skinpeels01-blog

[skinpeels01-blog]

5 Tips on How to Care for Your Skin After a Chemical Peel

CHEMICAL PEEL AFTER CARE

Here are a few great tips for chemical peel after care, so you can maintain the best results from your treatment:

1. Hands Off

The main goal of a chemical peel is to pull up and slough off the damaged skin cells, revealing healthy, glowing skin underneath. When the dead skin starts to shed, avoid touching, picking or scratching it with your fingers. Let the dead skin shed off naturally, and don’t peel the skin off with your own fingers – using fingers to remove the dead skin can lead to possible scarring.

2. Pull It Back

Pulling your hair back away from the face with a hair band can help prevent you from touching, and keep breakouts at bay. It’s important to allow the skin to go through its naturally peeling process, without accidentally contacting your skin while brushing back your hair. Touching the skin with dirty fingers and hands will only aggregate the new skin and may lead to breakouts. If breakouts do occur, don’t treat them yourself! Have your aesthetician treat them for you or just leave them alone.

3. Moisturize – But Just Enough to Be Comfortable

After receiving a chemical peel, your skin will be sensitive. There may be certain products in your normal skin care routine that you’ll want to avoid, as they may have active and irritating ingredients. The only two products you will want to use on your skin during the peeling process are sunscreen and just enough of a bland (neutral) moisturizer to be comfortable. The skin feeling and looking dry is part of the Medical Skin Peels process, and your moisturizer won’t be able to correct that.

Our advice is to use little to no moisturizer for the first couple days after treatment. In some cases, there will be a specific post care moisturizer provided at the time of treatment, which is safe to use, and your Vista Clinic aesthetician will walk you through the details. For some people, the only thing that won’t sting the skin is Aquaphor, which is easily available over the counter.

When applying moisturizer to the skin, be careful as well not to rub or scrub it in. Gently apply a thin layer of moisturizer all over the skin multiple times throughout the day, as needed. You’ll be able to go back to your regular skincare routine once the peeling process is complete and skin no longer feels sensitive – generally within a week of receiving your chemical peel.

4. Protect Your Skin With SPF

You’ve just gone through the process of getting rid of damaged skin with a chemical peel – so it’s important to avoid damaging the new, vulnerable skin coming through by protecting it with a layer of sunscreen anytime exposure to the sun is possible.

Whether sitting by a window, spending time outside, or in front of a screen of any kind, you need to protect your newly brightened skin. Be sure to choose a physical sunscreen with an SPF of 30 or higher and  broad spectrum high safety ratings – your skin will thank you later!

We recommend Colorescience Sunforgettable Total Protection Brush-On Shield, which is an easy, gentle and effective way to apply sunscreen protection to overly sensitized skin.

We’ve also put together this SPF guide to help you know what to look for from a sunscreen, and can offer personalized recommendations during a complimentary product consult any of our Bay Area, Orange County, Salt Lake City, Texas or Seattle Area clinics.

5. Let It Peel

Do not remove any of the dry, dead skin with any sort of rubbing, peeling or pulling during the peeling process. Safe exfoliation can be done as soon as skin is no longer hyper sensitive.

We recommend the perfect post peel exfoliating duo: Jan Marini Skin Zyme and Clean Zyme, products containing gentle enzymes that soften and melt away dead skin. All facial scrubs, resurfacing acids, Retinols, and even Clarisonic Cleansing Brushes are off limits until the skin stops shedding – usually up to a week after treatment.