I went to SŌMA for a facial, then went back for CGF, the next generation of the vampire facial. Advanced technology and professional analysis make a world of difference in anti-ageing gracefully.
SŌMA partnered with Bali Food & Travel on this feature, and my treatments were complimentary. The results speak for themselves.
By Sarah Dougherty
Spend a week in Uluwatu, and you’ll notice something. Everyone looks suspiciously well. Some of that is youth and a healthy dose of sunshine, but a lot of it isn’t. People here train, eat properly and treat their health as the long game, and it shows. SŌMA is the clinic built for exactly that crowd, where looking good is a side effect of being well rather than the other way round.
A week after my CGF treatment, my skin is showing signs of improvement, not simply in the appearance of wrinkles but in texture and radiance as well, and it will continue to do so in the coming months. I’ve been to SŌMA twice now and would confidently go back. The first time for a facial, the least medical thing on the menu. The second time for CGF, an advanced form of PRP, the treatment most people know as the vampire facial.
- What it is: Uluwatu’s first dedicated longevity clinic, doctor-led and run to Singaporean medical standards.
- Who runs it: Owner and medical director Dr Shirley Yuliana Kwee, trained in the UK and Singapore with more than twenty years’ experience, who personally trained the clinic’s three doctors.
- Known for: Regenerative skin treatments such as CGF, an advanced form of PRP (the vampire facial), with a complimentary Vampire Cream made from your own blood. Also microneedling, exosome therapy, Botox, fillers, XERF skin tightening and NAD+ drips.
- Also offers: Skin analysis, body composition scans, nutrition and vitamin programmes, medical weight management, hair restoration, laser hair removal and IV drips at the clinic or your villa.
- Price: Allergan Botox from IDR 100,000 per unit. Consultations are free.
- Best for: People who think about health in decades rather than weeks.
- Where and when: Jl Pantai Padang-Padang, Jl Pantai Suluban, Pecatu, Uluwatu. Open daily, 9am to 8pm.
- Instagram: @somalongevityclub
- My verdict: A clinic that explains everything and pushes nothing. I walked in nervous and left feeling safer than when I arrived.
A doctor-led clinic, not a spa with a nurse
SŌMA is the first dedicated longevity clinic in Uluwatu, a compact, inviting space close to Padang Padang, dressed in calm neutrals. The menu reads like a medical spa. Botox and fillers are there, as you’d expect, but so are nutrition and hydration treatments, body composition analysis and a dedicated room for IV infusions. The thinking is simple: feel good, look better, in that order.
It runs to Singaporean medical standards under owner and medical director Dr Shirley Yuliana Kwee, who trained in the UK and Singapore and has more than twenty years’ experience. She trained the clinic’s three doctors herself, set the protocols they follow and comes back regularly to keep that training current. You can feel it in how consistently things are done.
Round one: the facial
Even the facial didn’t feel like a spa. My facialist asked if I’d like her to explain what she was doing as she went. I said yes, and she did. It began with a thorough cleanse, exfoliation, then a plant-derived peel that stung a little, in the way that tells you it’s working. She went over my skin carefully before clearing clogged pores (a little ouch), then finished with a soothing lotion and a session with LED lights. I came out glowing and pleasantly tight.
The difference between this and a good spa facial comes down to three things. The actives are clinical strength rather than retail, so they work deeper. The equipment is medical-grade. And a doctor supervises the protocol. A spa facial is designed to feel wonderful for an afternoon. This one is built to change something. Nobody sold me anything, either. Somebody simply told me what was happening with my skin and why.
Round two: the vampire facial, upgraded
Anything involving needles makes me nervous. I had a PRP facial, the original vampire facial, about five years ago and was happy with the results, but that didn’t stop me from arriving with slightly damp palms. The nerves lasted about as long as it took to sit down in Dr Nadim’s office.
Dr Nadim is Indonesian, warm and reassuring, with a real passion for aesthetic medicine and longevity. He’s the kind of doctor who explains things because he enjoys it, not because he has to. He trained as a GP before moving into aesthetics, because beauty and anti-ageing had always interested him, and stem cell research is the area that excites him most. He trained under Dr Shirley, and it shows in his confident approach. He’s one of three doctors at SŌMA. If the other two are this good, I’d like to meet them.
First, my face went into a compact machine that analyses the skin in uncomfortable detail: the depth of each wrinkle, areas of pigmentation, hydration, collagen levels and more. It wasn’t brutal, and some results were better than I expected. My wrinkles aren’t deep, which was encouraging, and my collagen, surprisingly, is high for my age. I may have sat up a little straighter. He went through the results with me and recommended CGF, an advanced form of PRP, as the ideal treatment for my skin. Where I can, I prefer a natural approach, and CGF suits that thinking, because the only thing going into your face is derived from you.
How it works
First, your blood is drawn, then put into a centrifuge machine to separate the good stuff from the red blood cells. That concentrate goes back into your skin through microneedling and small injections into specific areas of the face. It stings a little, but the numbing cream is pretty effective. It stimulates your natural collagen in two ways. The tiny wounds from the microneedling prompt the skin to heal itself, and the growth factors keep that repair going over the following weeks, so skin becomes brighter and firmer and lines gradually soften.
This is where CGF differs from the PRP I had five years ago. CGF stands for Concentrated Growth Factors. The clinic’s Italian centrifuge spins your blood at varying speeds, with nothing added, to produce a richer concentrate than standard PRP. SŌMA says it also captures stem cells from your blood, and the treatment is boosted with concentrated exosomes. The way Dr Nadim explained it, because these cells are native to you, they already know what work needs doing. They stimulate your own collagen and keep improving the texture of your skin over time.
The nurse who drew my blood was very good at it, and kept up a calm, reassuring commentary while he applied the numbing cream, promising the treatment would be easy and quick. He then invited me to watch the separation in the clinic’s Italian centrifuge, which is oddly fascinating to see. It’s not every day you meet your own plasma.
Then there’s the bit you take home. SŌMA’s complimentary Vampire Cream is a personalised cream prepared from your own blood, a new take on traditional PRP that lets the work carry on in your bathroom long after you’ve left the clinic. It is, quite literally, the most personal skincare I’ve ever owned.
The nurse also asked whether I’d like a Botox top-up while I was there. To be fair, I’m overdue. But I decided one needle-based adventure was enough for one morning, and nobody pushed.
The body scan
Dr Nadim also offered a complete body scan, another machine, this one analysing body composition: visceral fat, skeletal muscle mass and the rest. It gave me the results I expected and a few I didn’t. I’m a few kilos overweight, which I knew. The good news is that my muscle tone is good, my hydration is excellent and my visceral fat is within the normal range. I’ll take that.
The scan is the starting point for SŌMA’s nutrition programmes and advanced vitamin therapies. I didn’t explore those this time, but I can see myself benefiting from them, and the team makes a real effort to keep the advice easy to understand and put into practice. It’s genuinely useful to know your numbers even if, like me, you’re not ready to sign up yet.
What I’d book next
XERF, which is new to Bali. It’s radiofrequency rather than ultrasound, and the first system to run two frequencies at once, so it reaches the deep structural layer that a surgical facelift lifts. No needles, no numbing, no downtime. You can swim, surf and fly the same day, and the lift keeps building for three to six months. For anyone here on a two-week trip, that’s the whole appeal.
Also worth knowing
This is where aesthetic medicine is heading: personalised treatments built from your body’s own biology rather than borrowed from a jar. The regenerative side is where the clinic really lives, from CGF and microneedling through to exosome therapy, all of it aimed at collagen and tissue repair rather than covering anything up. On the drips, NAD+ is the one most people have heard of. You can have it in the clinic’s infusion room, or the mobile service will bring it to your villa, which is how most of us will end up trying it.
SŌMA also has an in-house pharmacy. Products are stored in a controlled environment, and in some cases the qualified team mixes preparations using natural ingredients. They are scrupulous about cleanliness and handling, which matters more than any amount of nice decor. A small ran
One last thing
SŌMA is upfront about its credentials, which is important. Wherever you go in Bali, ask whether the clinic is licensed, who is performing the procedure, where the products come from and whether you can see the batch details. SŌMA publishes its licence number on its own site, Klinik Utama 10092501114890005, which is rarer here than it should be.
FAQ
SŌMA Aesthetics & Longevity Club is on Jl Pantai Padang-Padang, Jl Pantai Suluban in Pecatu, close to Padang Padang beach. It’s open daily from 9am to 8pm
SŌMA is led by owner and medical director Dr Shirley Yuliana Kwee, who has more than twenty years’ experience in aesthetic medicine. She personally trained the clinic’s three doctors, including Dr Nadim, and set the protocols they follow.
Allergan Botox starts from IDR 110,000 per unit. Consultations are free, and the doctor will recommend the number of units for your face.
Yes. SŌMA is doctor-led, runs to Singaporean medical standards and publishes its licence number, Klinik Utama 10092501114890005, on its own website.
Yes. A skin analyser measures wrinkle depth, pigmentation, hydration and collagen, and a body composition machine measures muscle, hydration and visceral fat. The results guide the doctor’s treatment recommendations and the clinic’s nutrition programmes.
A PRP facial uses plasma separated from your own blood, applied to the skin through microneedling and targeted injections to stimulate collagen. Results build gradually over the weeks that follow, with brighter, firmer skin and softer lines.
CGF, or Concentrated Growth Factors, is an advanced form of PRP. Your blood is spun at varying speeds with no additives, producing a richer concentrate of growth factors. At SŌMA it is combined with concentrated exosomes, and the clinic says it also captures stem cells from your own blood.
Vampire Cream is a personalised autologous cream prepared from your own blood. SŌMA includes it complimentary with its CGF treatment, so you can continue the regenerative work at home.
It stings a little, but numbing cream is applied first and is effective. At SŌMA, the blood draw and the treatment itself were quicker and easier than I expected, even as someone who is nervous of needles.
In my case, skin texture and radiance had improved within a week, and results continue to build over the following months as new collagen forms.
Medical facials use clinical-strength actives and medical-grade equipment such as LED therapy and professional extraction tools. They are performed under a doctor’s supervision, following a protocol chosen for your skin. Spa facials use retail-grade products and are designed mainly for relaxation.
XERF is a non-surgical skin-tightening treatment that uses dual-frequency radiofrequency. HIFU treatments such as Ultherapy use focused ultrasound instead. XERF needs no downtime, which suits travellers.
Yes, as part of a nurse-administered IV programme, at the clinic or delivered to villas and hotels across South Bali.
