We love being beauty editors and never more than when we are invited for really wonderful treatments. It was a dark rainy afternoon in Knightsbridge, London when Sarah squelched up the five floors to Lisa Franklin Clinic Privé, feeling and looking distinctly unbeautiful. Some two hours later after her CACI treatments, she left feeling and looking about 500% better. No wonder it has a legion of celebrity followers, including the wonderful Elizabeth Debicki – a.k.a. Princess Diana in the next series of ‘The Crown’.

Headline improvements after the 90-minute treatment were smoother, softer, glowier and more supple skin with firmer, more defined looking facial contours; forehead furrows were less noticeable and fine lines visibly fainter. (Those effects were from one treatment, which lasts a few days – for lasting results you are advised to have a course and then maintenance sessions.)

As for hands, well… for someone who had apologised at the start for her ‘farm girl’ hands – horses are no respecters of beauty – it was a bit of a miracle looking at those peachy, plump, pampered paws. And definitely an incentive to take greater care of hands, not to mention putting specs on to look at them. Myopic blurry vision is kind but not really accurate.

A warm welcome really does it for us. We don’t do cool – we like feeling cosseted and comforted, which is exactly what facialist par excellence Lisa and her very nice team provide in this prettiest of salons. Lisa Franklin Clinic Privé is designated CACI’s London flagship salon. Sarah’s facialist for this face and hand rejuvenation treatment was Kimberley, whose expert ministrations were so soothing that Sarah seemed to sleep sweetly through most of it. (So details of exactly what happens are a little sparse.) 

CACI and Sarah have history. The first ‘non-surgical face lift’, CACI (Computer Aided Cosmetology Instrument) was launched three decades back – 2022 is their 30th anniversary - when Sarah was on a then broadsheet national newspaper and she was commissioned to trial and write about this new category of facial perkifying technology. (Memories coming back of one woman editor welcoming it on the grounds that ‘feminists don’t have cosmetic surgery’.) We love that CACI is now referred to in the trade as a ‘heritage’ brand – rather like apples and tomatoes…

The CACI Synergy system is the next generation of the technology, the result of over 25 years of research and development. As well the original microcurrent facial toning, it incorporates SPED technology (Simultaneous Photo Electrical Delivery), which delivers LED at the same time. Basically, this innovative dual approach works faster and is more effective, giving more visible and longer-lasting results.

As you can see from the picture above, the main (painless) action is with these multi-headed probes, which work with microcurrent impulses to lift and tone the skin tissue, in tandem with the SPED LED light therapy to improve skin elasticity and suppleness.

The sessions incorporate CACI’s own skincare. Worth adding here that CACI’s intensely moisturising and nourishing Hydro Mask was an Award winner in our 2021 Beauty Bible Awards, as was the Eye Revive Mask. You can read our testers’ comments by clicking on the names.

Would I sign up for a course? In a heartbeat. Yes, it’s an investment but considerably less than a surgical facelift – and none of the downtime.

CACI Synergy Signature Non-Surgical Facial Toning with Hand Rejuvenation at Lisa Franklin Clinic Privé/£183; from £80 nationwide. For salons nationwide caci-international.co.uk

Find CACI on Instagram @caci_beauty and Lisa Franklin @lisafranklinuk

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