It’s never too early to start reversing the signs of aging, especially when you grow up as a sun-loving Florida gal like Ashley Lowery. Having spent her youth enjoying water sports, surfing and sunbathing without also enjoying the benefits of sunblock, Ashley entered her 30s happy, but freckled. When her wedding day loomed, and she noticed herself shying away from strapless and backless dresses, Ashley knew it was time to put an end to the sun damage she’d had such a great time acquiring.
“I was the toddler with the best tan on the beach,” she says. “But by 30, my back and shoulders had become so sun damaged that I was very conscious of wearing anything that didn’t cover it up.” Luckily, Ashley had attended a Fraxel seminar at Radiance Medspa in Belleair Bluffs, and she was amazed at what she had learned the non-invasive laser treatment could do.
Thus, Ashley embarked on the Fraxel Max treatment series, a Radiance Medspa program that pairs the resurfacing of Fraxel with microdermabrasion professional exfoliation and IPL Photofacial, another laser treatment, but one that targets redness. During the next four months, she visited Radiance Medspa for treatments every couple weeks. At each session, the certified Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioner treated two of Ashley’s sun damaged areas so that she was able to achieve total skin renewal on her chest, shoulders, back and face. Experiencing a “bearable uncomfortable” during treatment, she had no real downtime with just the look of a sunburn for a day followed by flakiness. The final results were attained a couple weeks before the big day, and she proudly walked down in the aisle in a strapless, low-back dress with a sweetheart neckline.
“I received a lot of compliments leading up to wedding,” she remembers. “Friends began saying, ‘OK, I know you’ve done something. You have the skin of a teenager now.’” Even her fiancé who saw her every day noticed a dramatic difference.
In addition to the Fraxel Max rejuvenation, Ashley opted to have BOTOX and Juvéderm injections. The dermal filler Juvéderm was used to fill in the hollows under her eyes, an area she had previously covered with makeup. Injections of BOTOX relaxed the subtle lines on her forehead, which at Ashley’s age will also serve as a preventative measure to keep the lines from getting worse in the future. Although she had not planned on having the injections, she felt they provided an incredible bonus to her overall treatment plan.
“You don’t look like a different version of yourself; you just look awake,” she explains. The real test came when she finally saw her wedding photos, and Ashley felt she appeared completely natural. “Radiance Medspa starts out so subtle with the BOTOX and Juvéderm injections, no one would know unless you told them,” she says. “I will continue getting both of those treatments, which is not something I originally thought I would do.”
Where she used to cover her skin with makeup to hide its imperfections, Ashley can go out bare-faced and confident. In fact, she’s traded in her foundation for something much better – sunblock.
“I’m obsessed with sunblock now,” she says. “I have some in purse, some in the car and some in the house.” With her healthy new habit, Ashley will be able to maintain the fresh new skin created through the Fraxel treatments indefinitely. And that seemed like a smart long-term investment to a woman just entering her 30s.
“I wanted to invest in my skin while I was young, and the results are going to benefit me longer,” she says. “I feel that it’s important for women my age to start to think about anti-aging treatments. Women should feel empowered to make these types of positive changes.”