Your own fat, emulsified until nothing remains of its structure — injected not to add volume, but to change the quality of the skin above it.
Fat is harvested from the abdomen or thigh through a small cannula, then mechanically emulsified — passed back and forth between syringes and filtered — until the fat cells themselves are broken down. What is left is a thin fluid containing the stromal vascular fraction: the regenerative cell population that lives among fat cells rather than the fat cells themselves.
Because it holds no intact adipocytes, nanofat does not add volume and is not a filler. It is placed superficially, in the dermis and just beneath it, where the intention is to influence skin quality — fine crepey texture, discolouration under the eyes, the surface of a mature scar. Where volume is the goal, structural fat grafting is the different procedure, and the two are often planned together in the same session.
The technique was described by Dr. Patrick Tonnard and Dr. Alexis Verpaele, whose aesthetic fellowship Dr. Cruz completed from March to June 2025, training with them in Ghent and at E:MC2 in Sint-Martens-Latem, Belgium.
A candid note on evidence: nanofat is well established in surgical practice and has a coherent biological rationale, but the published outcome data is smaller and shorter-term than for long-standing procedures. Results vary between people, and the degree of change is generally subtle rather than dramatic. Any surgeon who promises you a specific result from it is overstating what is known.
Nanofat grafting was developed and published by Dr. Patrick Tonnard and Dr. Alexis Verpaele. Dr. Cruz trained under both during his fellowship with them, March to June 2025, in Ghent and at E:MC2 in Sint-Martens-Latem, Belgium.