At a birthday party recently, I was waiting at the bar when a man, maybe in his 40s, came over and said, “I’ve been watching you, you have the most incredible structure on your face. ” I was stunned.

I can’t describe how completely random it was. My response was, ‘Are you serious?’ Nobody ever told me that. Then a woman on the other side, younger, probably in her early thirties, said, “I was thinking about that too.”

Maybe it was an elaborate scam and they were planning to flatter me into emptying my bank account or joining their weird sex cult (nothing happened, in case you were worried.) I went home with a rather wonderful spring in my step. It’s been a long time since anyone gave me a compliment on my face.

I can only put this down to five sessions of a new cosmetic medical treatment called EMface, which I had between November and early January. I was told that the full results would not be known until the spring.

Well, the proof of the pudding isn’t just in clinical studies and academic papers. It’s in other people’s comments.

My Emface journey began months ago when a machine that was between the size of a vacuum cleaner and a dishwasher was carried into the treatment room. Clinic owner Dr Rita Rakus paid around £200,000 for this piece of beauty engineering. You hope it works at this price.

For the client, the outlay is around £2,500 for four or five sessions and £3,000 for six 20-minute sessions. It’s Emface, and it’s described as the machine’s first facelift. No knife, no needles, no lasers or harsh acids and no pain, just satisfying and noticeable lifting results.

The company’s first steps into the cosmetics market included EMsculpt, which used muscle-building, skin-toning and fat-burning technology on specific areas of the body. One session is apparently equivalent to 20,000 sit-ups or squats.

Before my facial session begins, I need to be plugged into the mains. A cold, sticky pad with conductive materials is strapped to my back, and a cable runs from my jumper to the sockets on the machine.

The cushion on my back creates a circuit so that the other three cushions placed on my forehead and cheeks can conduct the electricity needed to pass radio frequency (RF) – pleasant, intense 40 degree heat – deep into my dermis, and something called high-intensity focused electrical stimulation (HIFES), which feels like spiders in electric stilettos crawling across my face. It’s not pleasant, but it’s not painful either.

Dr. Rakus says, “What you will get is a little cheekbone lift. It’s the biggest piece of scaffolding on your face that holds a lot. You will have more collagen, it tightens the skin and it rejuvenates while the muscle strengthens.

Clinical studies conducted by the manufacturer indicate that the treatment increases muscle density by 30%, reduces wrinkles by 36.8% and gives 23% more lift.

How does it deliver these results? The RF heats the dermis to stimulate the production of collagen and elastin fibers, which improves the appearance and texture of the skin. Electrostimulation sends thousands of pulses per session to contract specific “elevator” muscles under the pads, namely the frontal, which smoothes the forehead and raises the eyebrows, as well as the two zygomatic muscles, which plump the cheekbone, lift the cheekbone and jawline and raise the corners of the mouth.

Emface has modest results compared to invasive methods but, to be honest, that’s exactly what I want: subtle improvement.

I hadn’t even had my last session when I was sent to Germany to write about an expensive private doctor they call the King of Health. Dr. Konig corrects the rich and famous (and therefore heavily botoxed and altered people). Several A-listers that I can’t name like to check in with him every year.

When Dr. Konig took my medical history, he reached the aesthetic medicine part of his questioning and mumbled to himself, “Botox, yes.” He went to check the box on the forms, my expected agreement being just a formality.

‘No. I don’t have Botox, I said. I haven’t had it for years. I frowned to show her how impressive my ’11 lines’ are between my eyebrows, forged with a combination of stress, reading in bad light so as not to disturb the curmudgeon next to me in bed and always forgetting my reading glasses.

Dr. Konig seemed suspicious and reassured me that it was fine to work and that I didn’t need to lie. I insisted I had nothing on my face because it was the truth. He reluctantly complimented me on my lineless forehead (then said I would look better with blepharoplasty surgery to remove excess skin on my eyelids).

So while Emface couldn’t attack the muscles that form the 11s, or remove the excess skin on my eyelids, or the crow’s feet around my eyes, it gave me an amazing overall result, being given that it is a non-invasive and painful treatment. free treatment.

This is the result I’ve been waiting for ever since I decided to move away from needles (I once had putty to lift the corners of my mouth but ended up with a duck head. My step- sister burst out laughing, my rather nice sister said, ‘It’s not that bad, you look like someone from TOWIE.’)

At the end of my fifth and final session with Dr. Rakus, she looks at my face with an expert gaze and says the machine has done the job of about four filler syringes and Botox, in terms of improving my face. .

I mention a few things that still bother me – faint puppet lines next to my mouth and those 11 crow’s feet I can live with. She figures she could fix them with a syringe of Botox.

She describes a similar machine, Juvena, which uses the same technology but can work on different parts of the face. I decide to say no, for now. Mainly because I’ve exhausted my budget.

Dr Rakus – who has been dubbed ‘London’s lip queen’ for her talent with a syringe – is so convinced that these painless, needle-free facelifts are the future. She herself does not use anything else. “I only have the machine treatments now,” she says.

While waiting at reception, I meet another cosmetic doctor in the practice (who prefers not to be named as she also works in the NHS). She, too, says she only ever uses the machines, despite, like Dr. Rakus, administering gallons of Botox and fillers over the years.

So how do I choose to measure my results? Well, the before and after is a pretty brutal metric, if a little underwhelming. And then there were my fans at the party. Or the woman at a funeral who said, “Damn, how is your skin so silky?”

The biggest test for me is always how I feel, not how I look. When I look in the mirror in the morning, or see myself reflected in a shop window, do I (a) wince, or feel mild shock or distress, or (b) feel at best pleasantly surprised or nothing at all? everything, or (c) so happy and excited about marked improvements that I have to stop and pout into every reflective surface?

As a 53-year-old adult, these days, option two: (b) is my favorite, and that’s absolutely what I got.

Kate Spicer received her treatments at Dr Rita Rakus’ clinic in South West London (drritarakus.co.uk). Prices for Emface start at £2,500.