Skin Resurfacing: The Complete Complexion Correction Guide

Your face is the first thing people see when they look at you head-on. It’s the first thing people judge you by.

Unfortunately, age gets the best of us. Some people choose to wear age gracefully, and some people decide to turn to procedures that turn back the clock a moderate amount–and both of these are legitimate choices.

Complexion Blending and Complexion Correction are two popular classes of treatments that people use to turn back the clock.

Though they utilize a wide array of technologies with subtle nuanced differences between them, all of these treatments work on the same basic principle, built around one special compound: collagen.

Collagen and What It Means for You

Aging is wear and tear. Collagen is the fine material our skin is made of. Just like clothes can fray, our skin can begin to show its age.

Unlike clothes, the skin actually heals itself. Not every cut turns into a scar, and until our mid 20s it looks to the outside as if we aren’t aging.

But once we hit our mid 20s something happens: we stop producing as much collagen. By the time we’re 30, we actually lose volume.

The skin begins to show anomalies. Wrinkles form. Scars stay. All of this, because the building block of collagen is no longer being produced in abundance.

It doesn’t have to be that way though, and that’s the basis of skin resurfacing–which not only turns back the clock, but also works on any defects in the skin that may be present.

Skin Resurfacing and the Body’s Healing Process

Think of your body this way: when your body has to heal, it is essentially growing tissue at a rapid rate.

Your body has factors that encourage growth–in the case of skin, factors that encourage the ample supply of collagen to be sent to repair any skin that’s been damaged.

Skin resurfacing takes advantage of this phenomenon, encouraging the body to heal in very precise ways that allow the natural stimulation, production, and synthesis of collagen.

If you have acne, wrinkles, sunspots, scars, or any number of skin anomalies, they can be precisely targeted in a way that your body will heal and grow.

There are a number of different technologies toward this end.

Lasers and IPL

Most famously, there are lasers that can resurface the skin — many lasers, with many slightly different technologies. Some lasers are ablative, some nonablative, the latter being gentler than the former.

Some lasers etch the skin in a very specific pattern that allows the damaged tissue to be surrounded by healthy tissue — leading to faster and more efficient healing.

Similar to lasers is Intense Pulsed Light, which also delivers energy to encourage the production of collagen.

Overall, the stimulus is the same: energy is applied to damage tissue and encourage collagen synthesis.

Chemical Peels

With chemical peels, the outer layers of the skin are damaged by chemicals that cause the “peeling” and healing effect.

Chemical peels can come in various degrees of depth, with different intensities of solution–ranging from barely piercing the epidermis to even going into the epidermis.

Microdermabrasion and Microneedling

Microneedling is the relatively accessible and low-tech form of microdermabrasion. Instead of chemicals, think abrasive instruments — needles being the entry point.

Of course, microdermabrasion can become very sophisticated, with proprietary instruments that not only apply very fine needles to stimulate collagen production, but even combine the needles with radiofrequency energy, or even the delivery of serums that can be absorbed into the skin in an effect known as “micro-channeling.”

Am I a Good Candidate for These Treatments?

If you’re interested in any of these treatments, it’s a good idea to talk to a doctor.

This is not only to find out if these skin rejuvenation is right for you, but to find out what skin rejuvenation treatment might best suit your needs.

If you want to know more, schedule a consultation at Cultura today.