Exploring Glycolic Peels: Are They Meant For You?

Aging is an undeniable fact of life. Try as you might, you cannot stop time from marching on and claiming you, just like everyone else. What’s worse, aging leaves its tell-tale marks all over your body. It makes the skin look tired and saggy, it makes your joints and muscles ache, it even shortens your life span.

But you can still befriend the aging process and deal with it in time, such that it does not make you look or feel old before time. You are most bothered by the first stings of aging on your skin: some loss of elasticity, the appearance of lines around the eyes and mouth, loose skin on the neck, etc. You are so habituated to having fresh, youthful skin from childhood up that it is difficult to reconcile one to the vagaries of the aging process that starts from the 20s onward.

Many women take refuge in natural home remedies in their 20s at the first signs of aging on their skin. They make fresh fruit masks, drink vegetable juice daily, flush out the toxins with plenty of water, and also exercise regularly. While these measures can ensure good health of the skin, they cannot keep away aging forever. At some point, age spots, fine lines, dullness and wrinkles begin to appear and there seems little you can do about it. Other women’s skin is beset by such problems as acne, oiliness and skin patches. These skin problems are unseemly and distressing, and it feels like all your efforts to preserve the skin’s youth are in vain. When everything you try fails, it is time to approach the best dermatologist for a glycolic peel.

What is a glycolic peel?

It is a professional skin treatment administered by some of the best dermatologists in Dubai and the UAE. As the name suggests, it is a treatment that literally ‘peels’ away the super thin upper skin layer to reveal fresh, younger looking skin underneath. It is administered at the hands of an experienced dermatologist on skin that is ageing rapidly, or showing visible signs of loss of elasticity and ability to renew itself at the pace that it should. Ageing skin not only makes you look older, but it is also riddled with other problems like oiliness, dullness, age spots and fine lines.

• The dermatologist administers a glycolic peel, which is a chemical solution, on skin that has lost its youthful radiance.
• The peel works rapidly on the surface of the skin on application. The solution is applied on the affected skin for a certain period of time, and it begins acting in a way so as to peel away the upper thin layer of skin.
• This upper layer contains dead skin cells and surface impurities that clog the pores and accelerate aging. The peel is administered under medical supervision only, by a certified skin professional or dermatologist.
• The skin might appear red and feel raw to the touch once the treatment is over. However, this is a temporary effect that lasts only for a few days. But you must limit your usual activities in the post-treatment phase to help the skin recover: you cannot go out in the sunlight, undergo tanning, or go swimming. You also cannot use make-up or beauty creams that clog the skin. You are advised to clean the skin with gentle hands, using cool water only.
• Often, your favourite spa will recommend a skin peel to get you the results you are looking for. However, these peels are different from chemical peels administered by the best dermatologists in Dubai’s skin care clinics. The spa peels comprise gelatine as a base ingredient and are often infused with fruit extracts. They are beauty skin peels that only serve to hydrate and cleanse the skin’s surface for a couple of days. In contrast, a glycolic peel treats the aging upper layer of skin to reveal a fresh, radiant complexion underneath.

There are pre-treatment skin care procedures to be followed before undergoing the chemical peel; do find out what these are from the dermatologist.