Depuffing Is the Part You See First, Not the Part That Lasts
Medically reviewed by
4 independent reviewers
Andrew Conrad Barile, PT, DPT
Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) | Licensed Physical Therapist (PT) | CEO and Founder, Xtreem Pulse LLC
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Dr. Andrew Conrad Barile is a Doctor of Physical Therapy and the CEO and Founder of Xtreem Pulse LLC, the engineering company behind PureLift. He earned his Doctorate in Physical Therapy from Daemen College and is a licensed physical therapist.
He brings over two decades of clinical and entrepreneurial experience across physical therapy, craniosacral therapy and medical device innovation, built on a working knowledge of human anatomy and muscle physiology.
For PureLift LAB he reviews how current is delivered across all ten levels, from sub-sensory nanocurrent and skin-level microcurrent to motor-level EMS, and how the Infuse pass fits into the same ten-minute routine.
Bertica M. Rubio, M.D.
Board-Certified Physician, Dartmouth Medical School | Medical Director, Antiaging Regenerative Medicine Clinic
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Dr. Bertica M. Rubio is a board-certified physician and Medical Director of the Antiaging Regenerative Medicine Clinic in Redlands, California. She earned her Doctor of Medicine from Dartmouth Medical School and completed her pediatrics residency at UC Irvine Medical Center.
With decades of clinical experience, she specialises in age management medicine, regenerative medicine, wound healing and growth factor therapies, and her practice integrates evidence-based medical science with advanced aesthetic treatment.
For PureLift LAB she reviews articles for medical accuracy across the whole dial, from the gentle nanocurrent and microcurrent settings through to muscle-level EMS and the Infuse pass.
Daniel Grinberg, MD, FACS
Board-Certified Otolaryngologist | Head and Neck Surgeon | Fellow, American College of Surgeons | Mount Sinai
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Daniel Grinberg, MD, FACS is a board-certified otolaryngologist and head and neck surgeon at ENT and Allergy Associates in West Nyack, New York. He earned his medical degree from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.
He completed his otolaryngology residency at New York University Medical Center, serves as Assistant Clinical Professor at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and is a Fellow of both the American College of Surgeons and the American Academy of Otolaryngology.
For PureLift LAB he brings a wider clinical lens, connecting at-home facial stimulation from microcurrent to EMS to the anatomy underneath, with the same rigour we apply to every device specification.
Prof. Dr. med. Ivo Buschmann
Chair of Angiology, Medizinische Hochschule Brandenburg | Clinic Director, University Clinic for Angiology
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Prof. Dr. med. Ivo Buschmann is Chair of Angiology at the Medizinische Hochschule Brandenburg Theodor Fontane and Clinic Director of the University Clinic for Angiology at the Brandenburg University Hospital.
He trained at the University of Hamburg, was a Max Planck Society Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research, and held senior consultant posts at the Charite Universitatsmedizin Berlin before his appointment as Chair in 2016.
One of Europe's leading authorities on arteriogenesis, with over 150 peer-reviewed publications and US and EU patents, he reviews for PureLift LAB how the evidence on electrical stimulation is read and where its limits lie.
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The fresher-looking face an hour after a session is fluid that has been moved, and it will be back tomorrow morning.
This article explains what is actually happening, such as:
- What you are seeing in the first hour
- The part that needs a device
- Why the confusion costs people the result
- The third job people miss entirely
- Which means you should buy one only if
and many more!
A device sold purely as a depuffing tool is being sold on the part that a cold spoon also does.
Key Points:
Drainage is available from your hands, a jade roller, a cold stone, or simply getting up and moving.
Muscle contraction is the one thing on the list that requires current.
Kavanagh's 12-week protocol is the honest timescale for the cumulative half.
Infuse mode is a third job again, delivering what you apply rather than moving fluid or working muscle.
If depuffing is genuinely all you want, you do not need to spend $499.
What you are seeing in the first hour
Fluid collects in the face overnight because lymph has no pump and you have been lying still. Moving a probe over the skin is external pressure, which is one of the three ways lymph shifts, so the fluid moves and the face looks tighter.
That is real and it is worth having, and it is also entirely temporary; tonight you will lie down again and tomorrow it will have re-accumulated.
It is also the cheapest thing on offer. Your fingers do it, a jade roller does it, a cold stone does it, and standing up and walking around does a fair amount of it for free.
The part that needs a device
Muscle contraction is the one job on the list that external pressure cannot produce. Throughout a massage the muscle is passive; you are moving it and it is not moving itself, and a muscle only adapts when it does the work.
EMS crosses the motor threshold and makes the muscle contract on its own. Kavanagh and colleagues followed 108 women through 12 weeks and measured an 18.6 percent increase in cheek muscle thickness (10.1111/jocd.12007), and Chang and colleagues ran a double-blind sham-controlled trial (10.3390/ijerph17113783).
Those are category studies rather than trials of a particular device, and the number to hold on to is twelve weeks. Nothing about that process is visible on a Tuesday.
Why the confusion costs people the result
The pattern is predictable. Week one the immediate effect is striking, week three it feels ordinary because you have stopped noticing it, and week four the conclusion is that the device has stopped working.
What has actually happened is that the fast, visible half stayed exactly the same and the slow half has not arrived yet. The device is doing what it did on day one.
The fix is to measure the two separately: judge drainage the same morning, and judge the cumulative work by monthly photographs in consistent light.
The third job people miss entirely
Infuse mode is neither drainage nor muscle work. Infusion opens temporary routes through the outer skin layer and iontophoresis uses gentle current to move charged ingredients along them; Prausnitz and colleagues set out the underlying mechanism (10.1073/pnas.90.22.10504).
That is a delivery job, and it makes what you already apply go further rather than doing anything to fluid or muscle.
On PureLift the low bands are separate again: levels 1 and 2 are nanocurrent and microcurrent, aimed at skin-level mechanisms rather than at either of the above.
Which means you should buy one only if
You want the muscle work, and you will keep going for a season rather than a fortnight.
If depuffing is genuinely all you are after, buy a cold stone and save the difference; we would rather tell you that than sell you a device you will use for three weeks.
If you want the fast half and the slow half in one routine, that is the case for the device, and the sensible session does both: light drainage at a low level, muscle work at your working level, then finish down the neck.
Three minutes per side is the maximum on any PureLift model, and the ten minute session ends on its own.
For the fluid mechanism see the science behind facial depuffing, and for the full technology breakdown, how the nine PureLift technologies work.