How to look after your skin after a laser treatment

Your provider will give you aftercare instructions specific to the treatment you had, and those instructions always win over anything written here. This is the general shape of it, so you know what you are agreeing to before you book rather than after.

The first two days

Expect your skin to look and feel like a bad sunburn: warm, pink and tight. Depending on the treatment there may be swelling, and it is usually at its worst the morning after rather than on the day itself. Sleeping propped up on an extra pillow helps more than people expect.

Keep it simple. A gentle cleanser, whatever barrier product you were sent home with, and nothing else. This is not the week for an acid, a retinoid, a vitamin C serum or a scrub, and it is not the week to try something new.

Sun is the whole game

Skin that has just been treated is more reactive to ultraviolet light than usual, and sun exposure during healing is the most common reason a good result turns into an uneven one. That means a broad spectrum SPF 30 or higher every day once your provider clears you to apply it, reapplied if you are outdoors, plus a hat and shade.

This applies in winter, on cloudy days, and in the car. If you have a beach holiday or a weekend on the lake coming up, say so when you book. The sensible move is often to move the treatment, not the holiday.

Let it flake

Peeling and flaking are part of the process for several of these treatments. Picking at it, scrubbing it or helping it along is how a healing surface turns into a mark that outlasts it by months. Let it come away on its own, however satisfying the alternative looks.

Also worth knowing

• Skip the gym, the sauna and hot showers for the first couple of days. Heat and sweat are not your friends here.
• Makeup goes back on when your provider says so, not before.
• Hold off on waxing, threading and hair removal creams on the treated area until you are told otherwise.
• Drink water and leave it alone. Most aftercare is restraint.

When to call us

Call the clinic if you have pain that is getting worse rather than better, blistering, spreading redness, anything that looks like an infection, or a fever. None of that is a normal part of healing, and we would far rather look at it early. The number is on every page of this site and someone will answer it.