Regenerative · ExplainedProfhilo or Polynucleotides? How We Decide

The confusion is understandable

Both are injected. Neither adds volume. Both are sold as improving "skin quality". So clients arrive having read about one and ask for it by name, when quite often the other is the better answer for what they actually want fixed.

The distinction matters because they work on different problems. Choosing wrongly does not do harm — it just spends money on the wrong mechanism.

What Profhilo does

Profhilo is one of the most concentrated hyaluronic acid products available, made without the cross-linking that gives filler its structure. It cannot hold a shape. Instead it disperses through the tissue, draws in water, and over the following weeks stimulates the skin's own collagen and elastin.

It is placed at five specific points on each side of the face and spreads from them. The result is hydration and a firming effect across a broad area — most noticeable on the lower face and jawline, the neck, the décolletage and the backs of the hands.

Profhilo works on the area. Polynucleotides work on the tissue.

What polynucleotides do

Polynucleotides are purified DNA fragments — PDRN — that act as a signal to the skin's repair machinery. They activate fibroblasts, reduce inflammation and gradually improve the quality of the tissue itself.

That makes them the better tool where skin is damaged rather than simply ageing: thin, crepey, scarred, or persistently inflamed. And they are the reason we can now offer something useful for under-eyes.

The under-eye question

This is where the choice is clearest. Under-eye skin is often too thin for filler, and tear trough filler placed badly is a problem that lasts years. Polynucleotides thicken and improve that skin instead of adding something beneath it that can migrate or hold water.

If you have come in wanting your under-eyes sorted, there is a fair chance the honest answer is polynucleotides rather than the tear trough filler you were expecting to ask for.

How we choose, in practice

• Laxity and crepiness across the lower face, neck or décolletage — Profhilo
• Thin, damaged, scarred or persistently inflamed skin — polynucleotides
• Under-eye crepiness and dark shadowing — polynucleotides, almost always
• General dullness and dehydration — Profhilo, or Restylane skin boosters
• Acne scarring — polynucleotides alongside microneedling

Courses and cost

Profhilo is two sessions four weeks apart — that is the protocol and a single session does not deliver the same result. £250 for 2ml, or £480 for the course of two.

Polynucleotides run as three sessions four weeks apart. £195 for under eyes, £225 for the face, or £600 for a course of three.

Both hold for around six months, and both build gradually rather than appearing at once. If you want something visible next week, neither is your treatment.

Can you have both?

Yes, and a fair number of clients end up doing exactly that — polynucleotides under the eyes where the skin is thin, Profhilo across the lower face and neck where the laxity is. They are not competing products. They are different tools.

What the consultation is for

None of the above substitutes for someone looking at your face. Rachel assesses skin at rest and in movement, asks what is actually bothering you rather than what you have read about, and will say if the answer is neither — sometimes it is a course of microneedling, sometimes it is fixing your homecare first.