CO₂ ablative laser resurfacing has been the “Gold Standard” for non surgical ablative facial rejuvenation since 1995. However CO₂ laser resurfacing has several limitations including a prolonged and difficult recovery period, often lasting three weeks, prolonged facial redness that can last three months, hypo pigmentation or lightening of skin color, and the potential for infection which can lead to scarring.

During the past few years new technology called fractional laser resurfacing or fractional skin rejuvenation has been developed which has dramatically shortened recovery time and lessened the occurrence of complications.

With Fractional Skin Rejuvenation the laser beam is broken up or fractionated into many small micro beams which are separated so that when they strike the skin surface small areas of the skin between the beams are not hit by the laser and left intact. These small areas of untreated skin promote a much more rapid recovery and healing with less risk of complications. The small areas treated by the fractional micro beams, called micro treatment zones, cause sufficient laser injury to promote new collagen production and resultant facial skin rejuvenation.

Recently several new micro fractional ablative lasers have been developed which have the benefits of fractional treatments, less down time and complications, as well as the benefits of ablative skin resurfacing. Reliant, the company that makes Fraxel (The first non ablative fractional laser on the market) has released a new CO₂ fractional laser called the Repair, Lumenis has released a CO2 fractional ablative laser called ActiveFX and DeepFx for Bridge Therapy, and Palomar has released the Starlux 2940, an Erbium fractional ablative skin resurfacing laser. Impressive wrinkle removal and improvement in skin texture has been achieved with the Starlux 2940 fractional ablative laser