Our Spa

Facials, Chemical Peels, & Exfoliation

Designer Facials on the North Shore

YOU are unique, so why should there be a one-size-fits-all approach to facials? Whether you want relaxation, correction, or a combination of both we'll customize a facial treatment for your individual skin type and concerns.

A Peel for Every Skin Type, Tone, & Concern

From organic herbs and enzymes to medical grade hydroxy acid blends, we customize every chemical peel procedure based on your skin's health, tone, and your personal goals. With chemical peel solutions, we can effectively treat:

• Fine lines & wrinkles
• Active acne & acne scarring
• Brown spots & sun damage
• Rosacea

From very light "lunchtime" exfoliation to advanced medical-grade chemical peeling , let us create a designer peel just for you!

Preparing For Medical-Grade Chemical Peels

Pre-treatment of the skin with prescription tretinoin (Retin-A, Refissa) may be recommended for best results of advanced medical-grade chemical peels. If tretinoin is a bit too harsh on your skin, a medical strength retinol cream such as ZO Medical Retamax or ZO Medical Brightenex can be used for pre-treatment instead. A bleaching agent called Hydroquinone may be recommended for pre-treatment on darker skin tones to help prevent post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation (PIH) and optimize the improvement of blotchy skin. Our chemical peel specialists will recommend the best pre-treatment for you during your initial skin assessment and analysis.

After Your Treatment

Temporary redness, flaking and dryness should not prevent you from working or engaging in your normal activities. A fresher and improved skin texture will result with continued treatments, if required. Protecting your skin from the sun's damaging rays with proper daily sun protection is extremely important following chemical peels.

Your New Look

Depending on the strength of the peel, your initial improvements from chemical peels may be very subtle to remarkable! The results of a peel will provide noticeably improved skin tone, smooth texture, and fresher blemish-free skin.

Dermaplaning

According to common beauty lore, Elizabeth Taylor, Marilyn Monroe, and Cleopatra all shaved their faces.

What is dermaplaning?

Dermaplaning is a gentle exfoliating treatment for all skin types using a blade to "shave" away the outermost layers of the skin. It also removes peach fuzz for softer, smoother skin. Dermaplaning is painless, safe, and there is no downtime. Many of our patients like to have dermaplaning done right before a big event or as maintenance between medical grade peels or laser procedures. As we age our skin doesn’t turn over as quickly. Dermaplaning promotes the turn over of the skin making it appear smoother and brighter.

What are the benefits of dermaplaning?

Dermaplaning helps the skin look and feel smoother and brighter. It is especially good for people who have a lot of red in their skin as it does not damage delicate capillaries like microdermabrasion can. Because no chemicals are used for exfoliation, Dermaplaning is also safe during pregnancy and nursing. Make-up artists encourage their clients to get dermaplaning a couple days prior to events because the skin is much smoother and make-up sets nicely because we remove the vellus hair from the face.

MYTH: Hair will grow back heavier and darker after dermaplaning

Although merely an old wives’ tale, many patients are often concerned that the hair will grow back heavier and darker after dermaplaning. This is not the case. As long as the hair is superficial vellus hair, it will grow back at the same rate and texture as before the treatment.

To find out which exfoliating procedure is best for you, call us at 847-674-4646 to schedule your consultation.

We look forward to helping you in achieving your goals.

Acne Treatments

For Tweens, Teens, & Adults

Acne is one of the most common and distressing skin problems. Although there is no cure for acne, together through home care prevention, treatment, and professional guidance we can treat it & beat it!!!

Through our North Shore Medical Spa Services, we are able to bring you many effective customized solutions to treat your acne. All treatments are customized. The Medical Spa at New Horizon Center helps patients who have

• Moderate to severe acne
• Oily skin
• Large pores
• No success with alternative acne treatments
• Chosen to avoid acne medications

​Acne Workshops for Tweens & Teens

Easy Do’s & Don’ts to Clear & Clean Skin

Being a teen should be fun with problem-free skin! Acne commercials and internet info overload are way too confusing when it comes to effective skin care. Don’t wait until acne has you down- schedule a free session with one of our aestheticians and take charge of your skin. Learn great tips and easy home care steps to treat and beat acne!

Free sessions are available at our medical spa by appointment.

Causes of Acne

Bottom line- too much oil, dead skin, and debris build up in a gooey paste and clog pores. At the same time dead skin builds up on the surface and also clogs pores. You now have blackheads and whiteheads. When oxygen (which normally keeps bacteria in the pores under control) can't get into the pores because they're clogged, bacteria grows, pus forms, and BAM- you have a pimple! Even worse is when you have a hard lump growing way down deep in the pore that never "comes to a head", it only grows bigger and bigger...

Of course that’s not all. After the infection clears, redness & inflammation remain, and in severe cases, scarring. This can be disfiguring, and difficult to treat.

GOOD NEWS- IT CAN BE TREATED!!!

Total Treatment for Acne

The treatment of acne has three parts:

1. Prevention
2. Correct, Clarify, & Control
3. Heal Damage & Scar Reduction

Acne Prevention, Control, & Correction

Smart Home Care

Healthy skin is clear skin. Think about it- when it comes to your skin, just like taking care of your teeth, what you do every day & night has a HUGE impact on its health. Effective acne treatment depends on smart home care. There are many excellent acne products available today because there are different grades of acne, skin types & tones, plus different breakout triggers. Choosing products for YOUR acne can be overwhelming and totally confusing. A consultation with our clinical aestheticians can save you a lot of time and money. They'll take out all the guess-work and get you on an easy, effective regimen all designed for YOUR skin- YOUR acne.

Products should include ingredients to:

• Exfoliate (hydroxy acids, polishes & scrubs)
• Control Oil (salicylic acid)
• Treat bacteria as needed (benzoyl peroxide, resorcinol)
• Provide nutrition & hydration

Remember- you MUST keep your skin HEALTHY or it may never clear up. Simply srubbing & drying it out can actually make the acne worse. Great antioxidants (green tea, licorice) provide wonderful nutrition plus treat irritation, red marks & inflammation. Light or oil-free hydration (hyaluronic acid) keeps the skin nourished and prevents excessive oil production. It's all about BALANCE!

MYTH: Tanning clears up acne.

You MUST use broad-spectrum sun protection SPF30+ every day, 365 days a year! Problematic skin especially needs extra protection from the heat of UV rays. Many people think that tanning clears up their acne. Although this may seem true as it may help temporarily, tanning thickens the surface of the skin causing- you guessed it- clogged pores. Heat from UV rays also causes deep inflammation and damage, not to mention skin cancer. We have a great selection of oil-free, chemical-free sheer and lightly tinted sun protection products to choose from.

Exfoliation: Scrubs & Hydroxy Acids

Regular exfoliation with a combination of hydroxy acids (salicylic acid, lactic acid, and glycolic acid) and a gentle scrub gives problem skin a one-two punch by keeping pores unclogged plus controlling oil production. The dead skin cells will be polished away, allowing your pores to function properly. Be careful not to over-exfoliate though. Over-exfoliation causes pre-mature aging and over-stimulates oil production, leading to more breakouts. Your aesthetician will recommend the best exfoliation program for your skin.

Tretinoin: Prescription Retinoic Acid

For advanced grades of acne Tretinoin is one of the most powerful exfoliating tools that we have. It increases skin cell turnover which results in increased shedding of dead skin and excellent exfoliation. This is the reason why medications such as Retin-A, Differin, and Tazorac are commonly prescribed to people with acne. The downside of tretinoin is that it often leaves the skin red and flaky for a period of time while you are adjusting to it. This period of adjustment can last from a couple weeks to a couple of months. For those that want something less irritating we have medical-strength retinol which is very effective as well.

Antibacterial Medications

From topical over-the-counter products to oral prescription medications, inflamed acne leasions need a little assistance to help clear them up and prevent the spread of infection. What to use will depend on the severity of acne. An occasional pimple may need just a little spot treatment stick while advanced acne grades most likely will need prescription medications to get it under control.

The key to using topical products with anitbacterial medications (especially Benzoyl Peroxide) is to apply them to inflamed lesions only, and stop using when it's cleared up. There are over-the-counter product lines loaded with Benzoyl Peroxide (BPO) in just about every product. If we had $1 for every time we've heard "it cleared up my skin at first, then my acne came back even worse..." we'd definitely be gazillionaires! Constantly applying BPO to skin that is not inflamed/no infection dries it out, causes irritation, and leads to more clogged pores and breakouts.

Professional Acne Treatments

Clinical Facials

Once the acne redness, bumps, and infection have arisen, prevention is no longer enough. At this point you may need to have a professional treatment. For mild to moderate acne we offer clinical acne facials to help resolve an acne breakouts.

Chemical Peels

Chemical peels exfoliate deeper and remove oil and debris attached to the skin’s surface. The peeling solutions can penetrate through and dissolve the sebum in follicles to clean out clogged pores. They also help treat the bacteria that cause acne.

Laser Treatment

The Medical Spa at New Horizons offers the FDA-approved Acleara Acne Treatment, which works on all skin types. Treatment takes as little as 10 minutes. Multiple sessions may be required depending on the severity of your acne. More importantly, this process is pain free and requires no downtime a

fterwards, though patients may experience a mild sunburn-like after effect that lasts no longer than 24 hours. Please see below for Acleara before and after pictures.

Healing Damage & Scar Reduction

While acne blemishes can be very frustrating, by far the worst effect of acne is the scarring, redness, and disfigurement that it leaves behind. The good news is that we can minimize and virtually erase many acne scars with Fraxel Laser. MicroPen Micro-Needling and PRP are recent additions to the world of aesthetics for treating acne scars. Both are also VERY effective and the preferred procedure for darker skin tones. To date we have treated many patients with outstanding, life-changing results!

Don't let acne hold you back any longer!

Call us at (847) 674-4646.

Acleara Acne Treatment

Before & After Photos

Microdermabrasion

Freshen and rejuvenate your skin with Microdermabrasion!

Microdermabrasian utilizes micro-crystals to polish and slough away the top layer (epidermis) of skin to stimulate new skin cells and collagen production.

There is almost no discomfort in microdermabrasion, meaning you won’t need a topical or local anesthetic and there is no recovery or downtime.

We use Advanced Microderm, the only system engineered to utilize medical grade sodium bicarbonate’s (baking soda) all natural properties . Baking soda crystals allow our treatment specialists to give you the same depth of exfoliation as aluminum oxide crystals without any of the potentially harmful side effects. Aluminum oxide crystals should not to be used on the under-eye area and lips due to the potential risk of cornea scratches and crystal ingestion. Baking soda residue is not associated with either of these risks. Once you've been treated with baking soda, you will never want to have another aluminum oxide treatment again .

Microdermabrasion results

Microdermabrasion can be used alone, in a complete facial treatment, or in combination with enzymes and chemical peel solutions. Our clinical team of aestheticians will customize your microdermabrasion treatment in order to:

• Exfoliate your skin, resulting in a refreshed appearance
• Reduce fine lines, wrinkles, brown spots, blackheads, and age spots
• Reduce enlarged pores
• Soften surgical scars and acne scars
• Reduce the appearance of stretch marks

How many treatments are necessary to see results?

You will see results after the first treatment however the most dramatic results will be seen after about 3-6 treatments.

How often should Microdermabrasion be performed?

Once every 7-10 days for the first 4-5 treatments. After this initial treatment cycle, a maintenance schedule of about one treatment every 4-6 weeks is usually recommended.