Today you will discover 6 Skin Issues That Can Be Treated by a Chemical Peel.
This is a guest post courtesy of Dr. Christopher Pavlou, the Founder, Owner, and practicing medical and aesthetics doctor at Skin Technique in Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Chemical peels are a natural and effective treatment for a number of skin issues. They use alpha hydroxy, beta hydroxy, and glycolic or salicylic acids that naturally occur in the human body, along with a variety of potential skincare components to help promote your skin’s health.
A peel is applied to the skin to remove the surface layer of old, dirty, and possibly damaged skin cells, and promote the production of newer skin cells to take their place. This regeneration of skin cells can help treat a number of skin-related problems, including the following six.
Advertisement
Age Spots
Also known as “liver spots”, these dark patches of skin form as a result of the UV radiation in sunlight damaging your skin. It is an otherwise harmless skin condition that can happen to anyone of any race or ethnicity, and it happens when you do not properly protect your skin from sunlight with sunscreen or by covering up your skin from direct sunlight.
When your skin cells get damaged by the sunlight, sometimes your body produces too much melanin, a darker brown pigment that helps create your skin’s color. If the melanin accumulates in one area in your skin, that’s where you get the dark patches of liver spots.
Chemical peels can help treat liver spots because the dark patches tend to be closer to the surface of the skin. The acids in the chemical peel get rid of the top layers of skin and promote the production of new skin cells that have a proper balance of your normal skin color. Depending on how extensive the sun damage was that caused the liver spots, it can take a few chemical peel treatments before the dark patches are fully replaced by your normal skin tone.
Melasma
When you experience a strong hormonal change, it can cause similar dark patches of skin similar to liver spots. It occurs most often in women who are pregnant, where it is their dramatically changing hormones that trigger the excess production of melanin, rather than sun damage. It can also happen in women who start taking birth control pills that affect their production levels of hormones, and it tends to be more extensive than liver spots.
As a form of hyperpigmentation, the process for treating melasma with a chemical peel works the same way as with liver spots. The chemical peel removes the topmost layer of skin that contains the darker patches to reveal a newer layer of skin that has less of the melanin. It is advisable to wait until your hormone levels return to normal before trying to use chemical peels to treat melasma, as you can wind up with it occurring again and having to deal with it once more.
Acne Breakouts
Chemical peels are a great treatment for getting rid of (and preventing) acne breakouts. When the pores of your skin get clogged with too much excess oils, dirt, debris, bacteria, and dead skin cells, that is when you break out in acne.
If your pores are not cleaned out, or if you have hormonal issues that make you more prone to having acne (like during your teenage years), your acne can become more widespread, or get bigger due to infections.
The acids in a chemical peel help exfoliate your skin and clear your pores of all those bad things to make your skin healthier and cleaner. It also removes the surface layer of skin to reduce any blackheads or pimple marks from a breakout to help reduce and heal any infected acne. Salicylic acid in particular is great for preventing future acne for a while, as it stays in your pores to continually dissolve any debris or bacteria and keep them clean.
Acne Scarring
When you have acne that gets too inflamed or infected, it can lead to various types of scarring as a result. These acne scars usually happen when your skin produces collagen to replenish the skin affected by the acne, but it produces too much which leads to raised, bumpy scars. Alternatively, if the skin affected by acne produces too little collagen, you could develop pitted, depressed scars due to the skin tissue not being replaced.
Chemical peel treatments can help reduce or even completely remove your acne scars by removing the layer of skin that has the acne, and promoting the production of new and healthy skin cells. Eventually, the raised bumpy scars are removed and replaced by smooth and even skin, or the pits of depressed scars are filled in with the healthy skin cells that were not being produced before.
Dull Skin Tones
If your skin doesn’t look as bright or as healthy as it normally would, it’s likely due to your top layer of skin not being the healthiest. Whether it is due to an excess amount of dirt and debris, an illness that affected your skin’s health, a poor diet, or something else, we all have periods where our skin does not look its best from time to time.
A chemical peel helps by removing that dull layer of skin on the surface and exposing the brighter, healthier skin beneath it. You can get chemical peels that include other ingredients to promote healthier, brighter skin as well to get the best possible effect from the treatment. It usually only takes one or two peels to treat this type of skin issue, as it does not go deeper than the surface layer of skin.
Wrinkles & Rough Skin
If your skin looks dry, wrinkled, or with a rougher surface than you would like, there are chemical peels with a mix of the right acids and skincare ingredients to help promote smoother, healthier skin after peeling away the older, more wrinkled looking layer.
Once you go through a chemical peel treatment to get rid of the problematic surface layer, the added benefit of the treatment is that your younger layer of skin will be more receptive to products used on it. That means you can follow up your treatment with a better anti-aging skincare routine to keep your skin looking smoother and younger.
Author Bio: Dr. Christopher Pavlou is medical doctor and board certified in aesthetic medicine. He is the owner and founder of Skin Technique, a medical aesthetic clinic in beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia.
He has brought his philosophy of Honour Your Beauty to Skin Technique by offering a variety of specialized services including dermal fillers, anti wrinkle treatments, lasers and coolsculpting. When he isn’t performing naturally rejuvenating treatments and procedures, he loves to share his expertise and knowledge on aesthetic artistry with others who are looking to educate themselves in the evolving field of aesthetic medicine.
Comments are closed.