Around twelve months. For most people in our clinic's experience the result of a full four-session EMface course holds for about a year, with maintenance sessions extending it. The result is not instant and it does not last for ever: it builds for six to twelve weeks after the last session, peaks, and then fades slowly unless it is topped up. Long-term studies on EMface are still to come, so the twelve-month figure is what we see at 8 Devonshire Place, not a manufacturer's promise.
The timeline after a course
- Within days of each session: a fresher, lightly lifted look from fluid movement and muscle tone. This is the part a single session gives, and the part that fades first.
- Six to twelve weeks after the last session: the main result, as the collagen and elastin the radiofrequency set going are laid down and the muscle density from the HIFES contractions settles. This is BTL's peak in its own data and when we take the after photograph, at three months.
- The following months: the lift and the skin quality hold, then ease gradually.
Why it fades, and what keeps it
The two parts of the result age differently. The muscle part behaves like exercise: the lifting muscles of the face, worked by HIFES (high intensity facial electrical stimulation), gain density and resting tone with repetition and lose it without. The skin part is new collagen and elastin, which is subject to the same ageing as the rest of your skin. Maintenance addresses the first and refreshes the second.
One session every three to six months keeps the lift, or a two-session top-up once a year. Either is a fraction of the course, and the clinician plans it with you at the three-month review, with the aim of topping the result up before it drops far enough to need a full course again.
What makes it last longer or shorter
Mild laxity treated early tends to hold longest, because the muscles and the skin have the most to work with. Heavier laxity, sun damage and a drop in weight shorten it. Sunscreen, which you should use anyway, protects the new collagen. None of this changes the protocol; it changes what the clinician tells you to expect at the free consultation, which is the honest version for your face rather than an average.
Compared with the alternatives
Dermal filler lasts six to eighteen months and is repeated as a single appointment. Morpheus8 lasts twelve months or more and Sofwave about twelve months; both are provided by our sister clinic at the same address, and both tighten the skin without working the muscle. EMface is the one that lifts from the muscle, with no needle and only ten to twenty minutes of pink skin afterwards. The full EMface guide compares them side by side, and the sessions page explains the course.
Consultations and follow-ups are free
Keep the result
Book a free consultation at EMface Clinic on 0207 043 8102 or through the form below. The clinician tells you how long to expect your own result to hold, sets the maintenance plan, and confirms the course price in writing, with 0% finance available over the course.
