At home radiofrequency / cavitation machines for cellulite removal / skin tightening: do they work?

At-home cellulite removal with RF / cavitation: is it possible?

• What is the best cellulite removal machine to be used at home? Do cavitation / radiofrequency at-home machines work?

• The right radiofrequency/cavitation equipment

• Affordable cavitation / radiofrequency machine

• Safe use of radiofrequency / cavitation home machine by a non-professional

• Using a home cavitation / radiofrequency machine every day

• In summary: no, radiofrequency / cavitation for cellulite at home does not work

• Book an expert cellulite / skin tightening treatment in London, at LipoTherapeia®

• Check our professional consultancy for a masterclass in radiofrequency, ultrasound cavitation, cellulite and skin tightening

What is the best cellulite removal machine to be used at home? Do cavitation / radiofrequency at-home machines work?

People ask us this question all the time:

“Can I have a radiofrequency / ultrasound cellulite treatment at my home and if so what is the best ‘at home’ cellulite / radiofrequency / cavitation machine to use?”

When provided with good equipment (and by a well-trained, experienced and knowledgable therapist), radiofrequency and ultrasound cavitation treatments are the most effective SAFE technologies for both skin tightening and cellulite.

Therefore many people would like to buy:

• an “effective”

• “affordable radiofrequency/cavitation machine”

• for “me”

• to “safely use at home”,

• “every day”

You may have noticed here, that I have used italics and quotes in five instances above - and there is good reason for that.

The right radiofrequency/cavitation equipment

The truth is that quite often even professional RF/cavitation treatments do not offer any significant benefits, simply because they are provided with the wrong equipment.

These are usually cheap, low-power, bipolar RF machines or low power cavitation machines, which are either too superficial or too weak and, quite frankly, not very safe or sturdy to use in a professional setup.

Home-use radiofrequency / cavitation equipment is even worse than cheap professional equipment, as it is even lower spec, so there is not a chance in hell it will ever “work“.

On the other hand, if you are tempted to buy a cheap chinese “professional (😂) RF/cavitation machine” on eBay, Alibaba or similar outlets, think again. In addition to buying into a serious health and safety hazard, using strong cavitation / radiofrequency at home is a very bad idea, as we will see below.

(And regarding safety, I am not exaggerating. There is a reason proper clinics splash out tens of thousands of pounds to buy machines with advanced medical certification to ensure their clients’ safety.)

Affordable cavitation / radiofrequency machine

As we mentioned on a previous article, there is a reason that good, powerful, high specification radiofrequency / ultrasound cavitation machines cost a lot of money (anything between £20,000-£100,000) and are heavy and bulky. Because that's exactly what is needed to provide good results to a clinic’s clients in a reasonable number of sessions (6-12 sessions).

Anything of lesser specification may require twice or three times more sessions to offer the same results as the expensive equipment. With lower spec equipment you may never give good results (having 50 sessions of something ineffective will not make it effective).

Now if professional salons and clinics fail to provide good results to their clients with good professional equipment, even after a course of 6 or 12 sessions, how do you expect to have good results with a toy-specification, £300 home-use radiofrequency / cavitation machine?

It ain’t gonna happen. Ever.

Now if you are easily pleased and are happy with the tiny (or imaginary) results a home use cavitation / RF machine can offer you, then you will probably be even happier with a plain facial self-massage provided with a nice cream followed by some facial exercises, and spare yourself all the cost and hassle of at-home RF / cavitation.

Safe use of radiofrequency / cavitation home machine by a non-professional

There is another reason - apart from cost - that proper, high-power, effective, professional machines are not sold to the public: because most people get obsessed, crank up the volume and end up burning themselves or causing some other type of injury to themselves.

And then they are quick to sue the manufacturer/seller who sold them such a powerful machine who should know that there is a danger of a non-professional getting injured by it.

So, for this reason only, and regardless of cost, you will never see a real, effective radiofrequency or ultrasound machine sold to the public. Ever.

No company wants to deal with injured clients, no company wants to get sued and no company wants all the bad publicity that follows.

Furthermore, to protect the public, no such machine can be cleared by the regulatory authorities (FDA in the US, CE in the EU) for consumer use. Sometimes there is a need for laws to protect stupid people from themselves - and in the pursuit of beauty many people become stupid.

Finally, if any company salesman is unscrupulous enough to offer you a professional machine, even though you are untrained and unqualified, you should resist the temptation of thinking that you are smarter than you are and that you can use a professional machine without proper training and qualifications.

If in many clinics radiofrequency / ultrasound cavitation treatments are ineffective and even unsafe when used by poorly trained professionals, they are definitely unsafe and/or ineffective when used at home by clueless untrained amateurs.

Using a home cavitation / radiofrequency machine every day

"But what if I buy a low power machine and use it every day instead", I can hear you asking. Good point.

Well, things don't work that way. To reach a therapeutic outcome with any treatment, you need a minimum of intensity. For radiofrequency that is a temperature of 43-47ºC in the deeper tissues and 39-43ºC on the epidermis - which is on the border of very hot to painful.

No superficially-acting bipolar home use machine (they are all bipolar and by definition they are all superficially-acting) can come close to 43-47ºC on the dermis or subdermis. Even if you leave the machine at the same spot for a long time to raise the temperature it will just burn the epidermis, without reaching 43-47º in the dermis/hypodermis. And, of course, you don’t want to burn your epidermis.

The reality is that you need a bulky, expensive, powerful, deep-acting RF machine for deep heating without burning the epidermis - not a pen size gimmick. Proper, deep RF technology is heavy and expensive.

So with radiofrequency there is the issue of depth of action, in addition to the issue of power.

With cavitation things are simpler: just high power is needed, as most ultrasound cavitation machines on the market are of similar frequency (30-90kHz) and penetrate mainly the superficial tissues, with the intensity fading off as tissue depth increases.

So you may think that you just need apply the cavitation machine on the same small area and get enough ultrasound energy over a long period of time. Yet, ultrasound wave strength IS important and it effects cannot be replicated by weaker ultrasound waves for a longer time. It doesn’t work like that.

Furthermore, there is also the principle of strong stimulation followed by rest, which is the basis of all therapeutic improvement.

The way all therapeutic treatments work is by providing strong stimulation - which needs to be followed by one or more days of rest, during which time the body reacts to the stimulation and tries to become stronger and more efficient.

This is how weight training works, how endurance exercise works, how ultrasound works, how radiofrequency works and basically everything that aims to improve anything in the body.

In the same way you should not expect to do chest presses with an 1kg dumbbell on each hand every day and expect to build big chest muscles anytime in the next century, you should not expect to tighten up your skin with a gentle, superficial temperature increase by a home RF machine or a gentle tissue tickling by a home use ultrasound cavitation machine - even if used daily.

That’s why stronger, professional treatments are never applied daily - by responsible therapists, at least.

In summary: no, radiofrequency / cavitation for cellulite at home does not work

So for all these reasons, home radiofrequency and home cavitation treatments “do not work”, unless you are satisfied with meagre or no results.

Knowing what I have learned by working with these technologies every day for several years, I would never buy a home-use RF machine if I was a member of the public. It would be a waste of my money.

Clients we see at the clinic who have previously bought such machines are simply disappointed and wonder why their machines didn't work. And then we have to explain all the above to them.

Don’t be one of them - save your money for a professional treatment that works or buy into a technology that can be safely and effectively used at home, such as LED for facial rejuvenation.

(LED may be a bit slow acting - you need to use it for several weeks to see any significant results, but at least it is safe, affordable and you can use it every day or every other day - if you are reasonable. BTW, LED does not work for cellulite or body skin tightening.)

Check our professional consultancy for a masterclass in radiofrequency, ultrasound cavitation, cellulite and skin tightening

Do you want to deeply understand radiofrequency, ultrasound cavitation, cellulite and skin tightening? Attend a half-day, 1-day, 2-day or 3-day professional consultancy / one-to-one training and confidently offer your clients the safest, strongest and most effective treatment possible. Service available via Zoom or at our central London practice.