Do-it-Yourself Facial Peels

Posted on | September 1, 2009 | No Comments

By: Jen­nifer L.
I have a con­fes­sion to make. I have seri­ously thought about pur­chas­ing med­ical grade acid on eBay to give myself an at-home facial peel. I know – what am I think­ing, right? For all I know, I could be pur­chas­ing bat­tery acid that would burn my face off…leaving me with a hor­ri­ble red, scabby face like Saman­tha in that episode of  “Sex and the City.”  But who doesn’t want to do a lit­tle some­thin’ to freshen things up?

Thank­fully, there are lots of do-it-yourself peels avail­able (that won’t burn your face off). Although they don’t exactly have the same effect as a med­ical peel, they do offer some nice ben­e­fits for your skin. Here are three I’ve tried.

Phi­los­o­phy Microde­liv­ery Peel ($65 at Nord­strom, Macy’s & Sephora)
Love this peel — I’ve used it for years with great results. It really bright­ens up a dull com­plex­ion. This is a two step process that exfo­li­ates the skin while deliv­er­ing vit­a­min C and pep­tides. You start by putting the bicar­bon­ate vit­a­min C crys­tals on your face. This is an orange grainy-like sub­stance with a cit­rusy scent. You mas­sage this on your skin for about two min­utes before apply­ing the acti­va­tor gel on top. This makes the first layer start to foam, while warm­ing your face. You leave that on for another minute before rins­ing. Imme­di­ately after­wards, you are left with brighter, smoother skin.

MD Skin­care Alpha Beta Daily Face Peel ($80 at Nord­strom & Sephora)
This is a very easy peel and Bryna from Nord­strom tells me it’s one of their most pop­u­lar prod­ucts. It’s for­mu­lated to improve skin firm­ness, tone and tex­ture and they rec­om­mend daily use. This is another two step process and it comes in the form of wipes in lit­tle pack­ets (think indi­vid­u­ally wrapped handi-wipes). You wipe step one (the ‘peel pad’) on first. This makes your skin feel tingly, and if you have any irri­tated or sen­si­tive patches, it will almost burn (but I like that…makes me feel like it’s work­ing) Leave it on for about two min­utes before wip­ing the neu­tral­izer pad on. This leaves your skin feel­ing fresh & revi­tal­ized and it’s great for acne prone skin.

Kin­erase Instant Radi­ance Facial Peel ($75 at Nord­strom & Sephora)
I love the Kin­erase line & this is a very sim­ple and basic peel. With lac­tic and fruit acids, this peel claims to ‘pro­mote smoother, clearer-looking skin in only five days with lit­tle or no irri­ta­tion’. Pre-moistened appli­ca­tors (they look like lolipops) come indi­vid­u­ally pack­aged. You swab the appli­ca­tor over your face & neck at night…put your mois­tur­izer on top and go to sleep. I tried this one for a few nights (although not the rec­om­mended five days), with lit­tle results. I also didn’t like that the cot­ton part of the appli­ca­tor almost started to fall apart on my face (leav­ing me to pick off the remain­ing lit­tle chunks of cot­ton). Although I’m sure the ben­e­fits increase with more use, I am some­one who likes more instant results (espe­cially for this price). Per­son­ally, I’ll stick with the above two products.

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