America Cryo cryotherapy machine at L’Apogée institute in Péchabou, France, Digi Mart USA News (Péchabou, France): For more than a year, Laurence Laffont has welcomed clients at her aesthetics and holistic wellness practice in Péchabou. She first started out offering massages, holistic treatments and aesthetic care, and has recently expanded her services.
For less than three months, a new machine has been installed at L’Apogée. It is the America Cryo, and Laffont says she is one of only two people in France who own one.
She promotes a range of benefits from the technique, including sports performance, anti-aging skin treatment, pain relief, muscle recovery and slimming.
Laffont has worked in many professions before dedicating herself to what she truly wanted to do: “doing good around her.” Her most recent role was as director of an agency specializing in real estate, tax-advantaged investment, credit brokerage and insurance. The end of the Pinel law in 2024, which provided a tax advantage to individuals investing in new rental property, pushed her to take a different path.
“I told myself that if I didn’t do what I had always wanted to do now, I never would,” she said.
After several months of renovation work, the L’Apogée practice opened its doors at the beginning of the year in a former building in Péchabou that had been restored. Initially, the Lauragais native offered sound and energy massages and magnetism-based sessions.
“Then I told myself that after inner beauty, you also have to think about outer beauty,” she said with a laugh.
Laffont later expanded her offering to include facial treatments such as Korean lifting, hydradermabrasion and light therapy. She also offers purely aesthetic services such as the Korean lash lift, a more effective eyelash lifting treatment, and browlift, an eyebrow lifting treatment.
“I only use high-end products for all treatments,” she said.
A former modern jazz, yoga, stretching and kickboxing instructor, and the daughter of a former bodybuilder and naturopath, Laffont also wanted to serve athletes. “I have always had physical issues like very strong muscle soreness and back pain…
I know what it is and I wanted to find solutions to relieve them,” she explained.
That led to the arrival at L’Apogée of a first new EMS (electrical muscle stimulation) machine. The device sends mild electrical impulses through electrodes placed on the skin to cause involuntary or amplified muscle contractions.
“We’re talking about 30,000 contractions every 30 seconds. It promotes muscle strengthening and toning, recovery and the anti-pain effect,” she said.
However, one piece of the puzzle was still missing for the practitioner to feel “fulfilled.” This wellness enthusiast also wanted a machine that could work on both physical and aesthetic concerns, especially fat and cellulite. “I quickly turned to cold because it is the gentlest and most effective method when properly adapted.
When you fall, you apply cold; when you have a fever, you apply cold…”
Her research led her to the work of Florian Moreno, founder of America Cryo. “He was passionate about horses and at first he created this machine for animals.
He went to the United States to develop it and make it accessible to humans. I met him and he agreed to let me use it and sell it.
But for now, there are only two of us with one in France, him and me,” she said.
The device delivers a jet of carbon dioxide at -79°C to a specific area. “It’s not like in a spa where it stays global across the whole body.
Here, it acts deeply,” she said. She explained the process: “The thermal shock causes vasoconstriction [narrowing of blood vessels through contraction of the smooth muscle fibers in their walls], then vasodilation [widening of blood vessels through relaxation of those fibers].
The vessels contract, and when they reopen, all the toxins are flushed out.”
According to her explanations, the method can be used before or after training to support recovery or relieve pain, or before or after surgery to speed up cell regeneration and reduce swelling. “Afterward, the older the injury, the more sessions it takes.
Results are faster when the pain is recent,” she emphasized.
Localized cryotherapy can also be used for slimming purposes: “Cellulite will be frozen and fat will be eliminated naturally within 48 to 72 hours. But, as always, you shouldn’t drink three liters of soda right afterward.” She also cites benefits for skin affected by eczema or psoriasis, while noting that a cryotherapy session does not replace medical, dietary or psychological care.
For the America Cryo, Laffont offers simple sessions, either on-site or at home, or courses of five appointments, with the possibility of reducing the number of visits if effects appear quickly. Sessions cost between €60 and €80, and courses between €270 and €400.
“My goal is for everyone to be able to benefit from it. That is why I signed an exclusive sales contract, so that all health and wellness professionals, and even veterinarians and osteopaths, can have it to do good around them.”
Since the machine arrived three months ago, Laffont has offered “personalized support” tailored to her clients’ concerns. “Sometimes I notice a pain may be linked to something else, and I then propose combining my different practices,” she said.
In the long term, the goal is also to develop partnerships with sports clubs, traveling for half-day or full-day group sessions. The practitioner will also be present at the Toulouse Throwdown crossfit competition, scheduled for January 23 and 24, 2027, at the Diagora center in Labège.
Practical information: open Monday to Saturday, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Appointments can be booked via Planity or by phone at 06 43 13 93 47. Instagram: lapogee.toulouse (aesthetics center) and lapogee_cryoanimals (for animals).
