The short answer: HydraFacial cleanses, exfoliates, extracts and hydrates the skin on your face. Keravive does the same three-step sequence on your scalp, and adds a take-home peptide spray. They are not competing options. If your concern is dull or congested skin, you want the facial. If it is a flaky scalp or hair that looks thin, you want Keravive.
Most people who ask us to compare them are really asking one of two questions: whether Keravive is just a facial for your head, or whether it will regrow hair. The answers are roughly yes and no, and both deserve more than a sentence.
What they share
Both use the same vortex technology: a handpiece that simultaneously loosens debris, draws it out under gentle suction, and infuses a serum into the cleaned surface. Doing those steps at once, rather than sequentially, is the whole idea, and it is why neither treatment leaves you red.
Both are comfortable, both take somewhere between half an hour and an hour, and both have no downtime at all. You can have either on a lunch break and go back to work. Both also work considerably better as a monthly rhythm than as a one-off, because what they are managing — buildup, congestion, dehydration — accumulates continuously.
What HydraFacial does
HydraFacial runs the cleanse-exfoliate-extract-hydrate sequence across the face, then infuses serums chosen for what your skin is doing that day. The result is immediate: skin looks fresher on the way out, and the radiance continues to settle over the following days.
We run it in three tiers. Signature is the 30-minute core sequence and the right starting point if you are new to it. Deluxe adds a personalised booster serum and LED light therapy, and is the tier most people settle into for maintenance. Platinum adds lymphatic drainage and a longer extraction phase for anyone who wants the full version. Dermaplaning and the Perk lip and eye treatments can be added to any of the three.
It is the treatment we most often recommend as a baseline. It does not replace anything clinical, but a monthly HydraFacial alongside a real skincare routine does more for how skin looks day to day than most people expect.
What Keravive does
Keravive applies the same three steps to the scalp: deep cleansing and exfoliation to clear buildup and dead skin from around the follicles, a nourishing peptide serum infusion, and a take-home spray to extend the effect between visits.
The logic is that a scalp is skin, and it gets congested the same way facial skin does — with product residue, dry shampoo, sebum and dead cells accumulating around the follicle. Clearing that improves the environment hair grows in, which is why hair tends to look fuller and feel healthier over a series.
What it is not is a hair-loss treatment. Keravive improves scalp health. It does not address the hormonal, nutritional or genetic drivers behind genuine hair loss, and we will not present it as though it does. If hair loss is the actual concern, that is a hair restoration conversation and often a functional medicine one.
It is priced by coverage — hairline, partial, or full scalp — and it pairs particularly well as a prep step immediately before microneedling, since a clean, exfoliated, well-circulated scalp gets more out of whatever follows.
Side by side
| HydraFacial | Keravive | |
|---|---|---|
| Treats | The face | The scalp |
| Core sequence | Cleanse, exfoliate, extract, hydrate | Cleanse, exfoliate, nourish |
| Session length | 30 / 45 / 60 minutes by tier | 30–45 minutes |
| Downtime | None | None |
| Best for | Dullness, congestion, dehydration, general maintenance | Flaky or congested scalp, product buildup, hair that looks thin |
| Take-home component | No | Yes — peptide spray between visits |
| Results | Immediate radiance, builds over days | Immediate scalp comfort, fullness builds over a series |
| Recommended rhythm | Monthly | Monthly series |
| Pricing | Both are priced by tier or coverage. Current starting prices are on the HydraFacial and Keravive pages. | |
So which do you book?
Book HydraFacial if the thing bothering you is on your face: skin that looks tired, pores that read as congested, a general dullness that a good routine has not fixed on its own.
Book Keravive if the thing bothering you is on your scalp: flaking, itchiness, the residue of dry shampoo and styling product, or hair that has started to look flat and thin at the part.
Book both if both are true. They are separate appointments treating separate areas, and there is no reason to choose between them beyond time and budget.
They are not two answers to one question. They are one technology answering two.
When neither is the answer
- Genuine hair loss. Thinning with a hormonal, nutritional or genetic driver needs that driver investigated. Keravive can be part of a plan; it is not the plan.
- Acne that needs treating rather than tidying. Active inflammatory acne is a clinical problem. A facial will not resolve it, and a monthly extraction habit can delay someone getting proper treatment.
- Texture, scarring and pigment. These live deeper than a HydraFacial reaches. Microneedling, peels and resurfacing are the tools for that, and a HydraFacial is a good thing to keep alongside them rather than instead of them.
- An irritated scalp. Active infection, open sores or significant irritation means we wait rather than treat.
