Aftercare after skin treatment

What needs contact rather than patience

Most aftercare is about comfort and about protecting a result. A small number of symptoms need contact rather than a wait-and-see approach.

• Blistering, an open area, or skin that looks burned rather than red.
• Spreading redness with heat and swelling over days, fever, or feeling generally unwell, which may indicate infection.
• Yellow crusting or discharge.
• Clustered painful blisters, which may be reactivated herpes simplex and needs antiviral treatment quickly.
• Pain that is increasing rather than settling after the first day.
• A brown mark developing in the weeks afterwards. This is post-inflammatory pigmentation and it responds better when treated early.

The first week after resurfacing

This covers peels, microneedling, radiofrequency microneedling and laser. The details vary with depth; the principles do not.

First forty eight hours

• Cleanse gently with clean hands and lukewarm water only.
• Use only the products you were given or told to use.
• No active skincare at all: no retinoids, no acids, no vitamin C, no exfoliants, no scrubs.
• No make-up on the first day after needling or a peel.
• No exercise, swimming, sauna, steam or very hot showers.
• Keep the skin comfortable with a bland occlusive or barrier cream if advised.
• Do not pick, pull or help peeling skin along.

Days three to ten

• Expect dryness, tightness, flaking or peeling depending on the depth.
• Continue gentle cleansing and bland moisturising.
• Reintroduce actives only when told to, usually after about a week.
• Broad-spectrum sun protection every day without exception, including near windows and on grey days.
• No waxing, threading or hair removal creams on the area for two weeks.
• No facials, massage or abrasive products for two weeks.

Picking is the single commonest cause of scarring and pigmentation after a peel. It is also the easiest complication to avoid.

After injectable skin treatments

This covers skin boosters, polynucleotides and platelet rich plasma. Each leaves small raised areas at the injection points which settle over several hours.

• Do not press or massage the raised points.
• No make-up over the points for the rest of the day.
• No strenuous exercise, sauna or steam for around twenty four hours.
• No facials or massage over the area for two weeks.
• Expect bruising to be more likely around the eyes and on the neck.
• Sleep with your head slightly raised for the first night or two.
• Report a persistent nodule, spreading redness or increasing pain.

Sun protection, which is the whole result

Every treatment on this site works by causing controlled inflammation or by altering pigment production. Ultraviolet exposure afterwards drives pigmentation in freshly treated skin, and it is the mechanism behind most post-treatment brown marks.

• Broad-spectrum protection every day, all year, applied properly rather than occasionally.
• Reapply if you are outside for extended periods.
• Ultraviolet A passes through cloud and window glass, so grey days and desks by windows still count.
• For pigmentation-prone skin, a tinted product containing iron oxides also screens visible light, which contributes to melasma.
• Hats and shade are not a substitute but they help considerably.
• No sunbeds, at any point, for any reason.

If you are not willing to do this daily, say so at the consultation. It changes which treatments are sensible, and a good practitioner would rather know.

Rebuilding the routine afterwards

A common mistake is to resume an elaborate routine the moment the skin stops flaking, which frequently produces irritation that gets attributed to the treatment.

1. Week one: cleanser, bland moisturiser, sun protection. Nothing else.
2. Week two: continue, and add back one product only if the skin is comfortable.
3. Week three: introduce a retinoid if you use one, at reduced frequency, and build up.
4. Week four onward: reintroduce anything else one at a time, a week apart.
5. Stop anything that stings on application and tell your practitioner.

If your skin was reactive before treatment, this is also the moment to consider whether the routine you had was part of the problem. Fewer, better-chosen products almost always outperform more.

Keeping a record

On the day, write down the treatment, the device or agent, the settings if given, the areas treated, who treated you, their registration and the date. Photograph yourself in consistent light before the course and at each assessment point.

It takes two minutes. It is invaluable if you need to see somebody else, if a delayed problem appears, or if you need to compare a result you cannot otherwise remember accurately. See how to read results.