Decolletage Treatment – Turning back time for your chest, neck, and shoulders

While most of us tend to think of cosmetic surgery as being an option for refreshing the face, the effects of time are not localized to this area alone. Decolletage treatment is a fine example of this, as it is designed to enhance the area around the chest, neck, and shoulders. After all, these are areas we often choose to display, so when we want to properly turn back time, it’s definitely about more than just the face.

Today we’ll take a closer look at the surgical and nonsurgical treatments for the decolletage area of your body, so that you’ll know exactly what the various options entail, as well as the expected recovery time, and the average duration of results from each technique.

We’ll also give a little special attention to the most popular option that you’ve probably already heard about – the PDO decolletage treatment – and we’ll even include a hot tip on how to maximize your results with this option.

If you’re ready, read on and we’ll tell you everything you need to know about decolletage treatment and your options. 

What is decolletage treatment?

When you hear the term ‘decolletage’ being used by plastic surgeons, this is just a fancy French word that refers to the area of the lower neck and by extension, the cleavage exposed with a low-neckline focused article of clothing. 

So, in layman’s terms, it’s the lower neck, check, and the shoulders. You may hear the term ‘decollete’, but that is a more limited area – think ‘lower neck, top of the chest, but not including shoulders and arms’ and then you’ve got the ‘decollete’ area correct.

With decolletage treatment, we’re focused on wrinkling, sagging, and other conditions which may easily occur because of the thin skin associated with this area and the loss of fat that may occur with dieting, illness, or simply the passage of years.

In a nutshell, Decolletage treatment is designed to hold, tighten, and smoothen the areas of the lower neck, upper chest, and the shoulders and arms – no more, no less.

We’ll take a look at how that is done from a surgical and from a non-surgical perspective, so that you’ve got a good, foundational idea of your options and what you can expect.

Decolletage treatment from a surgical perspective

From a surgical perspective, decolletage treatment typically involves a face lift, neck lift, or a liposuction, and micro fat grafting procedure. Often, it may be a combination of one of the lifts, along with liposuction and micro fat grafting – every patient’s needs are different, so that will be between you and your doctor. 

In this section, we’ll take a closer look at these techniques, just keep in mind these are just the 3 most popular approaches – a surgeon will have a number of techniques which they may employ – so we’re just going with the most popular options.

With that in mind, let’s take a closer look at what these options involve and what you can expect. 

Face lift

While a face lift is primarily associated with the face, it works by tightening the skin at your cheeks, towards your forehead, and this also results in neck tightening that can help with minor decolletage rejuvenation. 

Incisions are usually made at the front of the ears, so that the doctor may trim the skin and manipulate tissues to beneficial effect, but the effects on the neck and decolletage area will be very minor. This technique is mostly associated with jowls, the jawline, and the upper neck so effects lower on the body will be minimal at best.

The procedure itself takes about 2 to 6 hours, while recovery averages around 4 to 6 weeks and the full results of the process may take about 6 months to show. The results will last around 10 years, on-average.

To have a very basic idea of the effects, the easiest way to do this is to place your fingers at the top of your cheekbones and to push upwards, and this gives you a ‘mock up’ of the tightening effects of a face lift. 

Neck Lift

 Neck lift is the most popular of surgical options and a lower neck lift, specifically, can have a dramatic effect on the decolletage area (the upper check, lower neck, and shoulders). For this technique, the doctor makes incisions behind the ears, as well as underneath the chin, so that skin which is hanging below the chin may be trimmed and tightened. 

The whole process takes anywhere from 1 to 1 ½ hours, and recovery generally takes 2 to 3 weeks, possibly a month, at which point the swelling should be gone and the results should become fully apparent. These results last around 10 to 15 years, on-average.

The easiest way to simulate the kind of results this may provide is to place your fingers or thumbs below and outside of your jawline, and then to push them sharply upwards and back. 

Liposuction and micro fat grafting

Used alone or in combination with one of the lift options, liposuction and micro fat grafting are another highly popular option that may be used for decolletage treatment to good effect. At its most basic, we’re talking about relocating fat. Liposuction is used to remove excess fat from the body and a sampling of the patient’s fat particles is transplanted so that it’s at a superficial layer under the dermis of the decolletage. 

This is effective for tightening, treating scars, and also for creating a softening effect on the chest that looks and feels natural, because it’s what was there before when the patient was younger – a thin, healthy layer of their own fat. This transplanted fat also helps to rejuvenate the dermis, as it helps to oxygenate the soft tissues and contains an excellent natural content of the body’s own stem cells.

The procedure may take 1 to 3 hours to perform, depending on the patient’s individual requirements, and the recovery time is around 2 to 3 weeks, at which point any swelling or bruising from the surgery should be fully healed. Results are gauged at the 6 month mark, by which time the fat grafts should have had enough time to establish themselves and the results may last a lifetime. 

Non-surgical options for decolletage rejuvenation

Regardless of what surgery may accomplish, it can be quite costly and not everyone is keen on the idea of a doctor making incisions in their body and ‘poking around’. For those who are looking for non-surgical options, we’ve collected some of the most popular in this section, including the MOST popular of the list – the PDO Decolletage treatment.

We’ll tell you a little about each and give some extra focus to the PDO Decolletage treatment that has been getting so much attention of late. That way you’ll know all of your options, but also why a PDO decolletage treatment is considered by so many to be the best option on the market.

Let’s take a look at the non-surgical decolletage rejuvenation techniques and you can see what you think!

Dermal fillers and Botox

Dermal fillers, usually hyaluronic acid, may be used to help create a fuller volume in the skin, and this may be used in conjunction with Botox to help tighten and hold the muscles. Either treatment might even be prescribed alone – it all depends on the patient. 

Botox usually lasts for 3 to 4 months, and recovery is fairly instantaneous – the patient may be advised not to rub the area for a week or two, to help avoid moving the botulinum toxin to unintended areas. Dermal fillers, by contrast, may last 6 months up to a year or more, depending on the type of filler. Recovery time is 1 to 2 days, and both procedures take around a half an hour to perform. 

Ultherapy

Ultherapy is an option that rejuvenates the skin via ultrasound. Recovery is instantaneous, although results are gradual, as treatments are spread throughout the course of 2 to 3 months. This ultrasound technique basically creates heat underneath the top layer of skin, which stimulates collagen production to help restructure underlying layers of the skin. 

Each treatment takes 30 to 90 minutes to perform, and the results may last for 2 to 6 months per each treatment. 

Microneedling

Microneedling is considered ‘minimally invasive’ – it’s not quite surgery, although micro perforations are part of the procedure. The way it works, in a nutshell, is that your doctor uses thin microneedles to make tiny holes in the skin, so that your body’s natural healing response will stimulate collagen and elastin production. 

Recovery of the top layer of skin takes 1 to 2 days, while the healing beneath the skin may occur for up to 2 months, and this option usually requires multiple treatments, spaced 4 to 6 weeks apart. The final results will be fully apparent around the 4 to 6 month mark, although how long they last will vary from patient to patient – typically, a handful of months, as the skin is alive, so this is more of an ‘ongoing treatment’ approach.

PDO Decolletage treatment

The most popular decolletage treatment by far involves PDO threads, which are dissolvable surgical sutures made of polydioxanone that are employed with a twofold strategy – the threads are placed so that they will anchor to the muscles and tighten the skin for immediate results, while the threads themselves will stimulate elastin and collagen production for the entire duration that they are in place. 

The procedure itself takes only half an hour to perform, and recovery may take 24 to 48 hours. As far as how long the results last, that’s going to depend on the PDO threads that are used. With standard polydioxanone threads, you might keep your results for up to 12 months, but with top of the market threads such as V Soft Lift, the results could last for up to 24 months.

Let’s take a quick peek at why these threads are different, so that you may insist on using them for your own PDO decolletage treatment to enjoy the perks of the best threads on the market today!

V Soft Lift PDO threads and why they are the best on the market today

While a PDO thread lift procedure for a decolletage treatment is highly effective on its own, the threads that you use will obviously make a difference in your results – so why not go with best? V Soft PDO threads are the most in-demand threads for clinics across the globe and for good reason – here are just a few of the benefits which they provide:

• Increased tensile strength – V Soft PDO threads are stronger than your average market threads, by a factor or 10 to 20 times the strength! That means that less threads will be required for your procedure and also result in a faster recovery time.
• Maximized collagen and elastin production – V Soft lift threads stimulate neocollagenesis and improve blood flow to the areas where they are inserted. V Soft lift threads produce the most stimulation of collagen and elastin of any threads on the market today.
• Proprietary coating technology – The coating of V Soft lift threads is a proprietary aspect of their creation, but what it basically means for you that your V Soft PDO thread will dissolve and be absorbed at a slower rate – so that your results may last up to 24 months (versus 12 will a lesser market thread).

You can read more about V Soft lift threads in their injector’s brochure, which has information intended for doctors who use the threads, as well as patients who want a more complete view of the exact threads being used in their own procedure.

You can also see the decolletage treatment being performed using V Soft threads by clicking this link to see a video on YouTube. As you can see, it’s quick, painless, and provides immediate results that will improve over time, thanks to the constant rejuvenation effects of quality PDO threads like V Soft lift!

Wrapping up – Now that you know your options, what will YOU choose?

In today’s article we’ve talked about decolletage treatments, so that you’ll know all of the most popular surgical and non-surgical options available today. From a surgical perspective, this usually boils down to a face or neck lift, or micro fat grafts and liposuction, or even a combination of one lift technique and the micro fat grafts.

While these do produce long lasting results, not everyone is keen on the cost or the hours of surgery required to get there, which brings us to the non-surgical options—dermal fillers and botox, ultherapy, microneedling, and PDO Decolletage treatment.

Each has their perks and caveats – dermal fillers and Botox are effective, but only last a handful of months. Ultherapy and Microneedling can help to provide options that rely on the body’s natural healing, but these treatments require multiple sessions and the results may last for a small space of months – depending on the patient and the proscribed number of sessions involved.

With a PDO decolletage treatment, you get the longest-lasting results, with immediate effects being apparent after a 15 – 30-minute treatment at the clinic, while your skin continues to improve over time as it’s nurtured by enhanced collagen and elastin production for the duration of time that those PDO threads are in place.

It’s easy to see why PDO decolletage treatment is the most popular and with quality polydioxanone threads like V Soft Lift, you can enjoy those results for almost twice the duration that you’d get from standard market threads. So, if you go with a PDO decolletage treatment, then be sure to insist on the best – V Soft Lift!

References/FYI

Butterfly Holistic center; “PDO Threading: Need a More Youthful Neck and Décolletage Area?”

Mulberry House; “5 Top Neck and Décolletage Treatment Options”

Dr. Dekleer; “Rejuvenating the neck and decollete”

Westlake Dermatology; “FACELIFT VS. NECK LIFT: WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?”

Sorensen clinic; “Rejuvenation of the Décolletage”