Medical peels for pigmentation
Pigment lies at different depths, and a peel reaches only one of them. That is the whole trade-off: if the spot sits in the top layer, you can carry it off. If it sits deeper, you take the top off and it comes back.
Why this here does about it
A pigment spot is a place where the pigment cells have made too much. With sun damage that pigment usually sits high, in the epidermis, and that layer renews itself continuously.
A peel speeds up that renewal. The cells with too much pigment are carried off sooner and the new ones beneath have less in them. That is why it works on superficial pigment and not on pigment that sits in the dermis.
Sun here is not a side issue but half the result. Every exposure sets the pigment cells working again, and then you are removing what comes straight back.
What is goes differently than usual
Preparing with products at home
Two to four weeks beforehand, slowing what the pigment cells do. Without that preparation the chance of a patchy result is higher.
Preferably in autumn or winter
Not because it cannot be done otherwise, but because the months after decide whether it lasts. Less sun means more result.
Daily protection, not advice but part of it
Without protection the pigment comes back, and then the series was money thrown away.
What it gives you
More even skin with lighter spots, built over a series. With stubborn or deeper pigment a programme of months is a more realistic route than separate peels; you hear that at the intake, not halfway through.
- How often
- Usually a series of four to six, with two to four weeks in between.
- Recovery time
- Two to five days dry and flaky, depending on the strength.
- From
- € 140
When you would choose something else
- With melasma an ordinary peel is often not the right choice: that pigment reacts to heat and hormones and can flare from it.
- On pigment-rich skin there is a chance of discolouration after the peel; the strength is tuned to that and sometimes we advise against it.
- On tanned skin it does not go ahead.
What people asked about this.
If you go into the sun unprotected, yes. The pigment cells are still there and they do again what they did. Daily protection here is not a tip but the difference between a result and no result.
That depends on how deep the pigment sits and how stubborn it is. A peel is lighter and easier to do on its own; Cosmelan is a programme of months and tackles what separate peels founder on. At the intake the therapist establishes which of the two fits.
What we Medical peels use it for
Whether this suits you,
your skin will show.
Everything above applies to this concern in general. What is going on with you and whether this is the right route is established by the therapist at the skin consultation. If the answer is no, you hear that too.