Instant miracles and “amazing cellulite transformations” do not exist, no matter how expensive the treatment - don’t be naive

• Can you get rid of your cellulite / tighten up your skin in 1-4 monthly sessions?

• Even billions in your bank account cannot change the laws of biology: getting rid of cellulite in one session is still impossible

• The idea of an one-off cellulite reduction is particularly dump

• 95% of ‘before and after pictures’ are fake - do not fall for them

• Miracle claims: everybody does it, from newbie beauticians to top surgeons

• A new miracle treatment every two years

• Pink unicorns and delusions

• Modesty and responsibility

• This year’s hype

• Radiofrequency microneedling with up to 7mm long needles…

• High-intensity HIFU to tighten the skin in 1-4 sessions? Good luck with that…

• Non-surgical vaginal tightening with laser / radio frequency

• These are the most hyped up miracle body transformation procedures at the moment

• So what’s the best SAFE skin tightening / cellulite procedures available today?

Can you get rid of your cellulite / tighten up your skin in 1-4 monthly sessions?

There is a lot of misinformation on cellulite, skin tightening and non-surgical butt lifting, due to a mix of urban myth and lots of marketing hype.

And there are many things that you should not waste time doing when it comes to cellulite removal, bum lifting or skin tightening.

In fact it is not a coincidence that we devote as many articles on what works for cellulite and skin tightening, as we do on what doesn’t on our “How to get rid of cellulite” guide.

But for goodness’ sake, the one thing you should definitely NOT do is believe those impossible types on Instagram and Harley Street clinics who promise you an “amazing body transformation” (be it cellulite elimination / non-surgical butt lifting / instant skin tightening) in one to four monthly sessions, sometimes at £750-£3,000 per SMALL body area.

• First off, 1-4 sessions are simply too few to effect any real change in the body. The body needs repeated stimulation to change.

• Secondly, the monthly sessions are too far apart to effect any real change in the body. The body needs frequent stimulation to change.

Both the “only 1-4 sessions needed” and the “monthly sessions” notions suit the practitioners who sell those treatments, because:

• they can charge anything they want per session, since “you only need one” (or “two”, or “three” or “four max”), typically anything between £750-£3,000 per (usually small) area

• monthly sessions are easier to schedule if you live away from London / if you are you busy / if you cannot afford more frequent treatments, which sounds convenient but it’s clinically useless

Good for business and profitability with the clinic/salon, bad for results with customers.

Even billions in your bank account cannot change the laws of biology: getting rid of cellulite in one session is still impossible

Especially the “get rid of your cellulite / lift your bum / tighten up your skin” in ONE (usually very expensive) session claims are totally unforgivable.

These claims are aimed at the completely naive or the completely rich - or both. And many completely naive rich people fall for it.

However, no matter how many tens of millions or even billions one has in the bank and how much money one throws at biology, biology’s laws won’t change. The human body needs REPEATED and FREQUENT stimulation, as well as TIME to change.

Even liposuction, an one-session fat reduction procedure, needs 6-12 months to show its full results. And usually it’s quite imperfect, with second and third correction procedures often needed. And liposuction is not permanent either, as fat regrows on the same area, if one eats too much again.

(Of course liposuction does nothing for cellulite - it only removes deep fat. And cellulite surgery is not great either, as it causes more problems than it solves, including scar tissue and skin laxity. But that’s material for another article.)

Moreover, the body has its limits, both safety-wise and response to treatment-wise.

So if you push the body’s limits with a super-expensive, super-painful, yet super-lucrative-for-the-clinic one-session “miracle” treatment, you will just cause injury - not better results.

The idea of an one-off cellulite reduction is particularly dump

• Time

• Repeated treatment

• Frequent treatment

• Operating within the body’s safety limits

All four are essential for a SAFE and EFFECTIVE cellulite / skin tightening treatment and no amount of money or marketing BS by famous surgeons can change those facts.

Based on the above, it becomes evident that the idea of an one-off cellulite reduction is particularly dump.

And reality confirms that such treatments do not exist in real life - only in the alternative reality of marketing blurb and instagram.

95% of ‘before and after pictures’ are fake - do not fall for them

Even the practitioners who sell those 1-4 session miracles know that such “transformations” are a lie, hence their shameless use of intentionally fake “before and after” photos to justify the exorbitant cost of their ridiculous “transformational” treatments.

Don’t become a victim.

Sometimes the more ignorant the practitioner and the more low-spec their equipment is, the more fake the “before and after pictures” and the more outrageous the claims are. And the more people fall for it.

Miracle claims: everybody does it, from newbie beauticians to top surgeons

Of course, this is not the first year such claims have been made.

I have specialised for more than 20 years in cellulite and skin tightening and I have seen these outrageous claims being made year, after year, after year, after year.

These claims are made by anyone, from famous Harley Street cosmetic doctors (oh yes, they do it more than anybody else) to small-time beauty therapy newbies who think they have just discovered the wheel and promise amazing transformations with “XYZ, the latest miracle treatment that will banish your cellulite forever / keep your skin tight forever / give you a “bubble butt” forever, in 1-4 monthly sessions”.

Especially the “bubble-butt in 1-4 sessions” claim is very successful, as it appeals to a younger crowd, which is by definition more easily convinced and with less money. A “bubble butt” in a couple of - more easily budgeted - monthly sessions sounds amazing to them, much to the benefit of the purveyors of miracles.

Of course, just like Santa, non-surgical “bubble butt” RF/ultrasound/HIFU/etc treatments do not exist, let alone in a couple of sessions.

One must be really naive to believe those claims.

It beggars belief…

A new miracle treatment every two years

There is always a new miracle treatment to fill the pages of tabloid newspapers and the feeds of shallow instagram accounts, with scores of paid A-list to Z-list celebrities “swearing by it”.

These miracles are usually forgotten a couple of years later, after everyone realises that they were not miraculous after all, only to be replaced by the newest, latest, more ridiculous fad.

The gist of the story is simple: if there was such an easy solution, nobody with a few thousand £££ / $$$ to burn in their pocket, and three-four hours spare to visit a clinic, would have cellulite. And everyone and their dog would know about that amazing miracle, including billionaires like Kim Kardashian.

If KK with $1 billion in her bank account cannot find an “amazing body transformation” to fix her cellulite, what makes one think that they alone have discovered the amazing secret at some Harley Street clinic for £3,000 a pop?

If there was such an amazing miracle machine, we would have already bought it at our clinic a very long time ago. I personally know all the manufacturers, distributors and machines in our industry inside-out, and believe me, such a machine/treatment/four-session-miracle does NOT exist (let alone the ridiculous one-session-miracles).

Pink unicorns and delusions

And indeed, if such a machine existed we, at our clinic, would also charge £750-£3,000 a pop at the clinic, instead of £300-400 per (large) area that we charge now. The difference in actual profit margin for using such an amazing miracle machine can reach up to 1,500%.

Who doesn’t want to make 15 times more money per hour and at the same time provide a “body transformation” to their clients? That is a dream come true for any clinic, doctor, salon or practitioner.

But such a machine does not exist. The body needs strong, regular, repeated stimulation for 6-12 sessions for good results, not four, let alone one.

Or, even though we know these miracles do not exist, we could easily do what everyone else does: buy the pathetic low-spec, yet super-hyped machine, get some C-list celebs to endorse it, lie without a blush on morning TV, throw in some fake '“before and after” pictures, and cash in on the hype (this is a real life actual example, people did and do that).

But we just can’t bring ourselves to promise the existence of pink unicorns to the shallow and the gullible. Principles matter.

Modesty and responsibility

Instead, although we do use the strongest and best equipment available and know how to make the most of it with Physics-based protocols, we make more modest, realistic, responsible claims about:

• good long-term results (not amazing or permanent “transformations”

• in 6-12 weekly sessions (not 1-4 monthly sessions)

…based on what science says and on our two-decade experience.

This is the honest way.

So this is the most important lesson to learn about cellulite, body skin tightening and non-surgical butt lifting (there is so much hype flying around in this field, it is unreal) and we hope we have saved you from a lot of disappointment and money wasting on miracle treatments and smooth operators.

ThIs year’s hype

There are three trends which have been growing for a few years and are expected to boom this year and start tapering off in 2024-2025, when everyone realises the hype.

Radiofrequency microneedling with up to 7mm long needles…

…which aim to burn the s*** out of the inside of your skin in order to produce skin tightening and cellulite reduction, again, offered at up to £1,000 for a small area for results with 1-4 sessions.

Burning, pain, scars, hyperpigmentation, fibrotic lumps, fake so-called “before and after pics” and poor results are small details for all the hype merchants who promote this treatment, based on ‘destructive radiofrequency’.

I recently saw a client who had three of those hyped-up radiofrequency microneedling sessions, splashing out £10,000 in total and having to endure anaesthetic injections due to the severe pain of the treatment, with ZERO results to show for the rip-off cost and all the pain and suffering.

As mentioned above, the body has its own limits. Injuring it will not produce faster results, it will produce complications - and quite often no results still.

RF microneedling needs to be dangerous and destructive to work, so it’s like taking a 50-50 chance, both for safety and effectiveness.

High-intensity HIFU to tighten the skin in 1-4 sessions? Good luck with that…

High intensity HIFU aims to also burn the s*** out of the inside of your skin in order to produce skin tightening, again, offered at up to £1,000 for a small area for results with 1-4 sessions.

Again, burning, pain, scars, hyperpigmentation, fibrotic lumps, fake so-called “before and after pics” and poor results are small details for all the hype merchants who promote this treatment, based on ‘destructive radiofrequency’.

Medium and low intensity HIFU, on the other hand, is generally safe and not too painful, but unfortunately ineffective for the body, simply because the energy transmitted is too low (it may be OK for the face, but still deep tissue radiofrequency is far more effective and even safer).

Just like RF microneedling, HIFU needs to be dangerous and destructive to work, so it’s like taking a 50-50 chance, both for safety and effectiveness.

Non-surgical vaginal tightening with laser / radio frequency

As per EMS above, significant results in skin tightening do not happen in 1-4 sessions, anywhere in the body.

Vaginas do not magically respond better to those treatments, because you pay a lot of money per session, so paying £2,750 for an one-off vaginal tightening treatment is a sheer waste of money.

As in facial or body skin tightening, anything between 6-12 sessions are needed, so again treatments should rather cost £300 per session to enable having that number of treatments (no one would ever spend £2,750 x 12 = £33k for vaginal rejuvenation).

The machines used for these treatments do not cost 10x more than normal laser / RF machines (they are actually far cheaper than body skin tightening machines) and there is zero justification for those prices.

Even £500 per session is way too much for “vaginal tightening”.

These are the most hyped up miracle body transformation procedures at the moment

There is also “plasma fibroblasting” (another “you only need one” miracle), extreme intensity RF and I’m sure more miracle procedures to appear in the next few years. Whatever comes up, if it sounds too good to be true, it will be too good to be true, because, as mentioned above:

• The body has limits, above which it simply gets injured

• The body needs repeated stimulation to change - nothing happens in one potentially injurious session

• The body needs regular stimulation to change - nothing much happens with once a month treatments

• The body needs time to change - nothing happens overnight

So what’s the best SAFE skin tightening / cellulite procedures available today?

After more than two decades in the industry we found that deep-acting, high-power radiofrequency and high-power ultrasound cavitation are the best technologies available today for both skin tightening/lifting and cellulite reduction - but only if provided by a well-trained, experienced and knowledgable therapist (unfortunately most RF/ultrasound operators only receive one day's training - and zero training in the science of cellulite).

So find 3-4 good clinics in your area, talk to them, see how professional and knowledgable they are and pick one to have a course of 6-12 treatments (not 1-4) for best results.