Clear + Brilliant Laser: Results, Cost and Downtime

Clear + Brilliant is a laser skin-resurfacing system made by Solta Medical.

Solta is part of Bausch Health: the Fraxel site's own footer lists Thermage, Fraxel, Clear + Brilliant and VASERlipo as trademarks of Bausch Health Companies Inc. or its affiliates.

The FDA status is cleared, not approved.

The current system, Clear + Brilliant Touch, was cleared through the 510(k) device pathway on December 29, 2022 (K223647) for "dermatological procedures requiring the coagulation of soft tissue and general skin resurfacing procedures." That wording — general resurfacing, with no conditions named — is the frame for everything else on this page.

The device has been cleared since 2011.

The original 1440 nm system was cleared on May 3, 2011 (K110349).

A 1927 nm handpiece was added in 2012 (K120433), marketed under the name Perméa.

The Touch system cleared in 2022 carries both the 1440 nm and 1927 nm handpieces.

The research maps the names this way: the original system is the 1440 nm handpiece, Perméa is the 1927 nm handpiece, and Touch is the second-generation system that carries both.

If you have run into Clear + Brilliant described as a "laser facial," that phrase is marketing shorthand rather than cleared language — the cleared text is the general resurfacing wording quoted above.

What the two wavelengths and the two handpieces are each used for, and how a practice chooses between them, is not spelled out in the sources we checked for Clear + Brilliant specifically, so it is a question to ask at consultation.

For how this device sits in the broader category — types of resurfacing lasers, their cost, recovery and results — our laser resurfacing guide covers it.

The cleared use is the place to start, because it is narrower than the marketing around this device can sound.

Clear + Brilliant is cleared for soft-tissue coagulation and general skin resurfacing — no named condition appears in that cleared wording.

That is a real difference from its sister brand: Solta's stated indications for Fraxel's 1550 nm wavelength name conditions — dyschromia, age and sun spots, actinic keratosis, melasma, wrinkles around the eyes, and acne and surgical scars — and its 1927 nm wording names actinic keratosis and pigmented lesions such as age spots, sun spots and freckles.

What Solta says you can expect from Clear + Brilliant is about tone, texture and brightness rather than any named condition: the company says skin starts to feel softer and look brighter within a week or two after one treatment, and that consumers in studies it cites reported visible improvement after 4–6 treatments.

Those are the maker's statements, based on consumer self-reports.

The maker's own Important Safety Information then draws the candidacy lines.

It says a person diagnosed with — or possibly having — melasma, rosacea or actinic keratosis may not be an appropriate candidate.

It also flags keloid tendency, immune-compromising conditions, photosensitizing drugs, systemic steroids, retinoids within the past 2 weeks, isotretinoin, and Botox or filler within the past 2 weeks.

The melasma line matters if laser treatment is what brought you here.

Clear + Brilliant's maker lists melasma among the conditions where a patient may not be an appropriate candidate — and the treatment evidence for melasma itself runs through topicals: a 2020 evidence-based review of 113 studies and 6,897 participants concluded hydroquinone and triple-combination cream are the most effective, best-studied melasma treatments, with chemical peels and laser or light therapies "equal or inferior to topicals" and a higher risk of adverse effects.

One more caution if dark spots are your concern: the American Academy of Dermatology recommends a board-certified dermatologist examine your skin before you treat age spots, because what looks like an age spot can be skin cancer, and a fading treatment over a skin cancer can give it time to grow and spread.

None of this is a verdict on your skin.

Candidacy is a licensed provider's call, made with your history and current products in front of them — take the maker's list to the consultation as questions to answer, not as a self-diagnosis.

Start with what we cannot tell you: we could not verify a national average price for Clear + Brilliant.

The American Society of Plastic Surgeons' 2025 procedural statistics release does not report counts or fees for minimally invasive procedures, and our research found no other current national figure we could stand behind.

A price you see online is that practice's or chain's own number rather than a benchmark.

The nearest national number applies to the category, not this device.

ASPS's laser skin resurfacing cost page gives an average cost of $1,829 per its "latest statistics" — the year is not stated on the page, it is the physician's fee only and excludes related expenses, and it covers laser skin resurfacing as a whole rather than Clear + Brilliant specifically.

Do not read it as a Clear + Brilliant price.

What drives the total is the session count: the number of sessions is a main price driver, and Solta's own materials describe visible improvement after 4–6 treatments with routine maintenance afterward, so what you are quoted depends on how many sessions a practice recommends and whether it prices the series as a package.

When you collect quotes, ask what each one includes: how many sessions the practice recommends and why, the price of a single session versus a package, what a maintenance visit costs later, and which handpiece — 1440 nm or 1927 nm — the practice would use and why.

With no verified national figure to compare against, itemized quotes from a few practices are the real numbers you have to work with.

Solta's session math: a Clear + Brilliant Touch session takes about 30–45 minutes including prep, of which 15–20 minutes is actual treatment, per the company.

On the series: Solta says consumers in studies reported visible improvement after 4–6 treatments, and that many patients continue routine treatments as part of their overall skin care regimen.

Read those numbers for what they are — consumers' self-reports in studies the maker cites, not a promise of what you will see.

On timing: Solta says skin starts to feel softer and look brighter within a week or two after one treatment.

On duration, the maker's wording is deliberately soft: results "can last for months depending on age, skin condition, and how you protect your skin." We will not convert that into a number — our sources hold no independent figure for how long Clear + Brilliant results last, and any month count you see elsewhere is not something we could verify.

Of the three factors the maker names, sun protection is the one in your control.

The same skepticism applies to before-and-after photos.

Under the FTC Endorsement Guides, a result shown in an ad is read as representative of what consumers will generally achieve, and the FTC says disclaimers like "results not typical" are generally insufficient on their own.

Manufacturer galleries are often labeled with the treatment count and the time point — check both, along with lighting and whether the photos are unretouched, before you weigh any gallery, and treat every gallery as marketing rather than an expectation.

Discomfort is on the maker's own common list.

Solta lists "pain or discomfort" among the common side effects of Clear + Brilliant, alongside redness, swelling, itching or dryness, and increased skin sensitivity.

What our sources do not give is a rate or a description of how the treatment typically feels — so comfort during a session is a direct question for each practice: what they use to keep patients comfortable, and what their patients report afterward.

Downtime, to the extent our sources speak to it, is the maker's recovery description: mild-to-moderate redness and swelling that develops immediately after treatment and usually diminishes or resolves within 12 to 24 hours.

That is Solta's own account, not an independent study, and its own hedge — the wording is "diminishes or resolves," not a promise — is doing real work in that sentence.

Ask the practice what recovery has actually looked like in their patients.

The other items on the maker's common list — itching or dryness, and increased skin sensitivity — are worth asking about too: how long sensitivity lasted for their patients, and which products to set aside in the days right after a session.

Solta's Important Safety Information lists the common side effects of Clear + Brilliant as mild-to-moderate redness and swelling that develops immediately after treatment and usually diminishes or resolves within 12 to 24 hours, itching or dryness, increased skin sensitivity, pain or discomfort, and — rarely — pinpoint bleeding.

The list as our sources carry it comes without rates, so we cannot tell you how often any of these occur.

The candidacy flags bear repeating because they are the maker's own: melasma, rosacea or actinic keratosis (diagnosed or suspected), keloid tendency, immune-compromising conditions, photosensitizing drugs, systemic steroids, retinoids within the past 2 weeks, isotretinoin, and Botox or filler within the past 2 weeks.

If any of those describe you, say so before booking — the two timing items (recent retinoid use, recent Botox or filler) only matter to a practice that knows what you have had, and when.

Our sources for this device include no complication-rate table, so the rate picture this page can give you stops at the maker's list above.

A practice's own history with the device — how often its patients report these effects, and how it handles a treatment that does not settle as described — is experience rather than data, but it is the follow-up our research can point you to.

The comparisons worth making are with Clear + Brilliant's neighbors in the light-based resurfacing aisle: Solta's own Fraxel, and Moxi from Sciton.

What follows is the clearance on file for each device's laser system and its maker's own statements — not a ranking, because what we have is paperwork and marketing: our sources include no trial that puts these devices head to head.

Three differences are worth taking to a consultation.

First, the paperwork: Fraxel's stated indications name specific conditions, while Clear + Brilliant's cleared wording is general resurfacing — so if a practice tells you Clear + Brilliant is cleared to treat a named condition, that is not what its clearance says.

Second, recovery: Solta's Fraxel timeline includes visible peeling around days 3–4 and SPF 30+ with no direct sun for at least 3 months after the last treatment, while Clear + Brilliant's maker describes redness and swelling that usually resolve within 12–24 hours, and Sciton says Moxi has "little to no downtime" — each maker describing its own device, in its own words.

Third, the series: 4–6 sessions reported for Clear + Brilliant, up to five for Fraxel, 2–4 for Moxi, and the number of sessions is a main driver of total cost.

Solta's other device in this conversation is Thermage FLX — monopolar radiofrequency at 6.78 MHz per FDA documents, rather than a laser — cleared for non-invasive treatment of wrinkles and rhytids, including periorbital wrinkles on the upper and lower eyelids.

Our Thermage guide covers it, and our Moxi guide covers Sciton's device in depth.

Which of these fits your skin is a licensed provider's call.

The devices differ in wavelength, cleared wording and recovery, so the question to ask at consultation is why that practice would choose one of them for you.

Two things decide whether a Clear + Brilliant course goes well: who operates the device, and how honestly the practice quotes the work.

Both are checkable.

On who can treat you: AmSpa, the med spa trade association, uses botulinum toxin as its example of a medical act — injecting a prescription drug affects living tissue, so it must be done by a physician, an independent-practice nurse practitioner or another licensed professional working within their scope, under rules that vary by state.

Our research did not surface a national rule naming who may operate a laser like Clear + Brilliant, so ask each practice directly: who will operate the device, what license that person holds, and what training they have on this specific system.

Questions worth asking before you book:

For the full vetting process — credentials, the consultation, pricing red flags and ownership — our how to choose a med spa checklist goes deeper.

And when you search for Clear + Brilliant near you, take the same questions to every consultation: the answers, plus an itemized quote, are the most concrete data you will have before you book.