Microdermabrasion, Peels, CO2 Laser, And More Botox In Medellin — 2024

7 min readApr 27, 2024

Botox, CO2 Laser, and Chemical Peels in Medellin — Photo by Ira Wind on Unsplash

I now get botox with my dentist, Juliana Rojas in Envigado. My friend also gets her botox with her dentist, could this be a trend? I shared all the stuff that I’ve gotten done here, here, and here. So why don’t I get botox with one of those guys?

I gave up on Fanis because she was always booked. Alejandro is great and I like that he offers Dysport but, he never sees me six weeks later for a touch-up. I get botox 2 or 4 times a year mainly for my jaw. I grind my teeth at night and I’m too lazy to get a mouth guard or cushion. Botox is easier, faster, and it slims my face giving it a feminine oval shape. So when my dentist said that she administers botox, I stayed put on that chair. Juliana is very conservative with the units and she even injects my temples to relax my jaw. No other aesthetician has injected my temples!

Gone are the days when I would require the provider to know how to inject the upper lip to give me a lip flip, or have the “baby botox” technique done so that finer lines would dissolve no matter how close I swerved to the mirror. Now, I just need my crow's feet and my chin injected to smooth the naval orange look. And Juliana can do that that. She also injects my 11 lines once in a while and that’s all I need. Since I got a blepharoplasty, I don’t get brow lifts anymore.

Microdermabrasion and Peels

The first time I went to Dra Pilar Ochoa was about 8 years ago. I’ve recommended her to some of my friends and they love her. I went in for a treatment that got rid of my facial veins which I mentioned before. So after trying IPL to treat my spider veins (it didn’t work), I caved and paid the hefty initial consultation with Ochoa. It has been years since I saw her so if you go more than a year without seeing her then she will charge you a consultation fee.

I was a bit annoyed because I didn’t really need a consultation. I had a skincare routine, I have a habit of slathering sunscreen on more than once a day and I was pretty happy with my skin. There are just a few moles and veins and I needed Ochoa to wave that magic wand and make them disappear, again. But that’s not what happened. So I made the most of it and took all the creams that I use in my skincare routine.

My friend Debbie gets a peel with Ochoa every 6 weeks or so and her skin looks brighter. I wondered if Ochoa would try to sell me a chemical peel package. She didn’t have to try, it just happened.

I have no complaints! I went in for my 6th and final peel last month and I will purchase another package in August. Dermatologist and skincare influencer Dr Dray said that peels are underrated. So I decided to take her word for it and, well, I had gotten a raise at the time so I took the plunge and purchased 6 sessions. She gives you a 10% discount if you purchase sixpeels or microdermabrasions. She decides which one you’ll get when she sees you; it also depends on the situation. For example, when I told her that I would be traveling to California for 14 days, she gave me the microdermabrasion instead of the peel.

When I did the math, it came out to $43 to 50 a session. For Colombia, that’s expensive. Plunking that amount of money all at once made me wince but when I spoke to Deb and googled it, it would cost at least 3 times as much in California. And the peel would probably be done by an aesthetician and not a dermatologist. So for the last six months, before my treatment, I would write my questions on my notepad in my phone. For $50, I got a peel AND I got to see a dermatologist? Granted, she didn’t always do the treatment but if I ever had a question about my skin, she would go out of her way to see me. Yeah. It was worth the price.

Dr Ochoa also did something that nobody was successful at doing. Dr Ochoa made me see that tretinoin was worsening my rosacea. She prescribed me her formula which is a retin-a with aloe vera. It’s gentle on my skin, it has the same or almost the same benefits as the holy grail which is retin-a and it works! I love the way it feels and like tretinoin, it also makes me peel but in a non-scary way. I know because whenever my face shreds my husband becomes too distracted by whatever is going on with my face. So it makes it hard for us to have a conversation.

Dr Ochoa also sold me her moisturizer and a brightening cream which contains kojic acid and some other whitener, no it’s not hydroquinone. I compared my formulas with Deb’s and the ingredients are different. In Spanish, these formulas are called “formulas magistrates” and they’re made to order because they’re tailored to your skin’s specific needs. All in all, I am hooked.

The only downside is that my relationship with Sephora and CVS has changed. The last time I walked into a Sephora it dawned on me that I needed nothing.

Ochoa won’t make you get rid of the creams you have now but if they’re hurting you then she will give you her advice. During our consultation, I showed her all the creams that I use. She said that I could still use my Cerave Night Renewal cream. Since that day, I’ve been interchangeably using three creams with active ingredients 3 to 4 times a week. Whenever my skin feels sensitive, I just cleanse and lather on a moisturizer for that night. As a result, my rosacea has calmed down and my skin looks brighter.

CO2 Laser

I like Alejandro, I’ve mentioned him in my previous articles here. He’s gotten rid of my lip melasma and filled the dent on my forehead a few years ago and the effect has been permanent. I like how he wields a syringe of hyaluronic acid ever so conservatively. I got some chin filler earlier this year and I didn’t need it. I did it to see how it would change my profile plus, I haven’t gotten any filler nor seen Alejandro in over a year and a half. I needed an excuse to see him.

Alejandro said that the filler would enhance my profile. Let me be clear, he never recommended chin filler. It was I who brought it up. With aging, some people experience chin recession and I had the slightest bit of chin recession. So, Alejandro put in 1/2 of a syringe and placed the rest on my jawline. The change was subtle. My chin was a bit pointy for the first week and it felt like a foreign pebble was in my chin. A month later I felt nothing. The chin filler is supposed to last over a year but I don’t think I’ll get it again.

During the procedure, he felt my lips with his fingers and said, “Nice!” He had injected them over a year ago with 1/2 a syringe! And a year before that, he had done something. I don’t like fillers because they produce such instant results that it can be easy to go overboard. For that reason, I get it every other year (or less!) and have Alejandro strategically place one syringe in different areas of my face. The goal is not to turn back the clock, it’s always to restore volume. Because I do crossfit and play sports twice a week, I’m quite active so naturally, I’ll lose volume faster and age, hopefully, more gracefully.

Ah, right. I got CO2 laser. A friend of mine also got it done because the word is that it can give you glass skin! We paid around 650,000 COP and I wasn’t thrilled with the results. I will say that this is another procedure that Alejandro did NOT recommend for me, I just wanted to try it out. It has also been less than a month since I got it. I expected to look like a scarecrow right after but I looked worse after a ViPeel. I, of course, stayed out of the sun for the next two weeks. When I played padel I got the court with a roof. My friend who is around my age also wasn’t impressed with the results. Alejandro said that the people who get the most dramatic results are those who are in their 40s and 50s. Full results should be seen in a few months. So, no regrets so far!

Etcetera…

That is all that I will admit to this time. I have been writing about why I don’t take meds for my ADHD anymore and I just haven’t gotten around to publishing it. If that is something that interests you please say so in the comments.

I’ve noticed more expats moving to Medellin since last year and a good friend of mine has urged me several times to write about this stuff. She works in tourism with her Colombian husband and says that people are always looking for information about where to get stuff done, where to get your nails done, your lashes, where to workout, daycare, schools, Sculptra (I’m pretty sure I wrote about that). Even though I’ve been living here for almost six years, half of my friends are Colombians and the other half are expats who have been here for a while. So I don’t know what expats want nowadays. It’s easier to order from Amazon now and Cerave is on the shelves, what more could I ask for?

If you have any requests, ideas, or comments on what to write about, please share them in the comments. You’re welcome to follow me on Instagram but DO NOT message me privately because I will most likely not respond for many, many months.