Sagging facial skin can be treated with a facelift but there are some stubborn deep lines around the eyes and mouth, due to either genetics, sun or smoking, that a surgical procedure can’t fix. For those stubborn lines, I recommend chemical peels. Very fine lines can be treated with a chemical peel by an aesthetician. If you’re in San Francisco, I know a great aesthetician! But for the deeper lines, a heavy TCA peel or phenol-croton oil peel is the most effective treatment.
There is much ado about lasers but in my experience, lasers are more expensive and do not provide for the elimination of the deep wrinkles you want gone!
So save your money and get a chemical peel. Laser proponents will say that you don’t have as much down time with a laser and that’s true. But that’s because the laser doesn’t go as deep, doesn’t remove the lines you want removed and since it doesn’t go as deep, the healing process is shorter. They don’t tell you that the healing process is shorter precisely because the resurfacing isn’t as deep and your lines are still there. What I’m saying is that if you have to have the social downtime from work (you’re not in bed sick but you certainly don’t want to be seen in public), you might as well get the procedure done once and done right!
Check out the video below (refresh your browser if it doesn’t come up immediately) that shows the application of the phenol-croton oil peel. In the video, you see the frosting that occurs as the peel starts to take effect. This is followed by application of a moisturizer, Aquaphor, to help in the healing process. Finally, at the end of the video, you see an example of spectacular results from a phenol-croton oil peel. Isn’t that what you want!
