About 3-4 weeks in and I'm seeing results!

First, I bought my Tria Beauty laser elsewhere, not Amazon. But Amazon is a go-to place to read honest product reviews, as Amazon doesn't edit your review or refuse to publish an honest review, so I'm adding my review here. Also, this is the second Tria laser I own. I also own (purchased elsewhere) the Tria 4X hair removal laser (love it).

I was very skeptical of how well this will work. My friend has had professional "fraxel" laser treatments for years with a doctor, and she'd purchased this laser and was singing the praises to me, so I bought one.

I received my beauty laser on a Friday, immediately charged it and read through the instructions. There are three treatment levels, and the only difference I have found is the amount of time the laser is on. Level 1 is to introduce yourself to the laser and it treats each zone (more on zones in a minute) for 30 seconds. Level 2 treats each zone for 1 minute. Level 3, which is the highest level, treats each zone for 2.5 minutes. You can choose to treat only one zone or all 4 zones. Younger women may only wish to spot treat, older women may choose to do all four zones. I am treating all four zones. I have sun damage, forehead wrinkles, and the start of crows feet around my temples.

The Tria instructions show your face divided into 4 zones. The first two zones are your cheeks/side of your face (NOT your eyes or nose). The third zone is your chin, mouth (NOT lips) and jaw line. The fourth zone is your forehead (again, NOT your eyes). You should never, ever use the laser near your eyes or you risk permanent blindness.

The US instructions say to treat for 5 days, rest 2 days, and repeat for 12 weeks, and then stop using the laser for 30 days. The Canadian and European instructions say to treat daily for 8 weeks straight, then stop using the laser for 30 days.

The sensation of the laser to me feels like someone drawing on your face with a pen/pencil pressing into your skin. I don't really know how to describe it other than that. It is a completely different feel from the hair removal laser.

Make sure you remove all makeup, then find a good cleanser and really, really wash your face to ensure your skin is totally clean. I use Cetaphil Daily Facial Cleanser, Normal to Oily Skin, 16 Ounce as it is free from perfumes and dies while being very gentle. It was recommended to me by my dermatologist.

The laser beeps at you while using it, when you have to change from one zone to the next, so you don't need to time yourself -- it does it for you! At the finish of treating all 4 facial zones, you get a happy little series of "all done" beeps indicating treatment is over and you need to turn off the laser. There is also a green check mark that lights up to tell you you're done for the day.

On day 1 I used it on level 1. The instructions recommend, and I agree, that you treat at night so your skin can repair itself overnight. The treatment seemed fairly painless and it went super fast. It is tricky to hold the laser correctly so the laser doesn't turn off. There are sensors on either side of the laser to make sure you're holding it correctly against your skin. There are lights that stay lit if you're holding it properly. They shut the laser off if you don't hold it correctly, and it takes practice! I watched the video on the Tria Beauty website, and also I use the laser in front of the mirror. I have the hardest time with my forehead and I am the most sensitive on my forehead.

The correct motion is to go side to side, or to turn the laser 90 degrees and go up and down. Do not go at weird angles (again, thoroughly read the instructions). Don't press hard! That is totally unnecessary and painful. Just glide the laser over your skin surface. And go slowly once you're up to level 3 -- no need to rush!

After you treat, you will find your face is quite red, just like a sunburn. I tend to look like a tomato. It is important to immediately apply as heavy a moisturizer as your skin can take. Most moisturizers are full of perfumes and dyes and formaldehyde, and are incredibly harsh on your skin. I have found the best moisturizer for me is Vanicream Moisturizing Skin Cream with Pump Dispenser, 1 Pound. It was recommended to me by my dermatologist, it is COMLETELY FREE of all parabens, dyes, lanolins, fragrances, and formaldehydes. It is amazing stuff! I slather it on THICK.

Day 2 I moved the level up to level 2. I treated for 2 days on level 2, and moved up on the fourth day to the max level, level 3. Again, my face turned very red after each treatment. I applied my moisturizer. I then moved up immediately to the highest level, level 3. The laser isn't any stronger, the difference is the treatment time per face zone is much longer -- 2.5 minutes per zone. My face was very red, and after a few times treating on level 3, you will notice your skin dries out and starts to peel like a sunburn, even with using moisturizer. This is normal. I do occasionally gently exfoliate the dead skin, about 2x per week, in the morning after my face has hydrated (moisturizer!) and rested overnight. Washing my face in the morning is somewhat painful as your skin is still very sensitive, so be gentle with yourself, and use a soft cloth for gentle cleansing. I wash off the moisturizer from the night before, then apply a new moisturizer with sunblock in the morning (a lighter moisturizer that goes under my makeup). Exfoliating can be painful, so be very gentle.

I noticed that after treatment my face/skin swelled. This is normal and you will notice your face is swollen during the treatment period. By the following evening it's pretty much back to normal. The swelling has never been noticeable to anyone but myself.

Make sure you use a very high SPF sunscreen during the day, otherwise you are wasting your time with the laser. You must protect your skin from sun damage!

Be sure to gently wipe off the treatment window of the laser at least once a week to keep it working at highest levels. Also, you can get 2 full treatments at level 3 and will need to recharge the laser. The blue battery light will flash on the second treatment while you're in zone 4, telling you it's almost out of charge.

I am about 3 weeks into the treatment, and I am treating every day. In 5 more weeks I will stop treatments and rest for a month. I am doing the treatment 8 weeks without stopping as the Canadian/European instructions suggest. The most noticeable results should come during the month of rest after treatment, when your skin repairs and the collagen builds, and I will update my review.

My skin tones have evened out quite a bit! The redness I had is fading and some of the sun damage has already disappeared in just a few weeks. The very fine wrinkles are disappearing! The really deep wrinkles are not going to be fixed completely with this laser (hello Botox) but I have to say, my forehead is so much smoother already! The little crows feel along my temples are disappearing. I haven't told more than 1 person I bought this laser, including the friend who recommended it, so really no one knows! I'm curious to see the responses as I go through the treatment. I am noticing small results.

To summarize, cleanse your face thoroughly with a good cleanser before treatment and allow your skin to dry, moisturize with a high quality moisturizer after every treatment, and use SPF sunblock every day to protect your face. Plan to gently (!) exfoliate after your first week of treatment. Your face is going to feel and look like it's sunburned the entire time you are treating it. Drink a lot of water to hydrate your skin, and moisturize and use SPF! And finally, use a high quality Spasilk 100% Pure Silk Facial Beauty Pillowcase, Standard/Queen Size Natural While or satin/sateen pillowcase as they are gentle on your skin (and hair) and help prevent wrinkles and acne.

You will LOVE this laser!

I got this from Amazon and I started treatment last week starting at level 1. It hurts but I think the pain is tolerable so I went on and used it for 5 days on level 1. While on level 1, I definitely am seeing fantastic results as early as that. My cystic acne has gone smaller and smaller until it becomes flat, my pitted scars seems to be filling, and life is good. I love it! Now im on level2 and i started it just last night. It was so painful but darn it, if i want good results id better bear with it. And so I went on and glided this thing on my face. After I'm done, my face was red last night and I see some lines that appeared to be scratches? But I ignored it thinking it will disappear in the morning as some of the reviewers have noted here. See I have high hopes but this morning when I wake up, I was HORRIFIED to see the lines/scratches still appearing on my face. The redness is gone but the lines on my face is still there!!! God it looks terrible!!!!!! Its like a cat scratched me on my face! God its so ugly! I came in the office this morning trying to avoid talking to anyone, but I guess I could not. They are staring at my face and I can read their thoughts!

What do I do now? Attached is the picture of the scratches.. please help.

I'm not going to say I totally love it YET. I bought this as a gift to myself for Christmas. After hearing so many positive things about it I decided to take the plunge and do something nice for myself. First of all the device itself it very easy to use. After a once-over the instructions I was well equipped to get started. One thing I noticed right off is that the device is not heavy. As a matter of fact it's fairly lightweight, a definite plus for me. The next thing I noticed is the design of the device. It's easy to handle and fits nicely in my hand. I plugged in the charger and allowed it to fully charge before I set out to use it. The charging base for it is also a nice design and it's not one of those huge charging cradles either. It's made to fit the device perfectly. Once charged and after watching one or two YouTube videos I set out to use it. It has a very slight learning curve, but like a fish to water I got the hang of it in no time at all. Now I had heard about the varying degrees of pain with using it. For me, I found it feels like prickly needles. Not painful, just different and for a short time afterwards a bit of a burning sensation, again nothing painful for me. One of the things I like about using it is that fact that the sessions don't take long to do at all. Some devices I have used took me up to an hour and a half to complete one session. Not that I minded, but when you don't know the results your going to receive with the device it's not a plus in the motivation department. While the instructions said it's best to use the device at night to give your skin time to recover from the redness I used it in the morning. I found that within an hour most if not all the redness disappeared and any that was left I could cover with makeup and be on my way. Doing it at night just didn't work for me. I am on the first 12 week cycle, week 5, the third day of using it. You use it 5 days a week taking two days off. You do a 12 week cycle and then take a minimum of 4 weeks off after which you start the 12 week cycle again.
One thing I had read is that when you are rebuilding collagen this does not happen over night. It can take months to rebuild collagen, so patience is a virtual when using this device. You might be wondering though if I have seen any results with it so far and the answer to that is yes. First let me tell you I am very fair skinned girl. I have sun damage from getting sun burnt as a child and into my teens. I have some wrinkles on my forehead, smiles lines, and on one side crows feet. Yes, I'm a side sleeper. And I have a ruddy complexion. The first thing I noticed after a couple of days of use is that my skin felt softer than usual. It had this really soft, smooth feel to it. After using if for a couple of weeks I noticed that the ruddiness disappeared with the exception of a little bit on my chin which has now disappeared. I have this nice even skin tone which I am really loving since I am not a big makeup wearer. I noticed these things within the first two weeks of use. After about 4 weeks I noticed that my lips took on a fuller look and I loved that. I had two thin lines for lips and now I have almost the lips back that I had in my twenties. They are fuller and a beautiful color that I like so much I don't really need to wear any lipstick. I use a small amount gloss and I'm good to go. So I'm really loving that. As far as my wrinkles go, I have not noticed any change there to speak of. However knowing that it can take months to rebuild collagen I wasn't expecting to see much concerning wrinkles. As far as sun damage and age spots go I have not seen any change to speak of there either however there are no claims that this device will fade age spots, freckles, or sun damage from reading the instructions. There might be a teeny tiny bit of change, but as I said nothing to speak of so far. I have also noticed a slight bit of firmness to my skin going into my fifth week. As you age your skin gets kind of that mushy feel to it, but mine doesn't feel as mushy as it used to.
One thing they suggest is to use their creams and serums. I however did not invest in these. My skin can sometimes be very picky and certain creams and serums don't agree with it. I use a Vitamin C serum during the day and I use a collagen building cream at night. I continued to use these applying the Vitamin C serum after using the Tria in morning and applying the collagen building cream at night. I read many on-line articles about how to rebuild collagen and took some, not all of the information on board. There are some that said they use this device on their neck, but I do not. From using other devices they stated in their instructions to stay away from the front of the neck as you can stimulate your thyroid and this can cause problems for you. Because it is not FDA approved for the neck I just don't use it there. I do use it on the jowl area, but that's as far as I go with it until Tria says otherwise.
So what is my overall opinion of this device....Well so far so good! I think it holds promise if I continue to use it as specified. Overall I am happy with it. I have seen some results that have kept me motivated to continue to use it. It will never be as good as an office visit however I will never go to an office visit to have something like this done. The instructions say that during the minimum 4 week rest from use after the 12 week cycle is when you will see the most results. I am looking forward to that. I will update this post as time goes on. I know some have said that the battery does not stand up very long however I contacted Tria and they told me it would last a minimum of 3 years with normal use, but it could last longer than that. Yes, the device is expensive to purchase. I did my homework on it, asked a lot of questions and in the end decided to give it a go. So far I am pleased and I'm in it for the long haul.

Being 34 only, my main concern was not about wrinkles. Although I got crow's feet very early, because I had uncorrected vision problems for years, I could not think of anything but Botox that would help here. It's a result of eye muscles' overactivity "“ and that had to be stopped I thought.
No, I rather bought the Tria, because I am cursed with freckled skin, and as a result I have a very irregular skin tone. At 15 this looks cute, at 34 it adds 10 years of age.
Dermabrasion, Glycolic Acid Peel, Hydroquinone, and SPF 50 didn't change anything. So the Tria was an interesting option. Although I bought it the very day it was released in Germany, I didn't start the program consequently until 3 weeks ago, because of the summer season. Then I bought some expensive serums (but none of the bleaching kind, because there are debates about potentially toxic ingredients, and I didn't want them to intrude through my treated and therefore "open" skin).
At the same time I started derma rolling. Although combining both treatments sounds like a lot of stress for the skin, I don't regret my decision. I'm using the Tria every night (highest level now), and my face is extremely red after. Sometimes this continues until the next morning (depending on the aftercare, which I change every night). I don't want to look sunburnt like that in a few months again, because of the derma rolling.
Although I'm using the Tria on skin condition it is not recommended for (freckles, post-puberty acne, very sun-sensitive skin), and I don't use any of their other products, I'm seeing results. After three weeks my skin is cleaner, the tone is more even and my face looks refreshed, like it was filled from the inside (a sign of increased collagen production I guess). Even those crow's feet are a little bit reduced, especially in the areas very close to my eyes that Botox doesn't reach.
So I'm definitely convinced by the product Tria "“ it does work.
One more hint: A REALLY clean face makes a huge difference in the effectiveness of the laser. None of my cleansing products (a full shelf of) was able to prepare my face well enough. My mom recommended 75% vol Alc. "“ that finally helped!

I'm rating Tria with 3 stars only for two reasons: one star has to be subtracted, because the whole treatment cycle is awfully long. It's not only consuming quite a bit of time, it's also ruining my looks during the whole period of treatment: I will look like a sunburnt tomato every night for many, many weeks "“ and this is neither attractive for my boyfriend nor good for my own self esteem.
Another minus for the crappy battery. Fully loaded it hardly makes it through a 10-minute-session. A weekend trip without the charger is impossible. Considering the price of this device, I think it should save energy for at least three treatments.

When I was thinking of buying this I read ALL the reviews. I was a little disappointed that so many of them were written right after getting the device, which wasn't particularly helpful for a product that is intended to be used over a long period of time. I promised myself I'd come back and add a longer term review, so here I am.
I am in my early fifties. I hit menopause fairly early, and one of the fun features of being post menopausal is that your face starts falling off. OK not really, but the quality of your skin really does change, and not in a way that makes you happy. I am a fan of Paula Begoun and read on her site that the technology behind this device was sound, so I thought I'd give it a try. I don't have the budget for professional fraxel treatments, so that wasn't an option, but for $500 this was worth a shot.
The short review: this works! not a miracle worker, but I have a noticeable -- maybe even considerable -- improvement in my wrinkles and in my skin tone.
The more detailed version: It's a lot of work. You really do have to stick with the program. I did 5 days a week for 12 weeks. At first, my skin looked worse. Quite a bit worse, actually. It became rougher and the dark spots got darker. I'd say for the first five weeks or so, and then things started getting better. But the real improvement came in the month 'rest' period after I finished the treatment period. Also, it hurts. I used the highest setting. This machine is already quite a bit weaker than the professional device, so I figured I'd best get as much effect out of it as I can, right? And what these lasers do is selectively injure your skin in a way that causes the collagen to rebuild. If it doesn't hurt, how much of that is happening? As I went through the 12 week treatment period it actually seemed to get a bit more painful, and I looked forward more to those two days off. I got a tube of Alocane gel, which is a topical burn/sunburn treatment, to put on afterwards and that was very helpful.
So if you are frustrated with your skin but don't want to fork out for professional laser treatments you might want to give it a try. However, I wouldn't recommend this for younger people who are just trying to stave off aging skin - I think it would work for that, but I just don't see too many people being willing or able to put up with the level of discomfort /hassle for some potential future gain. It's one thing to sign up for a painful afternoon at the skin spa once a year because you'll look better years later, but to fit this into your daily routine? Probably not going to happen. But for people like me who are motivated by the obvious changes they see but can't justify the expense of professional treatments, this is a winner. I'm starting another series of treatments this week!