Can I Get a Chemical Peel After IPL?

I would recommend to wait at lest two weeks, to give enough time for your skin to recover after the IPL. Try to be safe and choose a mild chemical peel, such as 15-20% glycolic or salicylic acid peels. Having a Chemical Peel 1-2 weeks before the IPL will be a good idea as well. When the skin is exfoliated, the light from the IPL will penetrate better and you will have a more beneficial treatment.

The reason the other practitioners are suggesting a 2 week wait is that your skin has undergone some trauma during the IPL treatment. A chemical peel also causes some trauma by exfoliating the skin aggressively. Using two treatments very close together may cause too much irritation and some unintended side effects like raw skin or itching. Give yourself some time to heal from the IPL and then after 2 weeks feel free to get a chemical peel.

Thank you for your question. I think it would be in your best interest to wait approximately 2 weeks before pursuing a chemical peel. Granted, IPL is not an invasive procedure and the downtime is minimal, but it does involve a degree of inflammation, and potentially crusting for freckles/lentigos. Adding to this inflammation with a chemical peel could theoretically result in much worse inflammation and potential hyperpigmentation (darkening) of the skin. The effects of your IPL will show... more

I would wait until the skin has fully healed from your IPL procedure and there is no residual inflammation, the reason being that doing another procedure that causes the skin to become inflamed soon places you at greater risk for pigmentary problems. This may be as early as 1 week, depending on how your skin recovers from the IPL treatment. I would start with a light chemical peel such as Jessner, glycolic acid, 10% TCA, or salicylic acid.