Which Chemical Peel Is Right for You?

If your skin is beginning to show a little more wear-and-tear these days, a chemical peel is a wonderfully versatile solution that takes going skin deep to a new level. With different ingredients and varying strengths, chemical peels can accomplish a great deal — from gently clearing away the surface to going deeper for more ingrained dermal problems.

At Z-ROC Dermatology, we pride ourselves on offering the very latest skin care treatments to our clients in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, giving them a wide range of products and services that tackle most every skin care concern. When it comes to chemical peels, we have several choices that work with most skin types and problems. It’s just a matter of choosing the right one for your unique situation.

To help you decide which chemical peel is right for you, here’s a look at how our chemical peels work.

How deep?

Let’s start with an overall description of how chemical peels work and what problems they can address. It’s helpful to begin with a quick review of the makeup of your skin, which is divided into three layers, including the epidermis, dermis, and hypodermis. Chemical peels treat the top two layers and are divided into three broad categories: superficial, medium, and deep.

A superficial peel, as the name suggests, is one where we tackle just the top surface of your skin — your epidermis. Using a mild acid, such as an alpha-hydroxy acid, we can gently exfoliate this layer of your skin where most of your new skin cells are formed. By clearing away dead and damaged skin cells, we can help promote new growth. This type of peel is perfect for minor blemishes, acne, and rough skin.

A medium chemical peel goes a little deeper and penetrates the middle layer of your skin, or your dermis. For this, we turn to glycolic or trichloroacetic acid (TCA), which can help with age spots, moderate discolorations, fine lines, and wrinkles.

A deep peel relies on TCA or phenol to go deeper into the middle layer of your skin to deal with discolorations, moderate wrinkles, and scarring. This type of peel comes with some downtime, and it can only be performed once.

Chemistry 101

Our peels contain different ingredients that all work toward refreshing and rejuvenating your skin. For example, we can use TCA in varying strengths to get the results you want. Using less than 10-35% TCA, we can clear away the surface of your skin. Upping the percentage to 40-50% allows us to go a little deeper for more firmly entrenched problems.  Anything over 50% provides you with a deep peel.

Another type of peel is the Jessners solution, which is made up of resorcinol, salicylic acid, and lactic acid, providing you with a great superficial peel to address signs of photoaging.

To bring you the best in chemical peels, we rely on VI Aesthetic products, which come in different formulations that reduce a host of problems, including acne, scarring, fine lines, and sun damage.

The peeling process

While chemical peels are highly effective on your face, where the signs of aging and exposure are most evident, we can also use them on your neck, chest, hands, arms, and legs.  

When it comes to downtime, our superficial peels require very little. You may experience some redness afterward, but that quickly resolves itself. For our medium peels, you may experience a few days of redness, and then your old skin will flake away to reveal vibrant new skin underneath. For deep peels, the process is far more intense, and you require anesthesia and will need considerable downtime as your skin heals.

To determine which chemical peel is right for your skin type and skin problems, give us a call or set up an appointment using the online scheduling tool.