Red Facial Veins Getting The Better Of You?

Causes and treatment of Red Facial Veins

Ever look in the mirror and see those annoying fine spidery red lines across your cheeks and nose and wondered:

Firstly- Where did they come from?

Secondly -What are they?

Third- How the hell can I get rid of these?

Well they go under many names; thread veins, red veins, broken capillaries, telangiectasia but all mean the same thing – red lines typically across the nose and centre of the face but they can develop on other areas too especially the décolleté after excessive sun exposure.

Where do they come from?

There are many many different causes of thread veins, the most common are acne rosacea, ageing, physical trauma, extreme temperatures, UV light, hay-fever sufferers, smoking, excessive alcohol, over-zealous use of harsh chemical or rough products on the skin, trying to squeeze blackheads/spots incorrectly, generally being too rough with the skin, using really hot water/steam on the face, exercise, certain hereditary conditions, pregnancy and childbirth, diet, fragile skin, diabetes, the list goes on.  So life in general!!

We’ve all been there trying the squeeze a blackhead out of a pore on our nose, not bothering to grab a tissue to protect the skin and giving a good old squeeze resulting in no blackhead but a nice juicy red mark in its place.  Some people are lucky that these fade away with time, others find they stay and seem to multiply. Glasses wearers usually find they get them on the bridge of the nose, acne sufferers may find them more on the face/cheeks areas from picking or squeezing spots, hay fever sufferers around the corners of the nose and nostril area.

We have millions of capillaries in our skin, they carry the blood through the different layers and help oxygenate the skin but they are very tiny and can easily become damaged.  Along the capillaries are little valves to help the blood flow evenly.  Sometimes these valves break and stay shut causing the blood to accumulate in the capillary and swell so it becomes more visible on the surface of the skin, hence the name broken capillary.

How can we treat them?

Key to treating and preventing more appearing is learning to be gentle with and protect our skin.  This means using gentler products on our skins at home, maybe consider an enzymatic or gentle chemical exfoliant rather than a gritty one. Using cleansers that gently rinse away and using cool water rather than boiling hot, using a daily protective moisturiser and most importantly and I can’t stress this enough SUN PROTECTION EVERY SINGLE DAY!!

By sun protection I mean an additional SPF 30 applied over the top of your moisturiser (yes even if yours contains SPF, it’s not enough!).

To prevent more thread veins appearing you need to protect the skin against further damage and sun exposure is a big one!  Anything that causes flushing to the skin can cause the thread veins to look worse and can sadly cause more to appear.  By no means am I suggesting a tee-total sedentary lifestyle but just think about what you are doing that could help your skin.  I love a good run and but this definitely makes me flush (an athlete I am not!) but I find by making sure I am applying a good protective moisturiser and SPF before I head out it helps to minimise more appearing. And I certainly find that over-indulging in red wine makes my cheeks “glow” more than I would like! More of an excuse to drink bubbles instead!! Little changes will help.

what products should i use

Worth a mention is the fabulous Guinot Red Logic treatment cream £59.25.  This gem of a product is a special cream designed to help improve the appearance of the thread veins with its patented Veinoderm complex that actually penetrates into the capillaries to help strengthen the  capillary walls.  Helping to prevent further thread veins developing.  Green in colour you apply this product underneath your usual moisturiser on area of redness, the green hue helps to neutralise the redness of the skin whilst feeling calming and soothing on the skin too.  I love it and find it really helps disguise red cheeks!

What Treatments Can I have?

Once you have thread veins you are much more prone to them reappearing and increasing, especially for those of us with a fairer skin type. But it’s not all doom and gloom and walking around with a bag on our heads.

At Beauty Secrets we offer a couple of treatments that work effectively a treating these annoying veins.

If you are interested we always get you to come in for a no obligation consultation to have a really good look at your skin, discuss your medical history, lifestyle, aftercare, treatment outcome and expectations and give you our best advice to help you as an individual. 

Depending on the location and appearance of the thread veins we usually offer a choice or combination of two treatments Advanced Electrolysis or IPL Rejuvenation.  Both work amazingly well at helping reducing redness and breaking down the damaged capillaries to help clear the skin.

At our consultation we will look and see what your individual veins look like and where they are located.  In general if you have underlying red flushing of the skin and very fine thread veins across the cheeks and nose we will recommend a course of the IPL Rejuvenation, which is our IPL laser machine.  This uses yellow light to effectively break down the fine capillaries, boost the skins strength, helps diffuse underlying redness and has the bonus effect of boosting collagen so have a great radiance and plumping effect on the skin.  A course is typically 6 treatments coming in every few weeks.  We can as well use our amazing medical head laser which uses green light to concentrate on individual capillaries to further break these down during the course of treatments.

As a sideline the IPL rejuvenation is incredibly effective at treating mild- moderate acne rosacea by boost the strength of the skin and helping to manage the skin condition.

If you have clusters of quite prominent veins especially across the cheeks or round the nostrils we will usually recommend opting for the Advanced Electrolysis technique of removal.  This is a specialised technique that uses a diathermy current via sterile needle on the surface of the skin to create a heat to dry up the capillary.  We gently dot along the line of the capillary with the needle, not breaking the skins surface at any point. You can literally see the capillary drying up before your eyes! We offer this treatment by time 15 or 30 minute sessions and will talk to you about your individual treatment needs during the consultation.  Usually you will need a few treatments.

Both treatments work amazingly well but it worth remembering that unfortunately if you are prone to thread veins you will find more appear over time.  We would normally recommend a course of IPL once a year and maybe a few sessions of Advanced Electrolysis a couple of times throughout the year.  I often find myself doing a combination of the two types of treatments during a course on my clients to get the best results.

So if you’re interested call to book your consultation now and we can discuss what we can do for you. We can offer an online private video consultation at the present if you are interested and want more advice so you’re ready to go in when we can reopen.

If you want to book a private online video consultation to discuss anything please email info@beautysecretsspa.co.uk.