Why Your Peel Didn't Work - And How to Fix it

All right, so we're going to talk about chemical peels and how your results can vary from peel to peel or even if you're sitting side by side with somebody doing the same peel. Your results could be different.

Yes.

I took a phone call from a lovely lady, and she and her sister ordered the peels. They live on opposite sides of the country. They were doing their TCA 13 peel via Facebook or FaceTime.

Yes.

They were FaceTiming each other. Both did it at the same time, same day, you know, same amount of layers, the whole nine yards. Well, then I get a call, you know, I don't know, maybe day four, I think it was. And she said, you know, my sister's already peeling, and I'm not peeling. And I think there's something wrong with my acid. You know, maybe it's not as strong as it used to be. I've used, you know, she had a two-ounce bottle of acid, and I said, well, you know, you've used the acid before and this and yes, yes, I had peeling. And I'm like, well, for one, it's only day four.

Yep.

You know, everybody peels at a different pace. So many variables.

So many variables. And like, this is so common.

Yeah.

You know, and it's not even just- it might not even be two people side by side doing it. Sometimes it's the same person. It's like, okay, I did a peel this month and did this this way. And then I did the same thing next month. And, and now I am peeling, I'm not peeling, whatever. And it's like, they always want to blame the acid. But like, that's funny that we talk about this all the time. And we're like, you know what? The one constant in this equation is the acid. This acid is certified. It is; this one is a TCA 13. It has a pH of, you know, 2.1, whatever, whatever we say. Oh, I'm sorry. This is a 1.3. But this is always the same, right? This is your constant. Everything else is a variable. It depends on how wet your layer was. It depends on how many layers. It depends on, you know, how long you wait. Are you on medication now? Did you change something in your skincare regimen? You might have more dead skin on there now versus less. Oh, you forgot to use our cleanser for a week and a half, and you're using something else.

Your fourth peel, because you might get more peeling.

She's going to get more peeling if it's her very first peel and you've been peeling, and the more you peel, the less dead skin you have. You know, there's just so many variables, but you know, always understand that, you know, these are certified. This is exactly what we say it is. It's not going to change. It's good for a long time. So, before these bottles are opened, they're guaranteed for 2 years. If your bottle is open, it's guaranteed for up to a year. And so what could happen? What could change? Possibly, possibly, you know, if it's in a hot environment, maybe some of the water evaporated, you know, it could, at the, this is a very, very end of the spectrum, could potentially get a little stronger.

Yep.

For the most part, though, if we're talking- you've had that bottle sitting there; it's been two years, three years, four years, we've had calls. Can I use this? It gets a little bit milder.

Yeah.

But if you've had this open and it's been less than a year, it's still exactly what we say. There's nothing wrong with this. It's working perfectly. You just applied it differently, or your skin is in a different stage. Something is different.

Yes.

And don't worry about it.

Right.

Because if you, when you, when you do one peel and you're comparing it to one peel, well, you know, wait till you've got about like eight peels. And then you realize that, oh yeah, most of the time, you know, I'm flaking fine. Or most of the time it's this. Because, you know, give it a wider berth. Don't just, you know, I did one peel, and this peel is different. No, do like, you know, an entire series, and you'll realize it's fine.

For sure. And it was only day four when she called.

Right.

I said, that's, you know, that's quite early. You know, most of us start to peel or flake between like day four or five, six.

Yeah. Three to five.

That depends, you know, if you used to peel booster, if you use dream peel, if you use luminosity, you might peel a little quicker.

A little bit.

But yeah, she was very convinced that her bottle had gone bad for some reason. And, you know, after our conversation, she realized the different variables and, you know, I'm like, her gauze pad could have been more wet than your gauze pad. She may not have stopped her retinol use four or seven days before.

Right.

What about medications? All of the things that you just discussed.

So many things that can make one peel experience different from, you know, the next.

Yeah.

And you know what, it's all normal. It's nothing to worry about. And you may have less peeling moving forward, right? You know, if you've done three or four peels in a row, let's say you've done TCA peels and you did one a month and it's like month four.

Yeah.

Now, here you are in month five of peeling, and there's not as much dead skin coming off. Well, you've already taken off a lot of dead skin. You're using your retinoids and your acids; that dead skin layer is thinner.

Yeah.

And, you know, your skin is healthy and exfoliated. You don't have as much dead skin to come off. If you want to remove more dead skin, you may need to use more layers or a higher percentage. You know, if you're at, you know, five layers, six layers, something like that, maybe it's time to move to the next percentage.

Yeah, then your skin would be acclimated and ready for something stronger.

Then you'll get a little bit deeper, and you might get a little bit more flaking, but I mean, it doesn't matter. We know that skin is coming off, whether you see large pieces and chunks here or there, or whether you just see like dryness everywhere; it's all just dead skin coming off. And that's like another thing, like some people, like me, I always just get like little flakes here and there. And I put a lot of moisturizer on and stuff like that, but I still always just get little flakes. Whereas I see somebody else and they've got just like big chunks coming off, and I'm like, what do you do? Bathe in like ointment? Because I know if you put heavier ointments on, like a lot of people like to just cake Aquaphor and then let dead skin not go anywhere. You know, it's just, like, stuck under there as you move your face. And I think it just peels off in a big layer. But that, you know, if you want that, then put a lot of Aquaphor on. I don't want to, like, clog my pores, and I don't want any kind of other issues. So I just use, you know, EMU oil, but what's normal for me isn't normal for somebody else. And again, that doesn't matter either.

Is it better to let the skin be dry or should I keep it moisturized?

You know, and that's just for your own. If you let it dry, you would be itching and scratching, and it doesn't feel good without something on. You have nothing to gain by doing that, because if you scratch, it gets the skin off faster, and then it's going to come off, and you have your willingness. It is so much better to keep it hydrated. We like the EMU oil or the essential healing blend. Aquaphor is fine if you've got a lot of layers on, but it's not mandatory. And people always ask me, well, I don't, you know, I don't have any of those. What else can I use? Use whatever you want. Just don't use something with a lot of active ingredients, meaning like vitamin C or, you know, acids. We don't want to irritate the skin. Something super plain, super plain, like drugstore plain cream is fine as long as it's really moisturizing.

Awesome.

Good, good, good.

What else?

What else? Anything else that, I mean, obviously, the medications play a big part in that as well. As you said, your skin goes through different cycles.

Yeah.

You know, different times a month, depending on where you are in your cycle. You know, you could have more skin coming off at certain times. I know, like, you can be more sensitive.

Right.

Um, at certain, like for women at certain times in their cycles, you're much more sensitive. I don't remember what day it is.

Is their skin more sensitive when they're, like, let's say, on their cycle, and they do a peel??

Yeah. It will burn more. It will hurt more.

Wow.

If you do it when you're, um, you know, and I don't remember exactly what day it is, and you've got like a 28-day cycle. I don't remember exactly, like there's a series of days where if you do it on these days, it's going to hurt more. So like when people will be like, well, I did my peel today and I did my peel, you know, last month I did it this time, and it didn't hurt at all. And this time it was terrible. And then you find out that, you know, it really does last with women; it can depend on what day you're applying it.

I know. I always, I often, my mind will go to, did you stop your retinoids in time? Because a lot of times they'll say no. You know, when they say, Oh my God, this peel burned so bad. I couldn't leave it on. And you know, this and that. And as long as you have it on for a couple of minutes, it'll do its job.

Yeah. So yeah, nothing to worry about that for sure.

But anyway, so to recap, you know, you can be side by side, sister versus sister, doing the same peel, the same amount of layers. You still can have a different result. And that is perfectly normal.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

There you go.

So it's like at the end of your cycle.

Okay.

Right before your period, basically.

Wow. Is when you're most sensitive.

Yeah. So it's saying like, because you have less estrogen.

Oh, estrogen crash.

Oh my gosh.

Well, no wonder things become more painful as you get older. You're running out of estrogen.

Wow. That's interesting.

I knew, I knew of it. I just didn't remember the exact days. So days 23 through 5 are the days. So try to do your, uh, your peels from day six to day 22. You can figure that out.

Especially if you're doing a heavy-hitting peel or a multi-acid layer peel.

Or use some numbing cream; use that numbing cream. It's not like, it's not like you can't do it, but you know, for the people that are really, really sensitive, yes. Numbing cream for sure. Pay attention to what time of the month it is.

True.

And then also, um, make sure you stop your retinoids and any leave-on acids, like serum 15. And I have people ask me, too, because they'll have, like, acids that we don't have. Right. Maybe they have like a, I think it might be like a prescription azelaic.

Yeah.

I think that's a common one, maybe like 15 or 20%. And I'm like, yeah, if you're on like 15% or more, I would stop that too. And I know it's milder and can be used for rosacea and things like that, but I would stop it before your peels because it can cause excess irritation when you apply your acid; it's going to burn more.

Wow.

Can we think of any other questions about that, Darren?

I'm good with that.

Yeah. Yeah. I think that, that sums it all up.

Well, how about this? So how, how do you make it as consistent as possible? Like, how do you control it? Like what are the five variables that you should get really good at to make sure you get at least the most consistent?

Make sure your peels are, yeah, volume. So, all right. So, like, TCA is volume-dependent.

Yes.

The others are not volume dependent. It doesn't matter if you have dripping- not that you'd want anything dripping, but if you had a ton of glycolic on your face, it's the same as putting, like, a thinner amount of glycolic. It has no bearing on that. But with TCA, it depends heavily on how much liquid is on your face, because every drop of TCA has to be used up by your skin's proteins. And that's, you know, the coagulating, which can sometimes lead to frosting and stuff. But so if you put, like, a real- how we like to do it, we like to saturate that gauze. I like to, like, you know, fold it in half, and either pat it with your fingers. You don't have to wring it out. We want it wet. Pat it with your fingers or shake it. Make sure it's not dripping. And that's like the perfect amount of wet.

Yes.

Go over it. It's going to be like a little bit wet sheen for, you know, maybe 10 seconds or so. Dry up. It's done.

Wait, you're wet but not dripping wet.

Right.

Yeah.

But if you had an area and you put it on stopping wet and it's like dripping, that area is just going to keep going, and it's not going to neutralize in five minutes. It's just going to keep going. Oh, this is neutralized. Find more. Neutralize. Find more. Neutralize. Find more. It's just going to keep going. And if you have a big, wet, soppy area, it could be like doing five layers instead of just one clean, consistent layer. So that is just so, so important.

That does remind me of a phone call that I took where this lady was doing multi-layer TCA peels. So every time she would start right here. So she had these like pink stripes. So, you know, that's when her gauze pad was the wettest. So after we counseled on the phone for a while, we determined.

Start from the top.

Yeah. I said, start from the top. Don't always start at the same spot every time, you know.

Yeah, you can totally start, you know…

And she's like, I, yeah, I'm guilty. I start right here. Each time I swipe across here and then go down. And yeah, so she was getting, like, these really pink, bright, you know...

Well, that's an area that some people like overexfoliate anyway. Like when you're washing your face, they're scrubbing more or, you know, you got to scrub your, you're always, they're just doing their cheeks; their cheeks always get too much. And in our directions, we tell you to start top-down.

Yeah.

Right. No, no, your forehead is really sturdy. You're fine. If it is a little bit wetter, you're fine. And you are better off to start at the top.

Yes.

And then work your way across, across, down, down, over.

Trying not to do a lot of overlapping. I always use the old grass cutting thing. You know when you cut the grass, and you don't want to overlap a lot.

Yeah.

Like cutting the grass, but you're just swiping it. You don't want to do a lot of. You can like slightly overlap, but not a lot. Mix it up a little so you don't get these football stripes across the…

Yeah, please, please don't do that. So, obviously, make sure your volume is accurate. Make sure, you know, for consistency, make sure your layers are appropriate. Make sure you're waiting the time in between.

Because TCA takes a few minutes to do its job.

Yeah. And we don't know exactly how long it takes for that to be neutralized. Some people think they can put it on after two or three minutes. I think that's too soon. We say five minutes in our direction booklet, which, hey, may be a little longer than others'. But I feel like five minutes, that five-minute mark, you could still see some frosting. You wanna make sure there's no frosting before you move on. I think five minutes is a good time. You can wait longer if you want, but don't wait less than that.

No, five-minute minimum.

Yeah, five-minute minimum. So if your volume is consistent, your layers are consistent, you're consistently doing this, you're always prepping, you know, like your regimen is your prep. So as long as your regimen contains everything you need, specifically and mainly an acid, whether it's a cleanser, toner, or serum, a retinoid, and a melanin inhibitor, those are like the key things. Just keep that in your normal regimen.

I thought of one other thing.

What?

Using alcohol or prep solution before you apply the peel.

Yeah.

So if you skip that step, that is a very crucial step because that is-

That's true, that's another one.

Removing any oils, moisturizer, residue, anything that could cause that peel to self-neutralize. So a lot of times people will skip that first step. They'll cleanse their skin, but then they go right for the peel. So that second step, the prep or the isopropyl alcohol, is very important because you want a nice, clean slate.

That is another one.

Yeah

So that the peel takes nicely and evenly to your skin, like a clean canvas.

Well, and for the whole canvas thing, that prep comes in with that too because that's what that acid cleanser and the retinoids are doing. You know, they're evening those layers of skin. So when you're applying this peel, it forms a nice, even layer, almost like a wall that's had a skim coat. It's all like perfect and smooth. You don't wanna just paint over a wall that's all lumpy and bumpy and has, you know, no; we gotta fill those in and make it all smooth. So that's what your retinoids and your acids are doing. You have that nice, even thing. So what else can you make sure that it is perfectly consistent from peel to peel? Obviously, just, you know, make sure that you're following through, right? Do a peel every month, every two weeks, or whatever your schedule is.

Consistency, of course, like we always say, is very super important, absolutely.

I mean, it's that simple.

Yeah.

Cool. All right, well, if you have any other questions, feel free to give us a call at 1-800-917-3155.

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And then email support@platinumskincare.com. We're happy to help.

Yep, see you there.