By area

Polynucleotides for the Neck and Chest

The neck is where people notice the gap between how old their face looks and how old they are, and it is the area most consistently left out of the skincare that has been keeping the face in good condition.

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The short answer

What this treatment is

Neck skin is built differently from facial skin and treated worse. It has fewer sebaceous glands, so it produces less of its own oil and dehydrates faster. It has thinner subcutaneous support. It moves constantly. And for most people it has had decades of sun exposure without ever being included in the routine that protects the face, because sunscreen tends to stop at the jaw.

The result is the horizontal banding, fine crepey texture and loss of light that people describe as their neck giving them away. Polynucleotides are well suited to it, with one important caveat: this area responds more slowly and less completely than the face, and anyone who tells you otherwise has not treated many necks.

Neck and chest at a glance during and after your session

Session timeAbout 30 minutes
CourseThree to four sessions
IntervalTwo to three weeks apart
First changeTexture, from session two or three
DowntimeBumps last a little longer here
Result judgedAt ten to twelve weeks

Areas treated

What's included

Softens the fine crepey texture across the front of the neck
Improves hydration in skin with few oil glands of its own
Reduces the sun-damaged mottling on the upper chest
Helps the fine vertical lines that show in a low neckline
Improves the light the skin reflects, so it photographs better
Treats an area most skincare routines have skipped for years

Boundaries of practice

What's not treated

Good practice means saying no when indicated:

Known allergy to fish, since the source material is salmon or trout
Pregnancy or breastfeeding, where no safety data exists for this treatment
Active skin infection, inflammation or an open wound in the area
Active autoimmune disease affecting the skin, without clinical advice first
Anticoagulant or antiplatelet therapy, which needs assessment before treating
A course of isotretinoin taken within the last six months

Patient journey

What to expect

Consultation & preparation

Stop fish oil, high-dose vitamin E and anti-inflammatory painkillers for a few days beforehand if your own doctor is content for you to, because each of them makes bruising more likely. Come with a list of what you have already had done and when, and the medicines you take. Describe what you dislike in your own words rather than naming a treatment, so the assessment starts from the problem.

During treatment

Why the neck ages faster than the face above it

Three structural differences do most of the work. The dermis is thinner, so there is less collagen to lose before the change becomes visible. Sebaceous glands are sparse, so the skin cannot self-hydrate the way facial skin does and sits chronically drier. And the platysma, the broad sheet of muscle across the front of the neck, is in constant motion with every turn of the head and every swallow.

On top of that sits the exposure history. Sunscreen habitually stops at the jawline, which means most people arrive with a neck carrying decades more accumulated ultraviolet damage than the face directly above it. That damage shows as the mottled pigmentation and loss of elasticity across the upper chest that is often more ageing than anything on the face.

What this treatment reaches here, and what it does not

It reaches skin quality: the crepiness, the dryness, the fine lines and the dull light. Placed through the dermis, polynucleotides hydrate an area that is short of water and prompt fibroblasts into producing collagen, which thickens tissue that has thinned.

It does not reach laxity. If the skin has genuinely loosened and hangs, or if the platysmal bands stand out as visible cords, this is not the treatment for that and no course of it will be. Those need energy-based tightening, muscle-relaxing injections for the bands specifically, or surgery. A practitioner offering polynucleotides for a neck that has descended is treating the wrong problem.

It also does not reach established pigmentation. The mottled brown on a sun-damaged chest is a pigment problem and needs pigment treatment.

Why this area takes longer

Expect a slower and more modest response than on the face, and plan for it. Blood supply to neck skin is less generous, the tissue is thinner to begin with, and the area never rests. Most practitioners run four sessions here rather than three, and assess at ten to twelve weeks rather than eight.

The injection blebs also take longer to settle here than on the face, sometimes remaining visible into the following day. It is worth knowing that before booking a session the day before something with a low neckline.

The single most useful thing alongside a course is extending your sunscreen down. The treatment is asking the tissue to rebuild while ultraviolet exposure is asking it to break down, and continuing to skip the neck makes the whole exercise considerably less worthwhile.

Aftercare

Leave holding a written plan that names the area, the number of sessions, the intervals between them and the total cost including any review. Read it somewhere other than the clinic. A fortnight between assessment and first treatment is the interval commonly recommended for elective cosmetic procedures, and nothing about this treatment is urgent enough to shorten it.

FAQ

Common
questions

Will this tighten a neck that has started to sag?

No. Polynucleotides improve the quality of skin, not its tension, so crepey texture and fine lines respond while genuine laxity does not. A neck that has loosened or shows standing muscle bands needs energy-based tightening, targeted muscle-relaxing injections, or surgery, and should be assessed for those instead.

How many sessions does the neck need?

Usually four rather than the three a face would have, spaced two to three weeks apart. The tissue is thinner, its blood supply is less generous and it never stops moving, so the collagen response is slower. Judge the result at ten to twelve weeks rather than eight.

Can the upper chest be treated at the same time?

Yes, and it usually should be, because the two areas age together and treating one alone tends to show the join. The mottled sun damage across the chest is a pigmentation problem that this treatment does not address, so expect texture to improve while the brown marks stay.

How visible are the injection bumps on the neck?

More visible and slower to settle than on the face, sometimes still faintly present the following morning. They are small and flat rather than dramatic. Avoid booking a session immediately before an occasion where you will be wearing a low neckline.

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Describe what you want changed.
We come back with a registered practitioner.

Polynucleotides Marylebone • UNTIL Marylebone, 1 Orchard Street, London W1H 6HJ

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