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Acne Treatments Guide - Articles

Chemical Treatments for Acne

by Valerie Garnier

Inflammation, redness, and even infection can plague some more usual methods to treat acne scars. Do you want to have your scars sanded off with a machine or removed with a laser? Popular acne scarring treatments can eliminate left over marks and flawed tissues but they come at a price. Chafing, peeling, and redness are some of the preferable side effects when discussing dermabrasion, chemical peels, and surgical procedures like skin grafting, now that's scary. Chemical peels are a well known method of acne scars treatment. This procedure is commonly used for post inflammatory redness and implies using a strong, artificial chemical that saturates into the affected areas, giving origin to a new layer of skin. When the layer of chemicals is gone, new, fresh skin cells are exposed.

The concept behind this scarring solution is that old, flawed tissues and scars are replaced by healthy cells. The negative aspect is that human skin does not always respond positively to abrasive chemicals. While none of the ingredients are overtly dangerous, your skin can be afflicted by redness, irritation and in some cases, hyperpigmentation. Post inflammatory acne scarring can attack tissues deep below the superficial layers. Since chemical peels take only the top few layers off, bigger scars can take quite a few treatments.

Dermabrasion is an acne scar treatment that uses a little machine similar to a belt sander to eliminate the top layers of skin. Using the machine, flawed skin is physically abraded, removing scars and conferring the skin a more natural look.

Dermabrasion is not the most pleasant facial acne scar solution nor is it the preferred treatment for depressed acne scars. The rotating wheel can be hard psychologically to deal with since it comes in such close proximity to your face, plus many times you will require a local anesthetic to help ease the pain. There is nothing about dermabrasion that promotes the production of collagen and elastin so that makes it useless against submerged acne scars. If that weren't enough reason to look for another acne scar solution, on average a month to six weeks of recovery time is required for complete healing.

If you are looking for an over the counter acne scar treatment, your options are very limited. Lots of women become addicted to makeup and concealers since they help to hide scars and give confidence. Acne scaring procedures and creams claim to be the best available but the reality is that most just can't live up to their pompous promises.

A safer and natural alternative to chemical acne solutions is now available in the form of a skin care product to treat a wide range of skin conditions.

Published December 24th, 2007

Filed in Beauty, Health