The Wall Street Journal-20080205-Getting a High-Tech Picture Of Your Skin-s Bad Side

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Getting a High-Tech Picture Of Your Skin's Bad Side

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Are you ready for your close-up? Spas, dermatologists and even department-store make-up counters are offering complexion analysis using high-tech photography, which users say allows them to provide highly personalized recommendations for medical or spa treatments and skin-care products. Dermatologists say the machines are useful for some applications but not for others.

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Just sit in the chair, place your face in a chin rest and wait for the "click." In moments, a computer has calculated the number of wrinkles, brown spots and large pores on your face. The machine's software will highlight each type of flaw -- for example every wrinkle can be highlighted in green. You get a printout with a report on your skin's condition and -- often -- a recommendation for a procedure such as laser therapy to remove brown spots, or a new moisturizer.

Cost of an analysis varies widely, from free to as much as $200. Each machine -- costing anywhere from $6,000 to more than $20,000 -- works slightly differently, but in general, use a variety of flashes with different types of light for different results. White light is best for showing surface flaws, while cross-polarized light shows features just under the skin, such as spider veins. An ultraviolet image shows excretions from the bacteria that cause acne. Ultraviolet light gives the clearest view of beneath-the-skin sunspots, which some dermatologists call "the scary picture" because it shows the full effect of sun damage.

One popular machine, the Visia from Canfield Scientific Inc., Fairfield, N.J., which hit the market in 2003, has a proprietary program that tells how your skin compares with others of the same age in its database of 5,000 people. The software can also show how it thinks you will look in three to five years. In an online demonstration on a 42-year-old Canfield employee, done for The Wall Street Journal, the software added a few wrinkles and sunspots for a subtle aging effect. BrighTex Bio-Photonics LLC of San Jose, Calif.'s Clarity Pro machine, available since 2006, doesn't compare you with others but it does offer a measure of your skin's "radiance," or glow, which can be enhanced by some spa treatments. While Clarity Pro and Visia enclose your face in a half eggshell for the picture, a less- expensive machine from Profect Medical Technologies LLC, Brewster, N.Y., simply has you place your face on a chin rest.

There aren't any independent comparative studies on the quality of the photos taken from different machines. The accuracy of a machine depends on a number of factors. Wearing make-up will hide flaws, giving you an unrealistically good result, Canfield Scientific says. An accidental grimace will add wrinkles.

Some dermatologists say the machines tell you just a little more than a good dermatological exam, which typically involves close examination of the skin with a magnifying lens. "I didn't find it was changing my treatment programs," says Patricia Farris, a clinical assistant professor at Tulane University in New Orleans, who owned a machine for two years but has since sold it. She says its most useful feature was the fear factor brought on by the sun-damage picture, which helped her persuade patients to wear sunscreen.

Manhattan dermatologist Bruce Katz, who charges $195 for an analysis using the Visia machine, says he finds it useful for locating sub-skin problems such as spider veins. Instead of just treating the surface veins with a laser, he often treats the ones the machine shows under the skin to prevent future problems. "We can treat a wider area," says Dr. Katz, a clinical professor at Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

Dr. Katz and other dermatologists say that patients should be cautious of anyone trying to sell skin-care products using the machines, since it provides very limited benefit in tailoring those recommendations. Usually knowing if you have oily or dry skin is enough, he adds.

Perhaps the most useful feature of the machines, dermatologists say, is the ability to track objectively whether a therapy is really working. A before-and-after picture can let you know if a pricey rejuvenating spa therapy was worth it.

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