When most cosmetologists hear the word “plasma,” they associate it with platelet-rich blood plasma, often used in cosmetology for skin regeneration.
However, there is another type of plasma, namely gas, and it is more related to physics.
We all remember that substances in nature exist in three different phases - solid, liquid and gaseous. However, since the 19th century, scientists have assumed that there is also a fourth phase - the so-called radiant state, or plasma.
Plasma can be thermal or non-thermal, the latter is also called cold.
It was cold plasma that found its application in medicine and gave birth to a new direction - plasma medicine.
What is Plasma Pen?
Plasma Pen (Plasma Pencil, Plasma Liner) is a small device that fits in your hand. It looks like a pen, marker or epilator with a needle at the end. The shape depends on the imagination of the designers.
The plasma pen, according to sellers, is an innovative development of a Korean company, which:
- allows you to perform a non-surgical blepharoplasty procedure (tightening the eyelid skin without surgery);
- correct wrinkles, stretch marks, acne marks;
- remove age spots;
- get rid of spider veins in just 1 procedure;
- remove tumors and even tattoos!
7) Plasma is an alternative to CO2 laser. But why?
Well, and most importantly: there is ablative laser cosmetology that has been proven for decades - resurfacing and peeling on proven devices, with well-known protocols and results.
A procedure with an experienced cosmetologist who gets good results with CO2 lasers is more expensive than a dubious burning with strange devices. Although we found a couple of “masters” performing the plasma blepharoplasty procedure for 20,000+ rubles. In our clinic, this procedure on a professional laser device costs 15,000 rubles.
PS. Perhaps this method of influence is working; foreign colleagues have illustrated examples of the procedures performed, where (judging by the photo) a good result is shown.
Pay attention to the density of points in the work of foreign colleagues.
However, in our realities, we do not advise either specialists to use this discredited method, or patients to run under the magic plasma, the consequences of which are unclear, and the specialists performing the procedure may turn out to be crooks.
How do sellers explain how Plasma Pen works?
Sellers of plasma pens position them as an innovative development of a Korean company. The device is comparable in efficiency to a CO₂ laser, while the pen costs from 15,000 to 150,000 rubles. For comparison, prices for CO₂ lasers start at 2 million rubles. It is the price that sellers focus on.
How Plasma Liner works. Information from sellers' websites:
- The needle approaches the skin at a distance of 1-5 mm (depending on the set parameters) and an electrical potential difference is created between it and the patient’s skin.
- Plasma forms between the needle and the skin. The skin instantly heats up. Temperatures can reach 2000°C.
- The area is saturated with carbon. No bleeding occurs.
- The skin is instantly tightened, thanks to the coagulation of tissues - they shrink. Collagen is produced. All that remains is to wait for healing.
- Crusts form on the skin, which are designed to protect the treated areas.
Sellers claim that the heat reaches the basal layer and does not affect the tissue under the basement membrane. You will find out later how deep the heat actually penetrates.
Click on the links to read the Operating Manual for one of the Plasma Pen devices:
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Plasma medicine
This is a new interdisciplinary field of study that includes physics, chemistry, biology and medicine.
Cold plasma for medical purposes immediately affects the body with a whole complex of chemically active particles, photons, as well as charged particles and an electric field.
Each of these components has a bactericidal effect or leads to cell stimulation.
Numerous experiments have proven that cold plasma has valuable properties with great application potential: bactericidal, fungicidal and antiviral effects, destruction of biofilms, effects on blood clotting, the immune system, proliferation and can trigger the mechanism of apoptosis of cancer cells.
In 2005, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) licensed PSR technology (plasma skin regeneration technology), and international experience in the use of plasma in cosmetology was accumulated (Fig. 1).
Rice. 1. Exposure to cold plasma. Rates of improvement in skin condition following treatment with cold plasma flow (summarized data from Gonzalez et al. 2008, Bogle et al. 2007, Potter 2007, Kono T. et al. 2009).
Thus, studies by Gonzalez et al. 2008, Bogle et al. 2007, Potter 2007 demonstrated improvement in skin texture, reduction of fine lines, and post-acne scars after treating the skin with a cold plasma stream.
Histological studies by Kilmer et al. 2007 showed regenerative activity in the epidermis and dermis, collagen remodeling, activation of neocollagenesis and neoelastogenesis. The average depth of new collagen was 72.3 µm.
There was also a positive effect of cold plasma on the process of wound healing and skin regeneration. After plasma treatment, the number of galectins increased (Akimoto et al. 2016), and two minutes of wound debridement resulted in a significant decrease in the number of both Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria (Isbary et al. 2012).
It has been established that after exposure to low-temperature plasma, growth factor is induced and the expression of angiogenic growth factor in skin fibroblasts increases. Plasma administration significantly accelerated the expression of HIF1α, an upstream regulator of angiogenesis (Cui et al. 2017). In fibroblast samples treated once and twice with plasma, the number of cells increased by 42.6 and 32.0%, respectively, compared to the control group of cells (Sysolyatina et al. 2016).
How Plasma Pen Really Works
Let's figure out what power the Plasma Pencil has, to what depth the heat travels and how this affects the result:
- This is a low-power device that runs on a battery. The output voltage from the built-in batteries is 12 V.
- The beam passes up to 0.06 mm in depth. It burns holes in the stratum corneum and possibly in the granular layer of the skin. The impulse does not reach the basal layer. The heat is then diffusely dissipated.
- Each point is burned out manually. The instructions say: “Try to make the distance between the points about 0.5 mm.”
The technical characteristics of a medical device must indicate the power, pulse duration, depth of penetration into tissue, and point diameter. There is no such information in the instructions for the Plasma Pen. This means the impact is unpredictable.
Contraindications
Non-surgical blepharoplasty of the lower and upper eyelids is a gentle correction method, but the procedure still has some contraindications.
People under 18 years of age, pregnant and breastfeeding women, as well as those with the following diseases should refuse therapy:
- diabetes;
- inflammation of the eyes and skin around them;
- thyroid dysfunction;
- chronic diseases in the acute stage;
- increased eye pressure;
- pathologies of the circulatory system;
- oncological processes in the body.
Special contraindications include:
- intolerance to injections for injection therapy;
- the presence under the skin of gold threads, devices for improving hearing and pacemakers for hardware therapy.
Removal of tumors, tattoos and 30 more procedures in one device for 50 thousand rubles
Unfortunately, advertising lies. The device does not have enough power to remove tumors, much less tattoos. Example: A CO₂ laser beam penetrates the dermal and epidermal layers of the skin and fragments the pigment. The Plasma Pen beam is in principle unable to penetrate deeper than the granular layer. The result is burns, crusts and maceration.
If we compare the Plasma Pen with a CO₂ laser, which, depending on the model, creates about 4000 thousand controlled microdamages at the same distance and depth, then the holes in the skin from the plasma pen turn out to be thick (unfortunately, there is no exact data on the diameter of the point anywhere), superficial, with uneven charred edges.
This threatens not only a long period of rehabilitation, but also scars, pigmentation disorders (hypo or hyper), as well as infection.
Example: scabs after a CO2 laser procedure disappear within 3 days, but after Plasma Pen the sellers promise 7 days. This is at least twice as long. No one knows how long the scabs will actually last and how long it will take for complete healing. It could be 3 months, or it could be a year. Depends on the individual characteristics of the body.
6) The results of the procedures performed are not obvious and hidden. Complications do occur.
The vast majority of before/after photographs show the patient “before” and “during” or “immediately after.” Where are the photographs of the result after the “convergence” of all the consequences of the procedure?
Moreover, there is a fairly large percentage of forgery and deception! Photos of the result after operations and after CO2 laser exposure are passed off as the results of plasma procedures.
Reported complications:
- Pigmentation
- Perforation of fabrics
- Micro scars
- Edema
- Long-term rehabilitation
These complications are nothing new for those who work with laser equipment, but the extent to which they can be corrected after exposure to plasma is unknown.
Cosmetology Procedures involving plasma
Procedures using high-energy plasma:
- removal of excess volumes of skin (a particularly popular procedure today is blepharoplasty of the upper and lower eyelids: using plasma sublimation, excess skin area is “excised”, forming drooping eyelids and the formation of wrinkles due to excess skin tissue in this area; plasmolifting is carried out not only in blepharoplasty procedures, but and to eliminate excess skin volume on other areas of the face and body that require a “lift”, but it gives its maximum effect on the skin around the eyes);
- coagulation of vascular formations;
- correction of hyperpigmentation;
- removal of scars, scars, stretch marks;
- removal of warts and other benign formations;
- treatment of active acne and correction of post-acne;
- removal of tattoos, permanent makeup.
Procedures using low-energy plasma:
- skin disinfection and wound treatment;
- acceleration of tissue regeneration;
- increasing skin turgor and improving general properties;
- increasing skin permeability to active components; medicinal and cosmetic products.
Indications for plasma therapy
Non-surgical plastic surgery is a safe and effective method to improve your appearance and get rid of aesthetic problems.
Indications for plasma facial rejuvenation are:
- wrinkles around the eyes and mouth;
- sagging on the face and neck;
- scars;
- post-acne;
- swollen relief;
- pigmentation;
- papillomas and birthmarks;
- poor quality tattoo;
- nasolabial and parotid folds;
- drooping eyelids.
Plasmolifting of the face instantly removes age-related changes, returns healthy color to the skin, and eliminates excessive dryness and tightness. The device quickly deals with acne, cleanses pores and regulates the functioning of the sebaceous glands.
Attention. The action of plasma stimulates the growth of healthy cells, lightens scars, and heals acne. Short-term thermal exposure improves tone and causes the dermis to intensively renew itself. The hardware procedure provides high-quality polishing of the face, erasing any roughness from it.
Price
The price is affected by:
- clinic pricing policy;
- qualifications and experience of the specialist;
- equipment and preparations used;
- type of procedure (injection is much cheaper than others);
- complexity of the clinical picture;
- number of sessions required.
For your information, we present the average cost of injection blepharoplasty in some cities of Russia and neighboring countries.
| City | Clinic name and address | Cost in rubles |
| Moscow | "Lantan" (Novy Arbat St., 32) "Doctor Mezo" (Bolshoi Tishinsky Lane, 10) | from 7000 from 4000 |
| Saint Petersburg | “Eighth Clinic” (Odoevskogo St., 28) “New Skin Clinic” (Pyatiletok Avenue, 5, building 2) | from 4000 from 11000 |
| Krasnodar | "Estelife Clinic" (Kommunarov St., 225/1) "Ekaterininskaya on Kozhevennaya" (Kozhevennaya St., 66) | from 4000 from 3500 |
| Chelyabinsk | “8th Miracle” (Engelsa St., 73) “Lady S” (Svobody St., 145) | from 1500 from 2300 |
| Volgograd | "Olymp" (Rokossovsky St., 62) "Media-Farm" (University Ave., 36) | from 4000 from 2000 |
| Kazan | “Beauty Salon” (Ibragimov Ave., 54) “Al Waris” (S. Hakim St., 41) | from 3000 from 2500 |
| Samara | “Berezka” (Leninskaya St., 302) “Light Clinic” (Georgiy Dimitrov St., 117) | from 3500 from 3000 |
| Nizhny Novgorod | “Anastasia” (Gruzinskaya St., 46) “Doctor Bormental” (Gorky Square, 4/2) | from 1700 from 2500 |
| Vladivostok | "Professor's Clinic Yutskovsky" (Metallistov St., 3) "GALEO" (Russkaya St., 39b) | from 3500 from 5000 |
| Ulan-Ude | “Sibiryachka” (12a Lenina St.) “Art Clinic” (72 Klyuchevskaya St.) | from 1500 from 2000 |
| Krasnoyarsk | “FACE & BODY” (Alekseeva St., “Lips Clinic” (Sadovaya-Karetnaya St., 8, building 6) | from 2000 4900 |
| Ekaterinburg | “Baden Baden” (Bazhova St., 73) “Academic Clinic” (Akademicheskaya St., 28) | from 1500 from 1750 |
| Novosibirsk | “Alteos” (Romanova St., 30) “Diagnostic” (Gorsky microdistrict, | from 2500 2500 |
| Irkutsk | “Novomed” (Dzerzhinsky St., 20) “Ashi” (Deputatskaya St., 25) | from 3800 from 1500 |
| Yakutsk | “Aesthetics” (Dzerzhinsky St., 49) “VICTORY CLINIC” (Lenin Ave., 61/2) | 2000 1800 |
| Almaty, Kazakhstan) | “Tiffany Plaza” (Microdistrict Samal 2, building 58, block “A”, 14th floor) “MLC” (Al-Farabi Ave. 7) | from 20,000 Kazakhstan tenge (from 3,500 rub.) from 12,000 tenge (from 2,100 rub.) |
| Astana (Kazakhstan) | “Studio Sakura” (Imanbaeva St., 9) “Sulu Bride” (Mangilik El St., 27) | from 10,000 tenge (from 1,750 rub.) from 7,000 tenge (from 1,200 rub.) |
| Minsk (Belarus) | “Kravira” (Pobediteley St., 45) “Iris” (Filimonova St., 22) | from 195 Belarusian rubles. (6000 Russian) from 130 Belarusian rubles. (4000 Russian) |
