Radiofrequency

The question an esthetician hears most often about radiofrequency is always the same one: how many sessions before I see something. The honest answer is not what most people hope for. Radiofrequency is not a one visit treatment. It is a course, and anyone who promises you a visible, lasting change from a single session either does not understand how it works or is selling you something. In Pristina the treatment is done by Biondina at B&B Elegance, and the first conversation with her starts with exactly this point, before the device is switched on.

The plan that works in practice is roughly 6 to 8 sessions in the first course, spaced 1 to 2 weeks apart, followed by occasional maintenance sessions to hold what you gained. Some skin needs up to 10. This page explains where that number comes from, why the gap between sessions matters as much as the sessions themselves, what decides your personal number, and how you can tell the course is actually doing something.

One more thing worth saying up front. The result of radiofrequency is firmer, smoother skin and a slightly tighter contour. It is not a facelift. If your expectation belongs in an operating room, no number of sessions will take you there.

Why a single session is not enough

Plenty of clients walk out of the first session pleased. The skin does look a little tighter in the mirror, and it feels firmer under the fingers. That is not imagination, but it is also not the result you came for.

What you see after the first session comes from two temporary effects. First, the controlled heat immediately contracts the collagen fibres that are already there, the way a wool thread shortens when it is heated. Second, warmed tissue holds slightly more fluid for a day or two, so the face carries a very light swelling that fills and smooths it. Both of these fade. By day four or five the skin is back where it started.

That is not the real result. The real result is built underneath, and building takes weeks.

How the skin builds new collagen

The radiofrequency device sends electromagnetic waves that pass through the top layer without damaging it and warm the dermis, the deeper layer where collagen lives. The body reads that heat as a signal that something needs repairing, and starts its own rebuilding process: fibroblast cells switch on and begin producing new collagen fibres.

This does not happen in a day. New collagen production begins a few days after the stimulus and continues for weeks, because the body makes the material slowly and organises it even more slowly. It is physically impossible for a Tuesday session to deliver new collagen on Wednesday. What the session does is leave a signal. The whole course is what keeps that signal switched on for as long as the skin needs to do the work.

This also explains something that surprises many clients: the result keeps improving after the course is over. Collagen building does not stop on the day of the last session. The best point of your result usually lands 2 to 3 months after that session, not on it. So the final judgement is not made in a hurry.

How many sessions you actually need

The usual number for a first course is 6 to 8 sessions. For skin with more pronounced laxity, or for demanding areas like the neck and jaw, the plan can run up to 10. Fewer than 6 rarely makes sense, because the stimulus stays too small and you end up paying for a foundation you never build on.

The spacing is part of the plan, not a detail. Sessions sit 1 to 2 weeks apart. That means a course of 6 sessions runs for roughly 6 to 12 weeks, and a course of 8 sessions runs for roughly 8 to 16 weeks. So you are committing to two to four months, and then a few more weeks while the result settles.

That timeline is what you need to know before you start, because it decides when the course should begin. If you have a date in the calendar that matters, a wedding, an engagement, a photoshoot, the course starts at least three months earlier. Starting a course two weeks before the event is a waste of money and time.

Why the spacing matters

The first instinct of many clients is to compress the course: two sessions a week, get it over with, see the change sooner. It does not work that way, and the reason is simple.

Heat is a signal, and the tissue response to that signal takes the time it takes. When you give the skin a new stimulus before the work from the previous one has finished, you do not double the result. You just load the tissue with no benefit. The body does not produce collagen faster because you are in a hurry.

A gap of 1 to 2 weeks gives the dermis time to start the work, and brings the next stimulus while that work is still under way. The esthetician sets the rhythm to your skin: more sensitive or thinner skin goes at two weeks, other skin handles one. If a salon offers you a full course inside ten days, they have found a way to fill the till, not a way to give you a result.

What decides your personal number

There is no number that fits everyone, which is why the first assessment is done by eye and by hand and not from a price list. Several things push the number up or down.

Age comes first. Skin at thirty five that has only just begun to loosen responds quickly and often finishes the job in 6 sessions. Skin at fifty, where natural collagen production has been falling for years, needs more stimulus and usually lands at 8 or above.

The quality of your existing collagen is the second factor, and it depends on genetics more than on any cream. Some skin has a strong structure and reacts straight away; other skin does not. That is nobody’s fault and it cannot be predicted from the outside. It becomes clear during the course.

Then daily life. Smoking slows collagen rebuilding noticeably. Unprotected sun damages what you are building while you build it. Short sleep and constant stress work against the device. Radiofrequency does not cancel any of that; it works alongside it, and the worse the baseline, the more sessions it takes to reach the same place.

Finally, how much change you want. Someone who only wants the contour freshened finishes sooner than someone who wants the maximum the device can give. Both are legitimate, as long as it is said out loud at the start.

What a realistic result looks like and how you know it is working

The result of radiofrequency is skin that holds better. The jaw contour looks a little cleaner, the cheeks sit better where they belong, the skin feels denser under the fingers and the surface looks smoother. The people around you will not ask what you had done. They will tell you that you look rested.

What it is not: it is not a surgical lift, it does not erase deep wrinkles, and it does not fix skin that genuinely hangs. We say the same on the main page about radiofrequency as a treatment, and we will keep repeating it, because this is exactly where disappointment is born.

So how do you judge whether it is working? Not by checking the mirror every morning. A gradual change is invisible to an eye that sees the face every day. The only honest method is comparison across time: how the skin looked in week zero against how it looks in week six. If after the fourth or fifth session you feel no difference at all in how the skin holds, that is a fair question to put to your esthetician, and a serious professional will take that conversation and reassess the plan with you. Carrying on blindly is not an answer.

What a session feels like and how long it takes

The session starts with cleansing the skin and applying a contact gel. Then the head of the device moves slowly, in circles, over the planned areas. What you feel is heat that rises gradually, deep but comfortable, very close to the sensation of a hot stone massage. The warmth stays inside the comfortable range at all times; if an area feels too hot, you say so and the intensity comes down. That conversation during the session is normal and expected.

A session for the face usually runs 30 to 45 minutes, a little longer with the neck. On the way out the skin can be slightly pink from the heat, and that settles within a few hours. There is no recovery time, no peeling, no reason to hide at home. You go straight back to work or out for coffee, which makes radiofrequency one of the easiest treatments to fit into a busy week. That is also why a course of 8 sessions stays realistic for people with jobs.

What the course costs: the honest arithmetic

At B&B Elegance a radiofrequency session costs 20 €. There is no bulk discount and no special package price, so the maths is yours to do and there are no surprises.

Six sessions come to 120 €. Eight sessions come to 160 €. If your skin needs ten, that is 200 €. That is the full cost of the first course, and then the maintenance sessions are added on, each also 20 €.

There is also a combination many clients choose: deep facial cleansing together with radiofrequency in the same visit, which costs 45 €. That combination makes particular sense at the start of a course, when the device works better on cleansed skin and when blocked pores are a parallel problem. It is not needed every time; for the following sessions radiofrequency on its own is enough.

Compare that with what an aesthetic clinic charges for the same kind of treatment, or with prices in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and it becomes clear why many women in the diaspora start the course during the summer and continue it on the next visit. Just do the full arithmetic before you begin, not after the second session.

Maintenance: why the course never fully ends

The collagen you build during the course does not stay there forever. The skin keeps aging at its own pace, and natural production keeps falling with age. So radiofrequency always has a second phase: maintenance.

The usual pattern is one session every 1 to 2 months once the course is finished. That is enough to hold the skin at the level you took it to, without starting again from zero. Anyone who abandons maintenance does not lose the result within a week, but over months the skin drifts slowly back toward its natural baseline.

This is not a hidden flaw of the treatment. It is the nature of it, and an honest salon tells you before you take money out of your pocket. If someone tells you the result is permanent, they have already lied to you about the first thing. Do not wait around for the truth about the rest.

The limit: when a salon is not the right address

Radiofrequency has a clear ceiling, and we do not dress it up. It works on early and moderate laxity: when the contour has started to soften, when the skin holds less well than it did five years ago, but still holds. At that stage the course has real material to work with.

When there is pronounced sagging, excess skin falling at the jaw or the neck, or significant volume loss in the face, no salon device lifts it. That is the work of an aesthetic clinic or a plastic surgeon, and it is the point where a serious esthetician tells you plainly to speak to a doctor, even though she loses a client by saying so. The same applies to anything that needs a diagnosis: moles that change, persistent inflammation, severe acne. The first address there is a dermatologist, not a salon.

If you are pregnant, radiofrequency is not done, simply as a precaution. It is also not done over areas with metal implants or over electronic devices in the body, such as a pacemaker. These questions are asked before the first session, and if nobody asks them, get up and leave.

Where to start: early signs and choosing the right treatment

The best moment to start radiofrequency is not when the problem has grown large, but when it has just begun. The early signs of aging, the contour softening, the skin losing a little density, are covered in detail in first signs of aging, and that stage is exactly where a course gives the most for the money spent.

If you are torn between radiofrequency and a cleansing treatment like hydrafacial, the right question is not which one is better but what is bothering you today. Blocked pores and dull skin are a different job from skin that is loosening; we split the two in radiofrequency compared with hydrafacial. All the facial treatments with their prices are listed on the facial treatments page.

Radiofrequency at B&B Elegance: how the course runs

At B&B Elegance, on Rr. Jakov Xoxa near Muharrem Fejza, in the Bregu i Diellit area and a short walk from Rruga B, radiofrequency is done by Biondina, the daughter, who handles only facial treatments. Her mother, Besire, covers the hair side with more than twenty years of experience, so a facial session can be attached to a hair appointment in a single visit. The salon is small, family run and quiet, and that makes a long course easier: you see the same person every couple of weeks, and that person remembers your skin.

A session costs 20 €, and the deep cleansing plus radiofrequency combination in the same visit costs 45 €. The first visit starts with an assessment, where Biondina tells you honestly how many sessions you need and whether your skin is a good candidate at all. Hours are Monday to Saturday, 9:00 to 17:00, closed Sunday. Appointments are made by phone, WhatsApp or Viber on +383 44 397 749 or +383 49 326 303; write your rough age, what bothers you, and any important date coming up, and you will get a clear plan rather than a promise.