Both of these use cold, and the difference between them is dose. Cryoskin is a hand-held probe that a practitioner moves over the skin, alternating warm and cold. CoolSculpting pulls a fold of tissue into a cup. It holds the tissue at a set temperature for a set number of minutes, then stops.
Time at temperature is the whole mechanism behind fat freezing. The founding animal work cooled skin to between minus 1 and minus 7 degrees Celsius for 10 minutes. That inflamed the fat lobules, and the fat cells died over the following weeks. The human settings FDA has cleared are of the same shape: minus 10 degrees for 60 minutes under the chin, and minus 11 degrees for 35 minutes on the upper arm. The device descriptions in the FDA summaries state a target temperature held to within half a degree. The cycle stops on its own if the surface temperature runs more than 1 degree past the target. Everything the cryolipolysis evidence rests on assumes that kind of controlled, steady, measured exposure.
A probe moved by hand across the skin is a different exposure, and nobody has published what it delivers. There is no fixed dwell time. The tissue is not held in place. Warm phases are put between the cold ones on purpose. Whether that reaches the fat under the skin at a temperature and for a length of time that damages fat cells is a question you could measure. It has not been measured and reported for Cryoskin.
The record for Cryoskin is empty in both directions. The FDA 510(k) database returns no clearance under the device name Cryoskin, and none under Cryosense. The device registration and listing database returns nothing under Cryoskin either. PubMed returns no clinical study of it. Those searches are of those product names, so scope the point to them. It is what the databases hold for those names, not a statement about every cold device on the market.
Every technical description available comes from clinic and distributor pages. No maker's instructions for use are posted publicly. No temperature or duration is documented in a primary source.
The cup, the vacuum and the fixed cycle are not side details. They are what makes the exposure repeatable.
The dose is whatever the operator's technique produces that day.
Cleared cycles run 35 to 60 minutes, at a target temperature down to minus 11 degrees. The Elite summaries state minus 15 degrees in one place and minus 11 in another. That is a mismatch inside FDA's own documents, and it has not been sorted out in public.
With no clearance there is no indication text, no named body area, no rules on who can be treated, and no labelled reasons to avoid it. A 510(k) clearance is a finding that a device is much the same as an existing one, not proof of benefit. But it does produce all of that text.
Under the chin and under the jawline are cleared separately, up to a body mass index of 46.2. The category itself was created by the De Novo DEN090002 on 24 August 2010. Elite is K212707, cleared 5 November 2021.
No study reports what tissue temperature Cryoskin reaches. None reports how long fat stays there, or what happens to the fat layer afterwards.
FDA's pooled review of 4,792 cryolipolysis treatments gave a mean ultrasound fat-layer drop of 20.6%, or 3.9 mm. Single study means ran from 10.3% to 25.5%. An independent randomised split-body trial measured about 14% at 12 weeks. Only 44% of the people in that trial noticed any fat loss themselves.
People usually describe it as comfortable and pleasant. That is a real difference from an hour under a freezing cup. It is a statement about the session, not the result.
Not loose skin, not cellulite, not anything spread evenly over a large area.
There is no published safety record for this device, so there is nothing to describe. That is a gap in what is known, not evidence of safety.
A review of 554 procedures called delayed pain arriving a few days after treatment not uncommon. It lasted 3 to 11 days. In one FDA-reviewed arm study, 4 of 30 patients still had numbness beyond 12 weeks.
No studied protocol exists to compare a package against.
One multi-site practice covered 18,203 cycles. The median was 4 cycles and 1 session per patient. The mean was 5.6 cycles.
Cryolipolysis is not "cold makes fat go away". It is an injury that depends on the dose. Fat cells hold more lipid than the tissue around them. They crystallise and inflame at temperatures that leave skin, nerve, vessel and muscle unharmed. That is why the founding work was called selective cryolysis. That selectivity only exists inside a window of temperature and time. Too little and nothing happens to the fat. Too much and you injure the skin.
That is why the FDA-cleared settings read the way they do, with a temperature, a duration and an automatic cut-off. It is also why the studies spell them out. A pig study cooled tissue to between minus 1 and minus 7 degrees for 10 minutes. It produced lobular panniculitis, meaning inflamed fat, and several millimetres of fat loss over three and a half months. There was no skin injury and no rise in blood lipids. The human clearances run longer and colder, but on the same principle.
Change the exposure and you no longer have the same treatment: That is not a criticism of Cryoskin. It is the reason evidence built on one cold device does not carry over to another. It is also why "cryo" on a treatment menu is not a claim about anything in particular.
Nothing has been published on it. No temperature at depth. No duration at that temperature. No fat-layer thickness before and after. No waist measurement, no photographs judged by blinded reviewers, and no series of side effects.
That is a different statement from "it does nothing". It means the question is open. Everything currently said about its effect on fat comes from people selling it.
If you want to test a claim yourself, ask two things. What is the fat meant to reach, and for how long? And what measurement supports that? The answer for cryolipolysis is on the public record and easy to check. If a device has an answer of its own, it should be just as checkable.
Being cleared and studied is not the same as being impressive. It is worth seeing the limits of the good record too.
The main endpoint in most CoolSculpting clearances is a photograph: Three blinded reviewers are shown a pair of images and asked to pick the one taken first. In the pivotal under-chin study of 60 people, run by the manufacturer, they were right 91% of the time, against a pre-set bar of 80%. That shows trained observers can tell the pictures apart. It does not tell you how much fat went.
The fat measurements themselves are small: The secondary endpoint of that same study was 0.20 cm of fat-layer thickness at 12 weeks. Across the literature, pooled reductions run around 2 to 5 mm. A systematic review of how this field measures anything found that every available method has real limits. Photographs are subjective. Waist and caliper measurements are muddied by other factors. Ultrasound depends on who is holding the probe.
Long-term durability rests on two people: The published long-term follow-up for cryolipolysis is two men photographed at 2 and 5 years, and the same two again at 6 and 9 years. There is no measured long-term group.
FDA's patient page on non-invasive body contouring was last updated 15 October 2025. It says it directly: the treatments "will not result in weight loss or contribute to the health benefits associated with weight loss". CoolSculpting's maker says the procedure is not a treatment for weight loss. It also says it does not replace diet, exercise or liposuction.
The pooled numbers back that up in an unflattering way. A 2025 meta-analysis of cryolipolysis studies reported a drop in body mass index. Alongside it sat a weight change that was not statistically significant: about 1.81 kg, with a confidence interval crossing zero, p = 0.09. Both figures came from the same dataset. They cannot both be describing an effect of freezing a small patch of fat.
The body mass index limit of 30 in the clearance is a ceiling on who can be treated. It is not a number the treatment is meant to move.
Paradoxical adipose hyperplasia is the one uncommon outcome of cryolipolysis worth understanding before you agree to it. The treated area becomes firm, clearly edged and larger than it was, often in the shape of the applicator, usually two to six months later. It does not settle on its own, and correction is surgical. Published incidence estimates disagree by about a hundredfold, largely because some count cycles and some count patients.
Whether a treatment that does not hold tissue at a steady low temperature carries any similar risk is unknown, because it has not been studied.
Say if you have cryoglobulinaemia, cold agglutinin disease or paroxysmal cold haemoglobinuria: These are the three conditions that rule out CoolSculpting completely in its safety information. They are grouped because in all three, cold destroys red blood cells. That reasoning applies to cold in general, not only to one brand of machine.
Mention cold urticaria, Raynaud's disease, pernio or chilblains before the appointment, not on the day: Also mention poor circulation or reduced feeling in the area, nerve pain conditions, bleeding disorders or blood thinners, and recent surgery or scar tissue in the area. Add eczema or dermatitis on the skin being treated, an implanted pacemaker or defibrillator, and any hernia in or next to the treatment site.
Ask what will actually be done to your skin: Temperature, duration, and whether the tissue is held or the probe is moved. Ask what the operator is trained to do if the skin looks wrong partway through.
Fever or chills after treatment
Redness spreading outward from a treated area, visibly worse hour by hour
Pus or discharge from treated skin
These are signs of a spreading infection and need urgent care the same day.
A firm, well-defined lump appears in a CoolSculpting-treated area two to six months later, above all if its outline matches the applicator
Numbness in a treated area is still there beyond about three months
Pain is rising after the first few days instead of easing
Blistering, crusting or an open patch appears on treated skin
The skin over the treated area darkens a lot in the following weeks
An area starts to look dented or hollow next to the untreated side