Have you ever dreamt of waking up with brand-new skin? Well, it’s actually waiting beneath the surface of the skin you have already.
Skin resurfacing may sound scary but it can perform miracles. It can revitalise the complexion and significantly improve both tone and texture, minimising or eliminating irregularities and blemishes.
If you have a persistent problem with your facial skin, there are a number of treatments, from low-impact and relatively inexpensive through to radical and costly, that can help. Depending on the extent of your concerns, there’s a treatment that will improve the condition and even some that will banish the problem entirely. If you have sun damage, fine lines and wrinkles, age spots or broken veins and capillaries, acne and related scarring or just dull, rough, lacklustre skin, it’s worth checking out the procedures below for a solution
Remember Cleopatra’s legendary bath of goats’ milk? Most likely, the Egyptian queen was wallowing in sour milk, where the sugars in the lactose had fermented into lactic acid. Lactic acid is an alpha hydroxy acid that occurs naturally in our bodies and helps stimulate the production of collagen and elastin in the dermal layer. It is also a humectant that attracts water molecules in the skin to the surface, giving a plumper appearance.
Different strengths of lactic peel can be applied as you acquire a tolerance to the acid, which encourages your skin to slough for a brighter, fresher appearance.
A glycolic peel is also a hydroxy acid peel, usually derived from fruit acids. Desperate Housewives star Terri Hatcher adds leftover wine to her bathwater to take advantage of the benefits to be derived from glycolic acid, which are similar to lactic acid. A glycolic peel can cause tingling and pinkness, especially in first-time users, but beauty therapists are adept at suiting the strength to your skin type. As well as promoting a brighter, fresher appearance it helps fade freckles and sun spots. Low-concentration lactic or glycolic peels are available as at-home treatments.
If you are a fan of all things herbal, you may have heard of the Herbal Active Peel. This natural plant formulation contains 250 vitamins, minerals and trace elements and is known for achieving outstanding results with acne sufferers, but in general significantly improves skin tone and texture. It is not suitable for people with rosacea or capillary conditions. This is a fairly radical treatment and will require a few days off work to allow for sloughing and healing.
For severe conditions such as pigmentation problems or acne and related scarring, there are stronger chemical peels that should only be applied by medical practitioners. Some of these contain higher concentrations of lactic or glycolic acid, while others target specific conditions.
A PCA peel contains bleaching agents and is used primarily to treat hyperpigmentation and sun damage or brown patches (melasma). It causes skin to flake off a few days after treatment. Jessner’s peels contain a mixture of resorcinol, salicylic acid and lactic acid. They are used on patients with mild acne or sun damage and stimulate more peeling than regular salon formulations. Both these peels will cause some redness, which will take a few days to subside.
The trichloroacetic acid (TCA) peel is a treated as a surgical procedure and is sometimes used when other peels have failed to correct a problem condition. It is also an effective treatment for moderately wrinkled skin. Healing takes up to 10 days and it is imperative to avoid sun exposure for six weeks. Like the Green Peel, this is a strong treatment.
If you are considering a chemical peel, it’s important to allow sufficient recovery time and to be aware that you will need to protect your skin from the sun afterwards. You should always have a patch test to determine if you have any sensitivity to the active ingredients
Laser treatments
Ablative laser treatments are an extreme but effective method of treating acne and usually used only for severe cases because of the extended healing time involved.
In the last few years, a host of new-generation lasers have been developed that require only days, as opposed to weeks, of recovery time.
Always ask how new the laser is and when it was purchased. Recent models are far superior to earlier ones in terms of achieving precision results.
Non-ablative fractionated laser technologies, which break up the light beams to allow columns of untreated tissue to activate healing mechanisms beneath the skin’s surface, have facilitated fast, easy treatments for skin conditions ranging from birthmarks to wrinkles.
These lasers work by creating microscopic thermal injuries that trigger collagen production, stimulating cell renewal and plumping out the tissues while the surface of the skin remains intact. The best known of these is the Fraxel laser, and its applications include anti-ageing treatments, improving evenness of skin tone and texture, reducing pore size, the appearance of lines and wrinkles and helping reverse the effects of sun damage.
Because laser treatments use heat, you will experience a mild to moderate burning sensation during treatment and slight swelling and redness afterwards. This can be covered with makeup and should subside completely in three days
Light therapy
Intense pulsed light uses laser wavelengths that safely target either melanin or haemoglobin in the skin. It can be used to permanently reduce unwanted hair growth, to fade brown spots and to cauterise enlarged or broken capillaries and port wine stains. The Photoderm and Vasculight lasers have been developed specifically to treat rosacea.
Ablative or fractionated laser treatments can only be administered by qualified cosmetic doctors, and you should thoroughly research any practitioner you approach for treatment.
