<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"  French women don&amp;#039;t get fat, and apparently, they don&amp;#039;t age, either (just take a look at model turned premi\u00E8re femme Carla Sarkozy). Their secret, perhaps? Facial mesotherapy, the lunchtime treatment in which complexion-brightening vitamins are shot four to six millimeters below the epidermis to improve skin&amp;#039;s texture and tone. While the practice of injecting actives into the skin has existed for more than 50 years, these vitamin cocktails, packed with legit antiaging ingredients, have little in common with the sketchy &amp;quot;fat-melting&amp;quot; mystery mixes popularized in mall spas. &amp;quot;When you deposit vitamins directly into the skin with a needle, you&amp;#039;re giving the tissues exactly what they need, where they need it,&amp;quot; says Lionel Bissoon, DO, a NYC-based mesotherapist who is credited with being the first to bring the treatment from France. According to Bissoon, neither oral nor topical vitamins can offer similar results. Bissoon uses an FDA-approved handheld mesotherapy gun to inject between eight and 16 minuscule shots (each roughly 0.02 ccs of liquid, or one fifth the size of a raindrop) of a customized, strictly multivitamin blend\u2014including low concentrations of vitamins A through E\u2014into specific facial points, such as the forehead, cheekbones, and outer corners of the lips. After a series of four to six weekly treatments, Bissoon claims that skin looks &amp;quot;fresher and more radiant&amp;quot; and requires approximately three to four touch-ups a year afterward. In addition to light bruising, patients might experience pinpoint bleeding and swelling.  Currently, the FDA does not regulate the compounded vitamins injected by practitioners. &amp;quot;They&amp;#039;re natural supplements, not drugs, so we can use them off-label,&amp;quot; says Donna Tozzi, RN, the creator of the Tozzi Lift, an injected blend of stabilized carnosine, vitamin B6, glucosa-mine, and DMAE (all proven topical antiagers). &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s a natural injectable,&amp;quot; says Tozzi, who notes that adverse reactions to her formula are rare. She recommends four weekly treatments, even if clients are already using traditional fillers. &amp;quot;In the short term, vitamins immediately plump up the skin,&amp;quot; Tozzi says. &amp;quot;But unlike other fillers, they also create structural changes over time.&amp;quot; (According to industry insiders, a combined filler/vitamin option, pending FDA approval, could hit the market in a few years.)  So far, there&amp;#039;s just one peer-reviewed study addressing facial mesotherapy. &amp;quot;It probably does promote some antiaging,&amp;quot; says David J. Goldberg, MD, a clinical professor of dermatology at NYC&amp;#039;s Mount Sinai School of Medicine and coauthor of the only published research on the treatment. &amp;quot;But without clinical results, it&amp;#039;s really medi-spa hype at this point.&amp;quot; His research, which appeared in the journal Dermatologic Surgery, examined 10 subjects who underwent four sessions of vitamin mesotherapy. After six months, &amp;quot;there was no statistically significant improvement,&amp;quot; Goldberg says, &amp;quot;but we did see some microscopic evidence of new collagen formation.&amp;quot; Forty percent of his testers also reported an immediate but temporary change in skin&amp;#039;s firmness.  Bissoon argues that, as with topical creams, mesotherapy takes time and consistency. &amp;quot;If skin is constantly aging, you constantly have to treat it,&amp;quot; he says. &amp;quot;You can&amp;#039;t just call it quits after six months.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/beauty/makeup-skin-care/tips/a9468/vitamin-mesotherapy-261360/?src=global_footer>