Cresent Laser is one of the early pioneers in providing fractional CO2 laser skin resurfacing lasers to our client MedSpas.

Until just a few years ago, ablative skin resurfacing with full-powered lasers was the only available solution for rejuvenating skin.  In the early days, surgical CO2 lasers were used, and more recently, erbium lasers were developed which were safer and minimized downtime. If you know of anyone who ever had this procedure done, however, you may recall that they probably had to tak a full week off work, couldn't go out in the sun for several weeks, and the healing process involved an oosing bubbling sometimes painful recovery.    Ablative laser resurfacing, although effective, was not ideally suited to most people's lifestyles and pain thresholds.

Ablative laser skin resurfacing worked by applying a very precise amount of laser energy to the skin, which heated up the water in the top lasers of the skin to the point where that water evaporated and the skin cells were destroyed.  After that, the body's natural collagen building repair system kicked in and began to build new and beautiful layaers of skin.  Ablative skin resurfacing worked, removing sun-damaged skin, and filling in new collagen where wrinkles and fine lines once existed, and thousands of women did it.

A few years ago, however, scientists began exploring the idea of pulsing and pixelating lasers in such a way that they would damage the skin beneath the surface, which has the collagen-producing effects, but leaving the skin at the top intact, which significantly reduces patient downtime.  Today, these fractional co2 lasers have revolutionized the services that MedSpas and dermatoligicts can provide, introducing laser skin resurfacing techniques that now millions of men and women can both afford and work into their busy lifestyles.

Fractional CO2 lasers employs a technique known as fractional photothermolysis, which uses precise laser beams to affect very small interspersed groupings of skin cells, leaving the adjacent cells intact so that they can quickly fill in the very small damaged areas and significantly decrease the healing process.  A similar approach is used by those who touch up historical photographs with digintal imaging, where they go in and fix the color or intensity of some pixels but leave adjacent pixels in tact so that the image doesn't lose it's clarity or definition.  If you were to "fix" all of the pixels, the image might look "airbrushed."