush blasts pure oxygen, also known as hyperbaric oxygen, at high pressure into the epidermis.

If you choose to pay extra for your treatment, then the airbrush can also contain a variety of anti-aging ingredients such as vitamins, antioxidants, nutrient extracts, botanicals, minerals and moisturizers which will then be blasted into your skin along with the oxygen.

At high pressure, this anti-aging serum can reach deeper into the epidermis, where it can then be absorbed more effectively and produce greater beneficial effects. This is perhaps one of the biggest advantages of oxygen facials, as most skin care ingredients found in commercial beauty products are made up of molecules that are too large to pass into the deeper layers of the skin.

Hyaluronic acid and collagen for example, are commonly found in anti-aging skin creams. But if you know anything about these two ingredients, then you will also know that their molecular size prevents them from passing into the skin when applied topically.

So even though these ingredients may help to sell products, they offer little, if any, real beneficial effects. However, if ingredients such as hyaluronic acid are applied via high pressure into the skin with oxygen, then they can pass deeper into the epidermal layer and so stand a much better chance of actually doing something useful.

What Does The Treatment Feel Like?

Most people describe an oxygen facial as feeling like someone using a mini pressure washer to spray a cool liquid on their face. Being a non-surgical and non-invasive beauty treatment, it isn’t painful, but you will normally have to undergo a 10-20 minute microdermabrasion treatment first before you have your facial done.

This can be a little bit uncomfortable, but it is necessary to remove dead skin cells and to cleanse your skin and pores so that oxygen and your anti-aging serum can then be later applied more effectively.

Results

After your facial has been completed, which can take anywhere from 30-60 minutes, your face will feel very smooth, hydrated and plump, especially if you have opted to have ingredients such as hyaluronic acid in your serum.

The plumpness of your skin will also help to fade out the visibility of fine lines, wrinkles and expression lines, producing a similar, but to a lesser extent, effect that you would get from having Botox but without the side effect of an expressionless face. In addition, you should also notice an improved color and glowing radiance to your face, with a clearer complexion due to increased blood circulation and higher tissue oxygenation levels.

Unlike most beauty treatments, you can apply makeup almost immediately after your treatment is over. This is why some celebrities reportedly like to have an oxygen facial at a health spa resort before filming a movie, as it makes their face look at its absolute best.

Despite all these benefits however, the initial results from an oxygen facial don’t last for very long. Normally, the results from your first treatment sessions will last for about 2-3 days, and a full course of treatment involves having one oxygen facial session per week for 6 weeks.

After this period, results will last for around 2-3 months, although most beauty therapists will recommend having a once monthly maintenance treatment for best results.

Do Oxygen Facial Treatments Really Work?

There has been a lot of debate over whether oxygen facial treatments really work, or more specifically, how they work. The results of an oxygen facial are real, as they do produce a noticeable improvement in the appearance of facial skin.

In fact, Madonna is supposed to have been so impressed with the results that she was getting, that she decided to buy her own oxygen facial machine! Lots of other celebrities also have oxygen facials for the same reason, it works and helps them to look their best for when they are in the public eye.

However, as to whether or not the effects that people experience are due to oxygen being absorbed into the skin is debatable, and there isn’t actually any scientific research to prove that this is the case.

Instead, it has been proposed that the plumping effect of the skin is actually caused by a mild inflammation of the skin in response to the high pressure oxygen being blasted at it. This would be similar to how your skin might swell if you were stung by something, like a stinging nettle.

If the effects are due to inflammation, then this could actually be harmful to the skin in the long run, as inflammation is known to be one of the major causes of aging and disease.

Furthermore, pumping oxygen into the skin might not be a good thing either, as it may result in the production of free radicals which could further contribute towards premature aging. However, this will be less of a concern if your serum contains antioxidants such as vitamin E, vitamin C and other ingredients such as green tea extract which are known to protect against free radical damage.

Finally, it is possible to increase the oxygen levels of your skin naturally and for free by doing aerobic exercises. This will increase blood circulation throughout the whole of the body, and so increase the oxygenation levels of all the cells in your body and not just those in your face.

Now that you know a bit more about oxygen facial therapy, how it works and what sort of results that you can expect, it’s up to you to decide whether or not you think that it is a beauty treatment worth having. To help you make up your mind, below we provide a summary of the main benefits and some disadvantages that come from oxygen facial therapy treatments.

Benefits

• Noticeably improves the appearance of your face.

• Reduce redness and skin irritation.

• Kills bacteria that cause spots.

• Kills acne bacteria.

• Soothe skin irritated by microdermabrasion, laser and acid peels.

• Boost collagen and elastin synthesis and formation.

• Help to increase oxygen and moisture levels in the skin.

• Increases skin plumpness and smoothness.

• Fades fine lines, wrinkles and expression lines.

• Can deliver skincare cosmeceuticals deeper into the skin.

• Increases moisture levels of skin.

Disadvantages

• Little independent research has been done to back up the effectiveness of oxygen facial products or treatments.

• Oxygen facials are not suited for people with sensitive skin as it can cause irritation and inflammation.

• If oxygen is applied as a mist in combination with hydrogen peroxide cream, it can increase the amount of free radicals on the skin which can accelerate aging.

• Some dermatologists warn that too much oxygen is actually bad for the skin and can do more harm than good.

• Results from the first few treatments don’t last very long.

• Can be very expensive at $150 to $300 per treatment session.