Can You Get a Chemical Peel After Dermaplaning?

Choosing to have cosmetic treatment is a great way to enjoy a more youthful appearance and improve your skin’s long-term health. But you can amplify your results by choosing to have two treatments. The key is in knowing how and when these therapies, like a chemical peel and dermaplaning, should be combined. At CrisWell Medical Spa we can optimize your appearance with a comprehensive treatment plan.

Can You Get a Chemical Peel After Dermaplaning?

Yes, you can. While each is effective as a stand-alone treatment, they deliver synergistic results when combined. Dermaplaning achieves several different effects, including removing the skin’s outer layers. The solution of your peel treatment can then penetrate deeper to reach underlying tissues and produce more enhanced results.

As you might have guessed, dermaplaning needs to come first when combining these treatments. The chemical solution during your peel is then left on the skin for less time because it does not have as many layers to penetrate through. Additionally, the skin is more sensitive after dermaplaning, so the chemical solution does not need to be left on as long to produce its desired effects.

The Caveat

Dermaplaning is actually a great way to prepare skin for a more even distribution of the peel treatment. But we like to proceed cautiously with new clients so we can first understand how your skin reacts to these treatments individually before combining them. We may therefore recommend that your peel be scheduled two to four weeks after dermaplaning to establish a baseline of your skin’s sensitivity.

Explaining Both Treatments

Dermaplaning is a dual-purpose treatment that removes facial hair (peach fuzz) and exfoliates the skin. It requires no incisions or chemicals, instead relying on a simple surgical blade that we gently run across your skin. With this action, we eliminate dead skin cells, dirt, oil, and, yes, facial hair that can dull the complexion, cause breakouts, and create an uneven surface.

The Specific Details

Benefits of this treatment include:

• Reduced pore size
• Elimination of dry patches
• Improved skin clarity
• Minimized lines and wrinkles
• Softer and smoother texture

Results show immediately, and because one session removes three weeks’ worth of dead skin accumulation, we recommend waiting about a month before your next dermaplaning appointment. Patients don’t have to endure downtime periods, and facial hair grows back in the same color and texture as it was before treatment. Post-treatment, we recommend you wear sunscreen every day.

Chemical Exfoliation (Peel)

This treatment also exfoliates the skin, like dermaplaning, but it uses a chemical solution that is applied directly to the face. After a designated time, the solution is then removed. Common ingredients of chemical peels include:

• Alpha hydroxy acids
• Beta hydroxy acids
• Natural enzymes

The solutions applied to the skin are highly concentrated to help dissolve the “glue” that binds cells to each other. They are then shed more readily from the face to reveal a brighter, smoother complexion free of acne, age spots, and dullness. As shedding occurs, your skin may be slightly flakier than usual, but this subsides quickly as dead cells are eliminated and new ones emerge.

Benefits of Treatment

Peels can be performed on the face, neck, back, arms, chest, and hands. We generally recommend a series of treatments delivered over a specific period of time. For instance, we may recommend three peels delivered two weeks apart from each other for a total of six weeks. Benefits are numerous and include refined texture, increased skin radiance, and greater moisture levels, in addition to:

• Corrected sun damage
• Reduced scarring
• Fewer wrinkles
• Improved skin tone

Reasons to Combine These Therapies

A stand-alone chemical exfoliation ignites the body’s collagen production to improve skin health – namely, elasticity, texture, and tone. In short, this protein keeps skin youthful. Delivering more of it to critical points in the face will provide results that last long beyond the treatment itself.

When you elect to have dermaplaning prior to a peel, you allow the chemical solution to freely dissolve throughout the skin. It doesn’t have to first cut through facial hair (the peach fuzz we mentioned earlier) or layers of dead cells that will be exfoliated anyway. In other words, dermaplaning creates a clean canvas for the solution to easily penetrate, therefore maximizing its efficiency.

Improved Skincare Product Absorption

When you apply products like cleansers, moisturizers, vitamin-rich serums, and foundation, you do so to improve your skin’s appearance. Many times, however, these products aren’t allowed to work because of tiny hairs that impede absorption. Eliminating these with dermaplaning removes that barrier so your products can deliver their intended results.

Chemical exfoliation takes this one step further by smoothing and plumping the skin – remember the collagen production we just talked about? This means the skin is healthier overall and makeup lies nice and flat, rather than clumping in creases and on uneven dry patches.

Brighter Skin

It’s easy to look in the mirror and become preoccupied with acne scars, fresh breakouts, and lines. But what about the glow you once had that now seems to be…missing? Adults gradually lose their luminosity until one day, you’re forced to see the dull tone that now occupies your skin.

Glowing skin, by definition, is that which looks soft and moist. You might liken this to the center of a grapefruit that is juicy and succulent when ripe. But as it ages, its meaty texture shrivels and becomes dehydrated. In other words, it looks decidedly less appealing, like skin that has lost its vitality.

Treatment to the Rescue

The combined effects of dermaplaning and chemical peels reveal fresh skin rich with collagen and elastin. Bounce and hydration are restored, and the flat, muted tone is transformed into one of radiance – thanks to dead cells and patchy hairs sloughed away during treatment.

More Even Results

When used individually, these treatments restore the skin’s radiance. Combining them amplifies this effect and also ensures improved health across the face. Dermaplaning may leave behind dry or dead skin cells the chemical solution targets, and vice versa. This means more even results thanks to the supplemental efforts of both therapies.

Helps Skin’s Renewal Process

When it functions properly, the skin is designed to renew itself. Actually, all of the body’s cells work in this manner, even those of your organs. They constantly form new cells to replace the old. Think of this as an internal regeneration system, and for the skin, cells completely replenish in a process that takes between 45 and 60 days.

We can speed this process along, however, with the combined therapies of dermaplaning and chemical exfoliation. Your skin is then better equipped to manage all of the elements it needs to, including air pollution, UV rays, and wind. In this way, you’re also helping to prevent wrinkles and lines so you look younger for longer.

Improves Skin’s Defensive Function

This is likely the last trait we attribute to our skin, but it serves as the body’s first line of defense. It helps protect us from bacteria, permits touch, and regulates body temperature. But these functions are compromised when the skin loses its structural integrity.

Pairing dermaplaning and chemical exfoliation stimulates crucial proteins that plump and strengthen skin. This means improved health so the skin can do what it’s mean to do. Additional benefits of these combined treatments include:

• Fewer breakouts
• Less redness
• Reduced hyperpigmentation

Candidacy and Results

These therapies can be safely and effectively delivered to most patients, regardless of skin type, tone, or age. We do recommend those with active infections or who are pregnant or breastfeeding delay treatment. We’ll review this in greater detail during your consultation appointment.

Dermaplaning takes around 30 minutes, and chemical peels require about an hour. In total, these two therapies can be completed in less than two hours. You’ll see immediate results that last about four weeks. Many patients, for this reason, schedule monthly sessions as a part of their routine skincare; doing so can keep your skin glowing and revived.

Compared to Microdermabrasion

We hear a lot of patients ask how these therapies compare to microdermabrasion. This treatment also exfoliates the skin for a smoother, brighter complexion. But it uses a gentle mechanism that sands the skin’s outer layer to remove uneven patches, unclog pores, and reduce the appearance of scars and wrinkles.

Microdermabrasion can also be coupled with chemical peels to address your skin concerns. Because they both stimulate collagen production, you can expect to see firmer and tighter skin after a treatment.

The Saga of Skin Changes

Earlier, we discussed the need for skin renewal to keep it functioning properly and looking its best. New skin cells grow within the tissues of the epidermis (below the dermis, or outer layer) and then migrate upward until they comprise the visible facial surface. So you can see that skin health really starts from within.

Over time, however, sun exposure takes a hard toll on the skin. When this happens, we experience slowed cellular turnover that leads to a dull and tired complexion. As turnover slows, patches of damaged cells clump – because they’re no longer effectively shed – and form rough patches on the face. We also see:

• Dry patches
• Sallow skin color
• Redness caused by irritation
• Dark spots
• Fine lines and wrinkles

Unkind Hands of Time

Cellular turnover doesn’t slow just because of sun damage; this is another example of the many processes that become less effective with age. Along with this, levels of hyaluronic acid, collagen, and elastin also decline. This is when the underlying structure that supports our skin loses its integrity, and wrinkles and fine lines appear as skin loses its foundation.

Similarly, the skin around the eyes can look creepy. Dryness develops throughout because we lose crucial moisture. And skin cells lose their volume so our faces look flat and degraded.

Exfoliation and Skin Health

Exfoliation, especially as we grow older, is critical to skin health. It is superficial, meaning it only goes to the skin’s surface, but it promotes cell renewal as the outermost layer is gently scraped away. This is unlike any exfoliation technique you might try at home; our staff works above you for a better angle of your skin, and we run our device over every part of your face to ensure we remove all debris.

Coupling this with a chemical solution is like opting for a deep clean. The solution moves below the skin’s surface to target underlying tissues. We can then strengthen the skin’s structure by promoting collagen and, by reducing wrinkles and scars, restore a more youthful appearance.

Two Are Better Than One

Cosmetic treatments continue to evolve so that you now can combine therapies for more regenerative results. Yes, chemical peels can follow dermaplaning to address skin health in a multi-faceted way. These treatments are safe for most patients, and rolling them into your skincare schedule can keep you looking fresh and radiant.