Allies of Skin

You might be familiar with that quintessential scene from Sex and the City where the plucky Samantha Jones underwent a chemical peel and emerged with red, blistery skin so raw she couldn’t even attend her friend, Carrie Bradshaw’s, book release party. Fortunately, this Hollywood reenactment is curated more for theatrics than accuracy. Chemical peels are very common in clinical practices and are among the top five most popular minimally invasive dermatological procedures performed in 2017, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. In fact, nearly 1.4 million people opted for a chemical peel in 2017 alone, an increase of 1% from 2016. Research in the Journal of Clinical and Aesthetic Dermatology notes that “chemical peeling is a popular, relatively inexpensive, and generally safe method for treatment of some skin disorders and to refresh and rejuvenate skin,” adding that the procedure can stimulate new skin growth and improve the skin’s texture. Resear...

Vitamin C is a vital molecule for healthy skin and can play an important role in encouraging the production of collagen, retaining moisture, and treating damage from sun exposure. Vitamin C exists naturally in our skin’s dermis and epidermis layers, but it is also used as a topical treatment to combat skin dryness, roughness, loss of color, hyper pigmentation, and more according to research published in the journal Nutrients.      Vitamin C can also treat skin wounds and scars caused by injuries or skin conditions such as acne. Scars form as a result of fibrous tissue arranging in unidirectional layers around a wound rather than aligning with skin’s natural basket-wave pattern, according to research published in Nutrients . This results in visible variation compared to the surrounding skin, and the scar site is usually weaker and raised. The research also notes that, while there are currently no treatments to completely prevent the formation of scar tis...