Facialist Iván Pol on why a sagging neck starts with muscle, not skin - and the non-surgical fix he swears by.
In collaboration with Iván Pol, facialist to the world's most photographed faces.
Ask any facialist what ages a face first, and skincare won't be the first thing they mention. Iván Pol - known to his A-list clients as The Beauty Sandwich - has spent two decades working on some of the most photographed faces in the world, and LYMA turned to him directly to get to the root of it. His diagnosis is blunt: it's never just the skin.
"Your skin is only ever as good as the muscle it sits on," Iván explains. "As we age, the ligaments underneath it slacken. Everything drops."
It's a theory long understood by surgeons, but rarely addressed by skincare - until Iván and LYMA put it to the test together. Meet Iván Pol, the facialist behind The Beauty Sandwich.
What's really behind a sagging neck and jawline
Most sagging along the neck and jawline isn't a surface problem. It's structural. Beneath the skin sits a network of ligaments and muscle that naturally loosens with age - the same layer surgeons target in a deep plane facelift. Retinoids, LEDs and topical actives can improve the surface, but none of them reach that far.
"If we want to see profound transformation in skin quality across the neck and décolletage, we need to target muscle tone and reinforce skin's underlying scaffolding, rather than merely the superficial skin on the surface. By strengthening the back of the neck at a deeper level, the full circumference of the neck appears lifted and smoothed."
Dr Graeme Glass, MD, PhD, Plastic Surgeon, Associate Professor of Surgery, LYMA Aesthetic Director
What is a deep plane facelift, and is there a non-surgical alternative
A deep plane facelift is widely considered the gold standard surgical technique for repositioning the deeper facial structures, not just the skin above them. It's effective, but it's also invasive, expensive, and comes with real downtime. For the growing number of people searching for a deep plane facelift alternative that doesn't involve a scalpel, the question LYMA set out to answer - together with Iván - was simple: could a laser reach that same deep layer, painlessly, at home? That question shaped the science behind LYMA.
How the LYMA Laser reaches the deep plane, without surgery
The LYMA Laser PRO - FDA-cleared for at-home use - uses low-level laser therapy engineered to travel through the layers of the skin, right down to the deep tissue plane that supports it.
"The LYMA Laser reaches into a deep plane, where a cream or an LED simply can't," says Iván. "That's the lift."
Traditional lasers rely on controlled damage, forcing the skin to heal - which is what causes the heat, redness and downtime associated with in-clinic treatments. LYMA's cold laser technology takes a different approach, designed to work with skin's own rhythm rather than against it. No heat. No burning. No downtime. Just three minutes a day.
Why this matters more than another serum
Most topical skincare, however advanced, stalls at the surface - the average formula tops out at around 20% active concentration, most of it sitting on skin rather than working through it. LYMA Power Youth Skincare was engineered against exactly that ceiling. Built on Genolytic™, LYMA's epigenetic technology, it's formulated to intervene across five distinct mechanisms of skin aging at once - hydration, barrier strength, oxidative stress, microbiome balance and structural integrity - with active concentrations over 60%, three times what most topical skincare achieves. Multiple molecular weights of hyaluronic acid are engineered to work at different depths, some plumping instantly, others penetrating further for hydration that compounds over time.
It's this systems-level engineering, not any single ingredient, that Iván points to when he talks about a product that doesn't just sit on skin, but visibly transforms it: firmer, smoother, more even in tone within 28 days.
This is skin, powered through every layer that supports it.
Ready to go deeper than skincare can reach?
The LYMA Laser PRO - the only at-home near-infrared laser engineered to reach the deep plane, developed with Iván Pol - is designed to work in unison with LYMA Power Youth Skincare for optimal results, and is HSA/FSA eligible.
