Great Option for Reducing Stubborn Hyper-pigmentation! - Centreville, VA

I had really good results with the Melanage chemical peel and would recommend it to those seeking to fade freckles and dark spots on your face. It's easy to do, relatively painless, and yields great results. The only catch is that you have to be willing to deal with the effects the first few days and then be diligent about sticking to the home care routine. If you already have a good AM/PM skin care routine, it should be easy to keep up with this.

The peel itself takes maybe 20 minutes or so and I had my done by a licensed aesthetician working at my dermatologist's office. They just wipe your skin clean with an alcohol solution (beware, it burns your nose!) and then they apply the masque. I was instructed to leave it on for 7 hours. You are definitely going to want to hide out somewhere during this time because you will look like the Joker (see attached picture). I had some issues with my eyes starting to sting a lot towards the end and made it 6.5 hours instead of the full 7 before washing it off. You then wash it off with the included facial cleanser and then apply their anti-redness soothing balm and voila, done! Easy!

The next few days are a little rough on your face, not going to lie! This was my 2nd peel and I had it on longer so the effects were more pronounced this time around. That night and the next day felt like I had a bad decent sunburn and so I would put cold washcloths on my face to soothe my skin. On the 3rd day the peeling and dryness starts. And I mean no joke peeling and dryness that lasted another 2 days for me. The area around my mouth was especially sensitive and was extremely red, raw, and flaky. In the grand scheme of things this is not a super painful thing to do but do be prepared to feel like you have a bad sunburn for about a week.

After the first night you'll start using the cleanser and the anti-redness balm in the AM until you switch to the super awesome intensive soothing complex the next week. In the PM you'll keep using the cleanser and start using the Melanage 2 cream which contains many of the same ingredients as the initial masque. I had to hold off a few days b/c I was so raw and peeling before I started applying it.

The first time I did this peel my freckles that I've had since I was a child were nearly invisible after about a month and I'm already seeing results on my 2nd peel just a few days post application. After my 1st peel I was not as diligent about keeping out of the sun and my skin is particular prone to hyper-pigmentation so lesson learned for this time around!