Does Phenol Peel Work on Dark Circles Around Eyes?

Hello,
Treament of undereye dark circles generally requires improvement in contour, pigment, and wrinkling, all of which contribute to the dark circle appearance.
Phenol peels, when skillfully performed, can make a tremendous improvement in wrinkling and hyperpigmentation of the undereye skin.
The components of the undereye circle caused by contour imperfections - fat bags and/or tear trough depressions, however, are best treated surgically.
As a general rule, when I treat patients with undereye dark circles, I perform some combination of removing bags, filling depressions, and peeling the skin surface with phenol or other techniques.
Good luck!

Phenol peels can help with under eye darkness but it depends on the cause of the darkness. There are many different causes and determining the cause will help to determine which treatment is appropriate. While a consultation is always best to determine the cause, indicating that laser resurfacing did not help your dark circles, I would guess that phenol would not help either.

This is one of the most common problems we see and one of the most challenging to deal with. 

First we need to figure out what causes them.  There are several causes listed below.

1. Excessive fatty tissue under lower eyelids can create a shadow effect.  This problem is more common then you might think.  Solution is removing or repositioning lower eyelid fat to avoid the light / shade transition.

2. Skin discoloration. It may respond to Phenol peel, Lasers or bleeching creams (be very careful with those).

3. Venous plexus under the dermis.  Some patiens have darker venous capillaries under the demis providing a darker light reflex onto the ovelying skin.  Microfat grafing in this area above the muscle may introduce a lighter colored "spacer" and help to decrease the effect.  This is very delicate process and requires a bit of experience to avoid problems

4. Other reasons, like deep dermal pigmentation, we do not quite understand and do not know what to do about yet.

Great question.

Sincerely, Boris Volshteyn MD