Procedural · skin
Laser resurfacing and chemical peels
The one entry on this list where the free advice does most of the work. Sunscreen and a retinoid move this measurement further than most people expect; resurfacing is what is left after they have.
Not medical advice. This page explains what a procedure is and what is known about it. It is not a recommendation, and it says nothing about whether you are a candidate for anything. Only a licensed provider who has examined you can tell you that.
What it maps to in LooksRatio
- Skin evennesshow uniform skin tone reads across the face
Do the cheap thing first
Skin evenness is the most controllable measurement in the whole report, which makes it the one where reaching for a procedure first is hardest to justify. Daily broad-spectrum sunscreen and a topical retinoid have randomised trial evidence behind them, cost very little, and are the foundation any resurfacing result sits on: pigment comes straight back on skin that is not protected, and a peel on unprotected skin can leave it worse than it started.
Read the improvement plan entry for this measurement before reading the rest of this page. Six months of the basics changes what a sensible next step even is.
What it is
A family of controlled injuries. Chemical peels use an acid at a concentration chosen to reach a particular depth: superficial peels such as glycolic or salicylic reach the epidermis, medium-depth peels such as trichloroacetic acid reach the upper dermis, and deep phenol peels go further still. Laser resurfacing does the same job with heat, either ablative, which removes tissue, or non-ablative, which heats the dermis and leaves the surface intact. Fractional devices of either kind treat columns of skin and leave untreated skin between them, which is what shortened the downtime from weeks to days.
How it works
Removing or damaging pigmented, sun-damaged tissue and letting it heal is the whole mechanism. Deeper reaches more, and deeper also carries more risk, and those two facts are not separable: every claim of dramatic results with no downtime is describing a device that treats a small fraction of the surface and needs repeating.
Recovery
A superficial peel is redness and flaking for a few days. A medium peel is several days of swelling, then peeling, with the skin presentable at about a week. Fully ablative laser is one to two weeks of open healing and weeks to months of residual redness. Sun avoidance afterwards is not optional in any of these, and is the single largest factor in whether the result lasts.
Risks and what actually goes wrong
Post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation is the common one and is substantially more likely in darker skin, which is why Fitzpatrick type drives both device selection and settings. Also: prolonged redness, infection including reactivated herpes simplex, scarring at the deeper end, and permanent hypopigmentation after deep phenol peels, which is not treatable.
The recurring failure is not a complication but expectations. Resurfacing improves tone and texture. It does not stop photoaging, so the result drifts back unless the sunscreen habit that should have come first arrives afterwards.
Lower-commitment alternatives
Everything in the improvement plan for this measurement, which is where anyone should start. Beyond that, prescription topicals for pigment specifically, under a dermatologist, sit between the plan and a procedure.
What LooksRatio assumes
The projection moves skin evenness 85% of the way to its reference range, the highest ceiling on this list, and that reflects a real difference: this measurement is surface tissue rather than bone. It assumes a successful result from a licensed provider on appropriately selected skin, and it models nothing about your skin type, your sun exposure, or whether the result is maintained. It is a ceiling, not a forecast.