A few years ago, a dermatologist convinced me to try his new chemical peel that -- he promised --would give me bright, glowing skin without a day of downtime.
But you can guess how the rest of this little tale goes. Instead of glowing skin, I ended up with four days of ugly. My face was peeling and oozing, and it was covered in red, scaly patches that soaked up every drop of heavy moisturizer I slathered on. I spent the weekend quarantined in my apartment, and all I got out of it was a fear of dermatologist treatments.
But procedures have come a long way, and many of the hottest new in-office treatments claim to really, truly require no downtime -- we're talking minimal redness, discomfort instead of pain, and absolutely no oozing. "Non-invasive is definitely the trend," says Los Angeles dermatologist Lisa Chipps, MD. "I think it started with the drop in the economy. People are turning away from expensive surgical procedures and want less invasive treatments."
So, I set out to investigate. Sure, these treatments may be gentle enough for the wimp who cries when she stubs her toe, but then do they really do anything? The answer, for many of them, is yes. Some of the results are so impressive you can barely recognize the person in the "after" photo -- and there's no quarantine required.
